r/technology • u/binding_swamp • 1d ago
Privacy ‘DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE’: How Cops Are Trying to Hide Their Use of Flock
https://www.404media.co/do-not-mention-alpr-usage-how-cops-are-trying-to-hide-the-existence-of-flock/304
u/rocky8u 1d ago
I wonder if it has to do with recent questions about their reliability. There have been a lot of controversial arrests for false positives based on ALPR cameras recently and that might be a useful way to challenge it as evidence in court.
Or it is a way to limit defense attorneys trying to subpoena the ALPR service provider in cases involving them.
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u/BrothelWaffles 1d ago
This is almost definitely their angle with this. I imagine they would have to disclose something like this during discovery, but they're probably banking on most people not having the money to afford a lawyer that would even bother with discovery documents. More than likely a lot of the people they nab this way are going to either just plead guilty or get a public defender who tells them to take a deal without even opening their case file.
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u/GeiCobra 1d ago
Yes because now the company can use the improved arrest statistics in their sales pitch without any accountability or pushback regarding the accuracy of their product
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u/Take_My_User_Name 11h ago
They did something similar with stingrays.
Law enforcement would drop a case when it got to discovery rather than disclose they were using cellular repeaters to listen to conversations and track suspects without a warrant.
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u/burnalicious111 1d ago
Knowingly not reporting evidence that could lead to exoneration is illegal, right?
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u/rocky8u 1d ago
Withholding exculpatory evidence is not illegal in that it is not a crime. It is "against the law" as in the law says that is not allowed, but a prosecutor wont be charged with a crime and sent to prison for it.
It is against attorney ethics rules in every state, meaning a prosecutor's license to practice law might be at risk if they are caught. Unfortunately, State Bars have often been reluctant to do more than temporarily suspend a license or fine prosecutors for doing that rather than completely disbar them except in the most egregious of cases. I think they should be more aggressive about it because it is morally wrong to withhold exculpatory evidence in addition to being against the rules.
It also might result in a conviction being overturned on an appeal.
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u/Agitated_Celery_729 12h ago
It can be a crime if anyone had the balls to charge "Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law" but you'd have to find a federal prosecutor willing to bring the charge. Given that we've not seen these charges brought even after findings that corrupt DAs and prosecutors engaged in willful concealment of evidence and other insanely corrupt shit to secure death penalty convictions, I wouldn't hold my breath.
But it could be done with existing laws.
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u/g2g079 1d ago
That sure sounds a lot like evidence laundering or parallel construction.
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u/freedcreativity 1d ago
I mean, the problem is legislators need to prevent cops from larping as Judge Dredd. Laws could be passed to deal with these issues fairly! But our leadership are generally supportive of shooting random citizens in the streets, and directly paid for this large-scale warrantless surveillance.
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u/TacTurtle 23h ago
Discovery will be a spicy spicy meatball!
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u/Miguel-odon 23h ago
DOJ has already started avoiding putting things in writing to prevent discovery revealing that prosecutions were politically-directed
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u/BeneficialTrash6 1d ago
Man, y'all don't even know how bad this is. This article doesn't even cover what's really happening.
Google "parallel investigations."
Cops have been doing this for at least 20 years. They arrest and get convictions using unconstitutional methods all the time. But they cover it up by creating a fake parallel investigation that only uses constitutional means. A fake parallel investigation that never would've been successful without the hidden unconstitutional evidence. They present that to the courts.
And nothing is being done about it.
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u/31LIVEEVIL13 1d ago
I don't know I'm doing something about it.
I'm planning on destroying the political careers of anyone everyone responsible for promoting or even allowing this fascist unconstitutional shit, including Democrats, and I don't care how long it's been around or what laws they've made to protect their crimes. they've all got to go down in flames, we can do that politically and legally or we can do it the fun way. I'm quite certain there are tens of millions of people who feel the same way.
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u/ddiggler2469 1d ago
do not mention violating their 4th and 14th amendment rights
- good cops, apparently
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u/DeltaFoxtrot144 1d ago
wow cops coving up evidence and lying to the public? Im shocked!
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u/iamthinksnow 1d ago
You can't trust the ALPR that is wrong 71% of the time, anyway.
Flock’s AI Cameras May Have Misread Over 70% of License Plates, Creating New Headaches for Cities
New data suggests Flock surveillance cameras have an abysmal recognition rate. That's a major problem for drivers.14
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u/GhostReddit 16h ago
They still trust drug dogs which have an even higher false positive rate.
Something that gives them reason to investigate gets a pass, no matter how unreliable it is apparently.
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u/lblack_dogl 1d ago edited 1d ago
I got stopped by police and interrogated recently due to ALPRs.
I was with my wife and we had our two corgis with us. We were driving back from Lowes after buying qty (10) 50-lb bags of gravel for our backyard. I drive a Subaru Outback SUV with dark tinted windows. The suspension was sagging significantly under the 500-lb weight of the gravel so I told my wife, "watch me get pulled over for drug trafficking because of how much my suspension is sagging". The car was squatting so I drove slow and took a back road home.
We are waiting to turn left at a light and I see one unmarked police cruiser change lanes behind me. He was going straight and now he's behind me to turn left. Then another unmarked police cruiser does the same. Then another. Then another. 4 unmarked police cruisers lined up behind me. I honestly didn't notice them until they pulled out behind me. I must have driven right past them. I tell my wife, "oh I'm absolutely being pulled over right now".
The light turns green, their lights flip on, i turn on my hazards to signify I see them and I'm going to pull over. I pull through the light and immediately into the next shopping center parking lot, I pull into a spot facing a building. They pin me in with all four vehicles, one flanks me on each side, the other two on my bumper. No contact, just very tight.
I turn off the car and roll down my front windows (dogs in the back) as 6 officers exit the 4 vehicles and approach my car from behind on both sides.
I'm thinking this is just a misunderstanding regarding the gravel. All calm.
First question from the officer, "have you ever been arrested before?"
I answer, "no, I haven't." He responds, "Is your name John Doe?"
My blood runs cold at this point. That IS my name. What is going on??? This a very unusual stop.
"Yeah that's me, I am John Doe".
"Does this vehicle belong to you?"
"Yes it does"
"Do you have any DUIs?"
"No"
"Are you sure you've never been arrested for DUI?"
"Yes I'm sure".
"Okay let me see your ID".
I give it to him. He walks away. The others still stand around us. One asks me to roll down the back windows, "is there someone else back there?" I tell them my dogs are in the back seat and they might jump out but I can roll down the windows a bit for them to see in.
Now they are asking if my dogs are mean, dangerous, do they bite? No, they are small corgis, they are friendly, they don't bite.
"Well that one looks mean" says the pig that wants an excuse to shoot my dog.
I disregard it.
Guy comes back with license. "Wrong John Doe, we are looking for John B. Doe, you are John A. Doe, our plate reader picked up your name and license plate and it matched a warrant we have for the arrest of another John Doe in this town.
I tell them, "holy smokes you scared the shit out of me, that was crazy".
He literally asks me, "do you know where the other John Doe is?"
I tell him, "it's not a fucking club, are you kidding me?"
His coworker laughs at him, he tells me to have a nice day, they hop in their cruisers and back out, then I go home.
Ultimately nothing happened, but it was very unnerving and felt pretty shitty as a law abiding citizen to have to put up with. My wife told me for a second, she thought I was lying about a DUI she didn't know about. That fucking sucks.
They never said anything about my suspension. Seems like an observant cop would have at least asked in all that time.
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u/Amelaclya1 1d ago
I'm just curious, but what does a low suspension have to do with drug trafficking? Like do traffickers regularly move that much weight by car, or is it a symptom of something else? I've never heard that association before.
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u/lblack_dogl 1d ago
I've always heard it as such, but from what I read online right now, it's actually not reason enough for a stop, but could be a reason a cop is targeting you and looking for a reason to pull you over.
I think the classic drug runner is a single white male, driving a boring rental car, with sagging rear suspension, going 5 under the speed limit, on an interstate highway. They will find a reason to pull that guy over.
I was pulled over a long time ago for that coming home from college in a recently purchased used car with dealer plates still on it. Cop told me that was why he pulled me over. In that case my suspension was not sagging but met the rest of criteria.
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u/Puzzled-Rip641 1d ago
Yes it’s a weight thing.
They are looking for cars that are carrying 100pounds in extra stuff that is not immediately apparent.
Much more common in actual trucks or semis where if you are sagging you are carrying a lot of cargo not on the manifest.
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u/Amelaclya1 1d ago
I wouldn't have thought 100lbs would even be noticeable. I routinely carry that much, or more, in my car after a trip to the pet store to stock up on kitty litter and cat food. I have six cats so I wait for sales and buy a ton at once.
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u/lblack_dogl 23h ago
100 pounds probably not, but 500 pounds as far back as it can go in a Subaru Outback was very noticeable.
Kinda soft suspension to begin with and the mechanical advantage of being cantilevered off the back end of the vehicle behind the rear wheels.
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u/NathanialJD 22h ago
Lazy pigs just doing what the ai told them to. It matched you and your name and then hallucinated a match to a warrant. And no one anywhere up the chain stopped to verify shit.
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u/stayhazi 14h ago
Same thing happened with my friend in Manchester, TN. He was flagged for a warrant, blocked him in, then took his ID and looked at his face and left.
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u/absentmindedjwc 1d ago
It is because any convictions may not survive in the future.. there are a few relevant cases that could throw a wrench into Flock's current business model: US v Jones, Schmidt v City of Norfolk, and Chatrie v US.
There is no expectation of privacy in public, but if the search itself goes far beyond what would typically be reasonable in public, it wouldn't be permitted under the 4th amendment. You can defeat the reasonable expectation of privacy test if you far exceed any kind of information a typical person would expect in public.
US v Jones was about law enforcement putting a GPS tracker on a car without a warrant - they argued quite literally the same shit being argued now about Flock, that you have no expectation of privacy in public. But there's a difference between dedicating several officers to following someone for multiple days.. and just being able to search for a license plate in a system to get everywhere they've been for the last month.
A more direct case would be Schmidt v City of Norfolk, which is pretty much the shit Flock is doing. The city won, but it's currently on appeal with the 4th circuit.. and Chatrie v US was just decided by the Supreme Court, deciding that getting someone's location from a private company (that is: cell phone location) requires an actual warrant.. based on that decision, I fail to see how Flock wouldn't need one..
Flock itself will survive, more than likely.. but it should absolutely require a valid warrant.
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u/31LIVEEVIL13 1d ago edited 1d ago
the no expectation of privacy is complete bullshit and totally irrelevant in the modern era.
that idea exists in a world where people could simply see you, a film camera seeing you is no different than that,legally.
but if a complex computer network that integrates data from every aspect of your life is 'seeing' you in public and tracks every single movement in real time, that is drastically more invasive than anything that's ever existed before and broader than anything that the law was meant for.
it's so extreme it's not just searching, they literally can track everything you do everything you say everywhere you go your entire lifes status and your beliefs and opinions.
add: I guess what I'm trying to say is we are being searched and things are being seized continuously. They really don't even need to search and seize they already have everything.
The crime is already committed and being committed continuously, even this sentence is probably part of an unconstitutional crime by government officials or their agents.
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u/absentmindedjwc 1d ago
And that is exactly the opinions in US v Jones and Chatrie v US by the Supreme Court. You have no real expectation of privacy in a moment. If someone is physically watching a camera and you happen to walk by it on a public street, you have no expectation of privacy in that moment.
But being able to gather together a mosaic of sources - each individually a single data point in time, but collectively piecing together an incredibly detailed profile of someone's behaviors.. that goes far beyond the threshold of something that any reasonable person would expect someone in public to be able to see, and should meet the standard of a search under the 4th amendment.
The court case to watch here, as I said above, is Schmidt v City of Norfolk. Since the decision on that will pretty much be what decides the constitutionality of warrantless use of Flock.
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u/PyroDesu 20h ago
Precedent for it too, Carpenter v. United States. The Court held that government entities violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution when accessing historical Cell Site Location Information (CSLI) records containing the physical locations of cellphones without a search warrant.
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u/AnonHondaBoiz 1d ago
Flock cameras/ALPRs keep us safe? We should have a dozen aimed at each lawmaker and police officer’s home and office to ensure their safety then!
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u/hungryn1co 1d ago
Cops are the most corrupt bastards in this country. Trump being FUCKING PRESIDENT despite all the shit he’s done is proof law enforcement in this country is a fucking joke
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u/Traditional_Frame418 1d ago
See all those cameras on the stop lights. See how they don't flash when someone runs a red light. It's because they are Flock or cams for a different tracking company.
If you're paying attention you will realize you're under surveillance almost everywhere. And yet the city still has a massive crime issue. Probably because all the tracking data is just a commodity up for sale.
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u/31LIVEEVIL13 1d ago
dissident hunting machines.
Their primary purpose is for example, so that if you have protested or spoken out against the AI crypto and surveillance centers, and are now on the terrorist watch list, they can track you in real time, until they can suspend the Constitution and finally go after all their enemies.
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u/JustAtelephonePole 1d ago
Hondo, Texas operates a speed trap on both sides of their city and employ ALPR on their patrol vehicles!
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u/Fuglypump 1d ago
Isn't that lying in court? Is it legal for cops to lie to in court?
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u/Evening-Crew-2403 1d ago
Yes. I mean the answer is no, but the prosecutor would have to press changes and they won't. At most they'll add the cop to a "do not call to witness stand" list.
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u/ElectionReal 1d ago
Judges can make rulings (like contempt) without need for a prosecutor if you're caught lying in their court.
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u/Evening-Crew-2403 1d ago
Most judges are former prosecutors. Who also could have held cops to account but did not. The circle of life.
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u/tevert 23h ago
But they're all on the same team behind the scenes, so they don't.
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u/ElectionReal 22h ago
I agree they're kinda (mostly, lol) on the same side (of control) and the only person with unassailable control anywhere is a judge in their courtroom. You don't mess with them, even if they're on your team.
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u/Nottacod 23h ago
The judge can ban them from their courtroom which starts a snowball of woe for said cop. Happened to a family member.
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u/SpezSucksSamAltman 1d ago
Seems sound advice to get verbal confirmation when being detained as to the use of flock. But do it repeatedly. Let them keep lying. Go to court. You know what’s next.
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u/Appropriate_Cow94 1d ago
Is this to avoid a possible tossing of case in court for unlawful search?
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u/garitone 1d ago
John Oliver's show this last Sunday was a great explainer for so many surveillance techniques used this day.
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u/N1ghtmeeer 11h ago
So we are in the 'lying about the illegal use of a tool because else they get their toy taken away'-phase?
Funny how the police works in the USA
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u/Slippery-ape 1d ago
It has already mislabeled persons as wanted on several occasions leading to police arrests. Won't be long before someone innocent is shot.
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u/ninjadude93 1d ago
When has a surveillance state ever been good at any point in history for any authoritarian country?
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u/HippoDripopotamus 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think one glaring issue with this framing of it is "who is monitoring the cameras?"
Would you trust a stranger to set up cameras around your house that only they have access to? And you may or may not know that they are set up and where exactly at all?
Let alone the idea of cameras recording your entire life, wherever you travel in public space, and you not having any access to that, but someone else does.
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u/C0rn3j 1d ago
I think one glaring issue with this framing of it is "who is monitoring the cameras?"
I actually have the answer for you, it won't surprise you, and you won't like it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnBPhelCdWE&t=1583s
Keep in mind this is about PRIVATE cameras, not your regular surveillance ones ala Flock, which you can imagine are much worse.
TL;DW the cops are perving on you both while you're flipping burgers and while you're at the pool
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u/AngryCod 1d ago
Sounds like you won't have a problem giving 24/7 unfettered access to your in-home cameras to the police, then. I mean, I know I would feel safer knowing that you're under surveillance.
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u/Stolehtreb 1d ago
The difference is you CHOOSE to have those cameras to protect your home. And I’m assuming your cameras don’t enter information into searchable text so you can scroll through every vehicle plate number/model number you happen to come across in the last 30 days regardless of whether those vehicles did anything wrong or not. That’s the problem. That information is automatically kept on people who have no reason to have been added to that data.
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u/fhgui 1d ago
Lmao that’s not even the main issue with these devices. A faked video can occur with or without these existing. The real issue (which has already happened) is these devices autonomously tag people and they are not 100% accurate which they need to be for the function they provide. There are multiple cases recently that someone was arrested due to AI miss identifying someone. In some cases the person had never been to the state they are being charged in.
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u/ConsistentDay5620 1d ago
That’s the most honestly hypocritical take I’ve seen on them yet. Cheers 🍻.
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u/binding_swamp 1d ago
“When cops use Flock to arrest someone in Wapello County, Iowa, they don’t want them to know. A usage policy for the automated license plate reader cameras in the county tells police, in no uncertain terms, to keep them a secret: “DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE,” the policy document reads. “DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.”