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Big Brother restores live feeds early during Week 7

tvAug 29, 202663894

Residents and activists are increasingly sabotaging Flock license-plate cameras nationwide in protest of what they call an expanding Big Brother surveillance state. Brady O’Rourke of Crystal, Minnesota, places a handwritten sign over a local pole-mounted Flock camera; NPR reports similar actions across about 36 states, including theft, vandalism, collisions, spray-painting and shooting. DeFlock, an anti-Flock group that maps the company’s footprint, counts more than 130,000 of the company’s plate readers on U.S. streets and says at least 100 cities have deactivated cameras or canceled contracts in response to public outcry. Flock says over 5,000 law enforcement agencies use its technology and has announced new privacy measures such as shorter data retention windows, mandatory misuse-detection tools and required case codes for every search. Investigations and prosecutions have illustrated misuse: Milwaukee officer Josue Ayala tracked a romantic partner 124 times and another person 55 times before resigning and pleading guilty, and Detective Tehrangi Chapman was later charged for related misuse; a Newsweek probe found alleged officer misuse in at least 12 states. Local officials are responding with audits and access restrictions, the Institute for Justice counts dozens of cases since 2024, and the cameras have become visible flashpoints in debates over local contracts and AI surveillance policy.

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