There’s been plenty of buzz lately around vandalism of Flock Safety’s automatic license plate readers, which are AI-integrated surveillance cameras that index license plate data from passing vehicles indiscriminately and without a warrant.
Countless vigilantes have taken to the roadways armed with trash bags, spray paint, laser pointers, and power drills to render the surveillance poles useless, resulting in arrests and investigations by police.
But what if there was another way to block Flock cameras that didn’t involve damaging public property? Turns out they’ll come after you for that, too.
A 77-year old Florida man named Carl Gunn decided to take matters into his own hands and block a Flock camera in his neighborhood. His method is unorthodox: he doesn’t destroy anything, but simply uses a 12-foot pool skimmer with a sign taped to the end reading “DOWN WITH FLOCK CAMERAS.”
Footage of the one-man protest shows Gunn lounging in a camping chair with his comically long sign in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Speaking to weekly paper Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, the protestor justified his action saying the “Flock company, they’re doing this for profit.”
“They don’t own the air,” Gunn continued. “We didn’t give them permission to do it on us. If they want to do it for profit, I want my paycheck.”
The 77-year old has staged at least two protests so far, CL reports, both at different Flock cameras. Two St Petersburg squad cars rolled up on him during one protest, prompting a community member to stop and film the encounter.
“Yo, what’s your name? I’ll come bail you out!” shouts the passerby, a St Petersburg local named Tyler Knight. “You got the boys out protecting it [the ALPR].”
“F**k the Flock cameras, and f**k you for not looking out for us,” Knight hollers at the officers before driving off.
Though the video caption claims Gunn was arrested over the incident, no report with his name appears in the Pinellas County Clerk of the Circuit Court’s case record database.
Of course, any discussion of Flock overreach has to include the police officers themselves. While Flock may be a front-runner for most hated tech company of the 2020s, its dragnet would be impossible if it weren’t for a massive coalition of police departments and private landowners fueling the company’s rise.
Wherever Flock controversies bubble to the surface, police come out of the woodwork as the company’s most ardent defenders. And because police departments have complete access to the Flock network — which now spans nearly 100,000 cameras across the country — cops are also the most likely to abuse the company’s ALPRs.
In the state of Georgia alone, 17 officers have been caught using Flock in order to stalk and harass people. Further abuses have been recorded everywhere from big cities like Los Angeles and Milwaukee to small towns in South Carolina and Illinois.
Whether a 12-foot pole will be enough to stop those abuses nationwide is doubtful, but it sends a message that’s impossible to miss.
More on Flock: So Many People Are Smashing Flock’s Cameras That It’s Disguising Them Inside Other Objects
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