u/TheLawnGuppy

Were the Infomaniacs from WTAW pushing the narrative that their survey was indicative of the community's perspective on flock in their conversation with Mayor Pro Tem?

In The Winter Soldier, Project Insight is sold as a public-safety system: use mass surveillance and algorithms to identify dangerous people before they commit crimes.

Then the twist is that HYDRA controls it.

That’s what makes the comparison to Flock interesting.

Flock is also building a huge network that can track vehicles, share data between agencies, integrate video, and expand what can be searched and analyzed. The pitch is always about catching criminals and keeping people safe.

But Winter Soldier makes the obvious point:

The question isn’t just “Do you trust the people using it today?”

The question is:

“Would you still be comfortable with this system if the people you distrust most controlled it tomorrow?”

That is the danger of building massive surveillance infrastructure. Once it exists, you don’t get to choose who inherits it.

In an absolute abysmal attempt to earn public trust, The City of College Station - Government appealed a FOIA request for the Flock Audit logs to the Attorney General who granted their request and allowed them to with hold the information.

What kind of public transparency do we get? A gatekept portal on flocks own website.

Link: https://transparency.flocksafety.com/college-station-tx-pd

True Transparency is not determining who outside the club gets to see the information, it is the open logs audited by external sources.

Current College Station City Council members hold the position that no abuse has happened so it isn't a problem. How do we know that? What are they afraid of?

#deflockbcs #ReleaseTheLogs #collegestationtx #bryantx

There was a flock representative at this meeting and his only response to John Hamilton was "his data is from a Youtuber" and "We have never been hacked"

The whole video is from the College Station Tx City Council meeting on July 23rd. We had over 20 speakers for this event so check out more in the whole video.

If you cannot make it to the in person meeting, at least send a written comment! The agenda number is 8.2 so when you sign up that is the number you will put on the form. Lets Deflock BCS!

After months of trying to get a conversation about flock with city council, the time is here. We will have a large group showing up to speak against Flock, so show up at 6pm at city council on the 23rd and use your voice with us. We don't want mass surveillance in this town!

You don't have to speak but your presence matters! If the sign up link isn't open yet, try again in a few days!

If you want more information or to join our group, message me!

DEFLOCK BCS!

The are the 3 speeches from last nights meeting! Great speeches and great effort to stand up and fight!

For those of you who are not a fan of Flock or any other type of ALPR, come join us on July 23rd at 6pm at College Station City Hall to voice our concerns over the cities use of this technology.

The data center project got canceled with 50 people showing up to speak. There are 126 chairs in City hall. Lets stand together, fill those seats and fight against the mass surveillance agenda in this country!

61,875 ALPR deployments.

1,963 vehicles recovered.

569 arrests from LPR detection.

Those are the numbers reported by Texas' FY2025 SB224 Catalytic Converter Grant program.

Put another way:

- About 1 vehicle recovered for every 22 ALPR deployments. Or 4.5%

- About 1 arrest for every 75 ALPR deployments. Or 1.3%

Those statistics raise an important question: What was the total cost to taxpayers to achieve those outcomes?

Are these really the numbers that are "worth it" for every single car to be scanned, logged and tracked by Flocks Database? Because remember, these cameras don't just track bad guys, they track you too.

The report tells us how often ALPRs were deployed and what they helped accomplish—but it does not tell us:

How many cameras were purchased.

How much taxpayers spent on equipment and subscriptions.

The cost per recovered vehicle.

The cost per arrest.

Without those numbers, it's impossible to determine whether the program delivered a good return on investment.

Transparency matters. Taxpayers deserve to know not only what these systems do, but what they cost and whether the benefits justify the expense.

Data source: Texas DMV Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority FY2025 Activities Report.

Something to think about!

These cameras are advertised to only read license plates.

So why would the company allow two license plate readers to be placed facing a college pool where there are no license plates to be captured?

Through some conversations it is speculated that these cameras are used to monitor if the pool attendees have the wristbands or not. Does that mean someone has access to live feed footage of this pool where college students spend their time?

These cameras are at the Woodlands right near campus village.

Edit: It is the condor model with live feed video. You can tell by the shorter camera body. The falcon has a longer slimmer body.

More on the Problem

I came across a timeline that I found interesting.

On May 28, The Woodlands Township Board heard a presentation from Flock Safety and the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office defending the use of Flock license plate reader cameras. Residents were told there are safeguards in place, access is audited, and misuse can result in discipline or criminal charges.

The board then voted to move forward with a letter supporting the program.

The very next day, news broke that a Montgomery County Precinct 3 deputy had been arrested for allegedly misusing law-enforcement information systems he had access to through his position.

To be clear, the allegations do not involve Flock cameras specifically.

What struck me is that the arrest highlighted the exact concern many residents were raising during the meeting: not whether the technology works, but whether people with access to powerful surveillance and investigative systems can be trusted not to misuse them.

Had the arrest become public before the meeting, do you think the discussion would have been different?

Would it have changed any minds, or is this simply proof that audit systems and accountability measures are working as intended?

Full article here: One Day Later: The Arrest That Changed the Context of The Woodlands' Flock Safety Debate

Curious what everyone thinks.

I recently dug through the actual Flock Safety contract that my city signed and found some clauses that honestly deserve way more public attention.

The contract explicitly gives Flock the right to:

• “collect, analyze, and anonymize” surveillance data,
• use it for “training of machine learning algorithms,”
• and create future “Flock offerings” from derived data.

What surprised me is that while the raw footage technically belongs to the city, the agreement appears to let Flock keep broad perpetual rights to derived/anonymized intelligence built from the system.

I also connected this to:

• the recent 9NEWS / 404 Media reporting about federal immigration access to Flock-connected systems,
• and the Oshkosh, Wisconsin case where the city council rescinded its contract after officials said they received false or misleading information about the system’s capabilities.

I wrote a full breakdown here, including the actual contract PDF so people can read the clauses themselves instead of just taking my word for it:

https://www.deflockbcs.com/post/when-public-safety-becomes-a-data-pipeline-why-flock-safety-s-contract-language-should-alarm-ever

I’m genuinely curious where people land on this.

I understand the public safety argument, and I’m not anti-technology, but I think there’s a huge difference between:
“a camera that helps recover stolen cars”
and
“a nationwide AI-powered behavioral data infrastructure with perpetual derived-data rights.”

Would love to hear thoughts from people in law enforcement, cybersecurity, data science, privacy law, or local government.