That's interesting, because the ALPR part of Flock is what caused all the problems here; the rest of it, of characterizing vehicles with attributes beyond just plates, wasn't really problematic at all.
Characterizing vehicles based on stickers (which easily can indicate political leanings) is absolutely problematic. It's just not considered problematic by conservatives, given police in the US are overwhelmingly conservative.
Look, I agree that's problematic conceptually, but it's absolutely not what's happening. ALPRs don't select cars on spec, like, "this car looks out of place here". Nobody has time for that. They're matching specific descriptions of cars to incidents, like, "this vehicle has been present at the site of 5 previous package thefts".
Here's another way to look at this. Municipalities are the primary operators of ALPR cameras. Any municipality that would scan bumper stickers looking for Trump opponents is not going to be receptive to any appeals for regulation.
One problem with this whole debate is that people are coming to it with movie plot concerns rather than understanding what's actually happening with them. That wouldn't be a big deal if this was a slam dunk public policy case, but it isn't: there is broad bipartisan support for these devices.
There are deeply problematic things happening just with license plate pings!
They're matching specific descriptions of cars to incidents, like, "this vehicle has been present at the site of 5 previous package thefts".
You're hand-waving a hell of a lot of things away and you expect that everyone knows what you're talking about. Please stop doing that.
- Who is "They"?
- Why do you say "nobody has time for that"? What is "that"?
- Why are you dismissing genuine concerns through unhelpful language like, "coming to it with movie plot concerns".
- Why wouldn't "that" be a big deal? What is "that"?!
- What are the deeply problematic things?
- "They're matching specific descriptions of cars to incidents" -- no they're not. Just looking at Bloomingdale's audit logs, there are 13k examples of searches done for the simple reason, "suspicious".
- Why does municipalities being the primary operators matter?
Asking from a place of genuine confusion by how you think about these things.
"They" are public bodies operating ALPR devices; in the main, municipal police forces, though obviously other public bodies (like the Illinois State Police) operate them as well.
The antecedent of the first "that" was "the use of cameras to detect cars with politically disfavored bumper stickers".
I am, yes, dismissing the concern that ALPRs are being used to detect cars with politically unfavorable bumper stickers. I think that if advocates for ending our Flock contract had come to the board table with that concern, rather than the quality of Illinois LEADS, we'd still have the cameras up.
The antecedent of the second "that" is "organizing around easily dismissible movie-plot concerns, like that municipal police are going to dragnet for people with anti-police bumper stickers". Unwinding the sentence, the "big deal" is, as I just said, that centering implausible risks takes real risks out of focus, and gives ammunition for advocates of the cameras --- of which there are a great many --- to push back on efforts to get the cameras down.
I spelled the "deeply problematic" things out elsewhere on the thread.
Feel free to tell me more about what Bloomingdale was doing with their cameras. With no detail, I'm inclined to believe the force simply didn't give a shit about the description field in the search request, because no serious, rigorous effort was made to regulate ALPRs in Bloomingdale, and so there isn't much signal in the logs.
My common experience is that people dismiss these risks without evidence, while I've seen plenty of stories of such things happening in this context and in others. Possibly those stories add up to a lot of anecdotes, but these aren't arguments based on reason or evidence:
> easily dismissible movie-plot concerns
> implausible risks
Those are just words. People who use them, IME, imply their conclusions are already well-established. But they never are. Where is the evidence and argument for these claims?
Please actually just look at any audit log and just search yourself. If you think there's no signal, then you clearly haven't looked. If you're going to continue to be lazy in your analysis, then ask a damn LLM. There are 528 agencies who used "suspicious". This is not a bloomingdale problem; it's much larger. Just fucking look, man.
select count(*),org_name from flock_bloomingdale where reason = 'suspicious' group by org_name order by count desc;
count | org_name
-------+--------------------------------------------------
2678 | Skokie IL PD
828 | Joliet IL PD
678 | Houston TX PD
391 | Fayette County IL SO
309 | Chicago IL PD
256 | Katy TX PD
245 | Itasca IL PD
244 | Steger IL PD
229 | Athens-Clarke County GA PD
215 | Lucas County OH SO
209 | Oak Lawn IL PD
208 | Westmont IL PD
199 | La Salle County IL PD - OLD
194 | Zion IL PD
191 | La Grange Park IL PD
174 | Kenosha County WI SO
173 | Champaign County IL SO
170 | Roselle IL PD
160 | Lake Villa IL PD
152 | Bradley IL PD
152 | Madison County IN SO
143 | LaSalle Co. IL SO - New
135 | Flossmoor IL PD
132 | Sauk Village IL PD
116 | Oak Brook IL PD
106 | Crete IL PD
104 | Villa Park IL PD
101 | Darien IL PD
97 | Cicero IL PD
94 | Wilmington IL PD
89 | Rockford IL PD
80 | Lake County IL SO
80 | Dolton IL PD
79 | Texas Department of Public Safety
76 | Will County IL SO
75 | Naperville IL PD
72 | Minooka IL PD
68 | Hillside IL PD
63 | Carpentersville IL PD
55 | Kent County MI SO
55 | Zanesville OH PD
54 | Winnebago County IL SO
51 | Logan County NE SO
46 | Romeoville IL PD
46 | Menomonee Falls WI PD
46 | Homewood IL PD
44 | Burnham IL PD
44 | Baldwin County GA SO
43 | Venice FL PD
39 | Elmwood Park IL PD
37 | DuPage County IL SO
36 | Greensboro NC PD
34 | Lowndes County GA SO
34 | Henry County GA PD
34 | Tinley Park IL PD
You're going to need to tell me why I'm supposed to be freaked out by the word "suspicious". Further, it is not my claim that (1) ALPRs are not problematic or (2) that they don't direly need more regulation; that's exactly the work I was doing in Oak Park before we cancelled our contract.
hmm, ok. kind of odd to put yourself out there for so many years, then be willing to die on this issue, given the political state of things. but, you be you
Edit: I can't respond to your reply, but my original question was why is it so important to you, and you didn't answer. But, I guess I'll go back through your comments to find out. Us 'passive observers' are just trying to figure out who's on which team. Feel free to ignore us. No offense intended
"Weird that you sound so defensive, given you're willing to die on this issue and ruin your reputation". Do you hear yourself?
What's especially funny about this is that you haven't taken the time to even figure out who I am or where I'm coming from on this issue. It's pure uncut schoolyard behavior. Maybe reflect a bit!
Nobody's reading this thread but us at this point.
