I never hear that question from Flock supporters. The question I hear[†] is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?". It's a much harder one to answer than the straw man questions we set up for these things.

(To be clear: I think the current generation of ALPRs is a policy failure and that major changes need to happen inside state law enforcement systems before they can be deployed successfully. But I also think people on HN have a real problem in convincing themselves about the obvious righteousness of their anti-surveillance arguments.)

[†] I heard arguments like these because I was deeply involved in getting the cameras disabled in the inner-ring Chicago suburb in which I live, getting the first ACLU CCOPS ordinance in Illinois passed there, and helping draft what are probably the most detailed ALPR police General Orders in any municipality, or at least were at the time. Which is a long and pretentious way of saying I spent a lot of time talking to people who are not Very Online.

Maybe for some, but I honestly don't find it very persuasive. The misuse of license plate data wouldn't make my top ten list of potential powers that law enforcement might abuse. Clearly, abuse of any kind of power should not be tolerated, but potential benefits must also be considered. I think the widespread deployment of cameras at businesses and homes provides strong evidence of their benefits. The idea that a crime happens outdoors and the proper course of action is for police to knock on 100 doors to collect grainy doorbell footage is pretty inefficient, to say the least.

Silver lining! The cameras are catching criminals.

Right, because you don’t want to let the little guys mess it up for the big guys: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/fbi-seeks-us-wid...

Gotta make a statement with the low level grunts so the citizenry think these systems have accountability.

Not true, but also not widely reported. Cops are fired all the time for a wide variety of reasons.

FOR NOW. People, police states are about two classes of people: the police, and you.

What is remarkable about this story is that something happened to them. Now were they prosecuted for any of a hundred laws they probably broke?

No.

Until they negotiate protections in their next contract.

I get that this comment is meant to warn about the creeping government overreach and a curtailment of free speech, by comparing the US against a society where government surveillance is already commonplace.

I wonder if it does a disservice to readers to not make that same comparison against more similar countries instead (UK, Germany, Australia to name a few examples)?

It's not that useful to single out Flock for that purpose. Google Nest and Amazon Alexa are also in that category.

And digital billboards in every space will tell us what to think. Can't wait for the two to pair up and the billboards to target whoever is seen in the nearest camera. Or are they already doing it?

China is not responsible for your fuck-us, you own it

Out of curiosity, what are the non-surveillance uses for a license plate tracking service

> For decades police can be investigated for any improper searches of license plates or personal IDs, which can result in criminal referrals.

And those same officers, even when it has been found they violated the rights of those they're sworn and paid to serve, are all too often shielded from the consequences of their actions and from their victims seeking recourse. Qualified immunity is legal doctrine which prevents victims from seeking justice in cases where there is no previous precedent for such an action being allowed. I would expect that license plate readers, mass-surveillance assisted by AI technologies, etc. are sufficiently novel that the case would have to make the U.S. supreme court to survive a motion to dismiss under qualified immunity.

So if you believe in there being legal consequences for police officers and other government officials violating the rights of the governed, I would hope to see in your next comments you standing with me and demanding the elimination of the "qualified immunity" doctrine which today goes along way to protect the guilty from the legal recourse sought by the victims of such officers. This is especially needed in those cases where the officers, bureaucracy, and politicians fail to "act true", as you might suggest that they can, to prevent injustices with these police systems.

For those curious about what "qualified immunity" is in the US, take a look at:

https://ij.org/issues/project-on-immunity-and-accountability...

and

https://ij.org/issues/project-on-immunity-and-accountability...

All part of the Institute for Justice's work on immunity and accountability:

https://ij.org/issues/project-on-immunity-and-accountability...

This feels like a weird comment on an article about how they monitored usage, identified misuse, and terminated the people involved.

There's surely plenty of entities that need better controls around usage of technology / records / etc, but this is an example of somebody having an incentive and then following through.

Ah but you see flock doesn't own the data so they're not responsible for misuse of it and other such legal deflections.

"The names of the fired employees aren’t being released right now." Somehow even after being fired there is no accountability.

I don't believe a legal solution is possible. We need a three-tiered response to Flock's surveillance state business strategy, depending on what level of meddling each citizen is comfortable with.

1. Protest via yard signs and awareness (what you're doing)

2. Impermanent vandalism. I like the idea of hanging copies of the fourth amendment over the lenses

3. Permanent vandalism. I think we need bounties on camera destruction and public legal funds to assist in defense, bail, etc.

The police as a class/caste are not interested in the fundamental principles that America was founded on. Individual officers may be interested in civil freedom and privacy but as an entity they only ever march in the direction of total surveillance and domination of the citizenry.

I would encourage you to add arrows to your signs/ stickers pointing out the cameras. More impactful when people see (and are unconsensually recorded by) the device first hand.

Good work!

> Please compare the number of officers doing such a thing to the number who did not.

Please compare the number of people who committed burglary at a location to the number who did not.

The act of violating laws has nothing to do with the number of those whom do not. Furthermore:

  SPD’s administrative investigation determined the employees 
  violated department policies governing the authorized use 
  of law enforcement technology and departmental resources. 
  Investigators found that employees were running searches on 
  personal acquaintances and family members. One officer was 
  found to have given someone from an outside law enforcement 
  agency access to SPD’s Flock Safety system, which they 
  weren’t authorized to do.[0]

Non sequitur and irrelevant to the abuse documented.

> I'm betting that the number of officers who used it this way compared to the value it provides is minute to almost nil.

This is a variant of the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" fallacy. Or a nihilistic perspective of "the ends justify the means."

> It would be interesting to find the number of Meta employees or Google employees who do similar activities.

Again, non sequitur, irrelevant, and an assertion which can only be interpreted as a quintessential strawman[1].

0 - https://www.wtoc.com/2026/08/07/savannah-police-department-f...

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

If the answer is more than 1, that is too much. Cops shouldn't have access to surveillance cameras or data at all.

Meta and Google employees can't legally kill me or deprive me of my freedom. So they are completely irrelevant as a comparison.

If you think the average Google employee has as much access to PII or sensitive information as a cop, you're deeply mistaken.