H4 - Radio host Charlie James critiques Flock surveillance cameras, discusses legislative efforts to limit them, and hears caller stories.

What this episode covers

Transcript Charlie James: I do believe it was Benjamin Franklin that said, "Anyone who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." That's what they're asking us to do with all these Flock cameras. And listen to this, I had no idea. I had no idea. There are 120,000—and when I say Flock, in this instance I'm talking about the brand Flock cameras, okay?—120,000 cameras across 49 states. They do 20 billion vehicle scans a month. 20 billion a month. And a lot of places are saying, "You know what? No." This is—and what they want us to do is they only want us to see through the blinders of, "Yeah, but they help us catch the bad guys." Oh. Okay. So, well in that case, why don't you just mandate that everybody has to show up at the DMV or SLED, and we have to give everybody our DNA samples? Why don't you just mandate that? I mean, hell, just about everybody's got your fingerprints anyway, if you've got a concealed weapons permit, they got your fingerprints. Why don't you just do that? Just go ahead. "Oh, yeah, we're just going to sit you down, we're going to do a full facial scan, you know, just to make sure that you're not one of the bad guys." So, they've literally got these blinders on about these Flock cameras. And what they are is literally a Fourth Amendment violation of our rights against illegal search and seizures. A lot of municipalities are ending their use of Flock cameras. Like I said, 120,000 cameras, 49 states. Tempe, Arizona officials said Wednesday they've turned off their Flock system, and they are ending their contract with the company. Pinellas County, Florida, ending their contract with Flock. Duval County, Florida—Jacksonville—ending Flock cameras. That's what they're doing. Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said the cameras have helped police officers do their job, but the risk of misuse is too great. And we have seen it, saw it—I mean, how many people in the Upstate? And this is the thing, "Well, they're under disciplinary review." No, arrest them! That's a violation. But did you know this? There is not a single piece of legislation in the House or the Senate in Washington, or in the House and the Senate in South Carolina, that has anything to do with Flock cameras other than funding them. They want to fund them in all of the new spending bills that we had here in South Carolina. They want to fund the Flock cameras, but no bills about regulating Flock camera use. That's scary to me. Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said, "We have to be able to provide public safety in a way that maintains the trust of our community." For Tempe, that means taking these cameras down. Cave Creek in Arizona, Bellingham, Massachusetts, several Texas counties have done away with their Flock cameras. John Shirley, Constable of a precinct in Hood County, Texas, said that after county commissioners voted to remove the cameras, he wouldn't be covering them until they could be removed—he would be covering them until they could be removed. Well, good! Good! You certainly wouldn't want Flock cameras... these county commissioners, they don't want Flock cameras following them! More than 100 jurisdictions have canceled Flock cameras and other automated license plate reader providers, according to a database from the Institute for Justice. Local governments have good reason to want to stem the proliferation of these mass surveillance tools—that was Michael Soyfer, an attorney with the institute—"Rather than narrowly targeting criminals, these readers collect troves of data on ordinary people." Now, you think they just read your license plate. Oh, no! No, no, no. Flock's operating system, Investigate, is an AI tool that actually identifies vehicles and ranks—listen to this—it ranks the driver's associates based on how frequently they appear together in the same Flock camera. The Flock camera website code reviewed by one organization listed 45 functions available to OS Investigate, including plate scans, camera metadata, arrest records, ...

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