In Houston, someone tried to kidnap a third grader.

There were Flock cameras nearby. But someone had cut them down, so the attempted kidnapper is still at large.

I’m becoming radicalized against the anti-Flock activists.

You people have no arguments.

Children get raped and killed. You shrug your shoulders. “I don’t care if a thousand children are tortured to death as long as one cop doesn’t look up his girlfriend’s license plate.”

You are unable to reason about public policy issues. You are the reason we can’t have nice things. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

More here. https://richardhanania.com/p/flock-mass-surveillance-and-the-collapse…

Flock, Mass Surveillance, and the Collapse of Crime

Source: https://www.richardhanania.com/p/flock-mass-surveillance-and-the-collapse There are now around 120,000 Flock cameras in operation across the US. These devices automatically read license plates and make their locations available to law enforcement. Flock now also makes it possible to look up cars by their descriptions, rather than just relying on plates. As one might expect, this has proved very useful in solving crimes. Just as predictably, it has caused a popular backlash.

Tucker Carlson is outraged, having made resistance to Flock cameras one of the messages he prints out on thehats he sellsfor allowing his fans to broadcast their low socioeconomic status. Groups that are worth taking more seriously, like the Institute for Justice and the ACLU, have also expressed concerns. How much should we worry? And where should we come down in this particular iteration of the old debate of liberty versus security?

On the plus side of this technology, a 2023 study from the company itselfestimatedthat Flock cameras are used in solving 700K crimes each year, or approximately 10% of all reported crime in the US. This study involved surveying law enforcement agencies that were Flock customers, ending up with 123 respondents that provided data researchers considered adequate for analysis. They were asked “How many arrests have you made that can directly be attributed to the use of a Flock Safety camera?” and asked to provide corresponding case records.

From there, the authors make broader estimates of society at large. Morerecent researchfrom Flock boasts about last year seeing 1,000,000 “cases supported” and helping to locate approximately 10,000 missing persons. The company estimates that its technology was involved in roughly one in five cases cleared in its customer jurisdictions.

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