[HN Gopher] Denver dumps Flock, awards contract to Axon
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Denver dumps Flock, awards contract to Axon
Author : therobots927
Score : 106 points
Date : 2026-02-24 17:16 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.9news.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.9news.com)
| downrightmike wrote:
| Anti-Pinkerton Fed act: Gov't may not buy services that it is not
| legally allowed to do themselves.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| citation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
| Pinkerton_Act_of_1893
| tptacek wrote:
| Municipal governments are extremely allowed to track license
| plates within their borders and have been doing so for
| generations.
| samrus wrote:
| But do they not need a warrant to track someones movements?
|
| Alot of these tech vendors have been a way to launder data
| gathering to avoid neeidng to get warrants
| tptacek wrote:
| They need a warrant to physically alter or attach things to
| private property to track them. They don't need a warrant
| to post monitors and record what they see in plain view in
| public spaces with no expectation of privacy. The entire
| concept of a license plate, universal around the world,
| works against the idea that the state can't monitor your
| car.
|
| I'm not saying ALPRs don't pose new privacy problems and,
| in the long term, depending on how they're used, even
| constitutional problems. But clearly the Anti-Pinkerton Act
| doesn't get you anywhere here.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > They don't need a warrant to post monitors and record
| what they see in plain view in public spaces with no
| expectation of privacy.
|
| They do if it's done to the point where you can track
| individuals around the city.
|
| https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/201495A.P.pdf
|
| > The AIR program uses aerial photography to track
| movements related to serious crimes. Multiple planes fly
| distinct orbits above Baltimore, equipped with PSS's
| camera technology known as the "Hawkeye Wide Area Imaging
| System." The cameras capture roughly 32 square miles per
| image per second. The planes fly at least 40 hours a
| week, obtaining an estimated twelve hours of coverage of
| around 90% of the city each day, 5 weather permitting.
| The PSA limits collection to daylight hours and limits
| the photographic resolution to one pixel per person or
| vehicle, though neither restriction is required by the
| technology. In other words, any single AIR image--
| captured once per second--includes around 32 square miles
| of Baltimore and can be magnified to a point where people
| and cars are individually visible, but only as blurred
| dots or blobs.
|
| > On the merits, because the AIR program enables police
| to deduce from the whole of individuals' movements, we
| hold that accessing its data is a search, and its
| warrantless operation violates the Fourth Amendment
| tptacek wrote:
| The decision you're citing explicitly cites precedent for
| the constitutionality of warrantless mounted pole
| cameras.
|
| Anyways, I'm not that interested in the broader long-term
| constitutional debate. I'm just interested in shutting
| down the glib Anti-Pinkerton cite.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > The decision you're citing explicitly cites precedent
| for the constitutionality of warrantless mounted pole
| cameras.
|
| And explicity notes that it's the relative scarcity of
| them that matters.
|
| > Decades later, in United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400
| (2012), location-tracking technology crossed the line
| from merely augmenting to impermissibly enhancing. There,
| police used a GPS-tracking device to remotely monitor and
| record a vehicle's movements over 28 days. Id. at 402-04.
| Although the case was ultimately decided on trespass
| principles, five Justices agreed that "longer term GPS
| monitoring . . . impinges on expectations of privacy."
| See id. at 430 (Alito, J., concurring); id. at 415
| (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Based on "[t]raditional
| surveillance" capacity "[i]n the precomputer age," the
| Justices reasoned that "society's expectation" was that
| police would not "secretly monitor and catalogue every
| single movement of an individual's car for a very long
| period."
|
| > Thus, Carpenter solidified the line between short-term
| tracking of public movements--akin to what law
| enforcement could do "[p]rior to the digital age"--and
| prolonged tracking that can reveal intimate details
| through habits and patterns.
|
| Put enough of them up, and the software to track between
| them, and you're in "enables police to deduce from the
| whole of individuals' movements" territory.
| tptacek wrote:
| Maybe! I'm skeptical. Either way: Anti-Pinkerton doesn't
| come into it.
|
| I'll tell you what's not going to happen, with certainty:
| we're not going to get to a point with ALPRs where it
| becomes so abusive that the Supreme Court decides
| municipalities can't track cars at all.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > we're not going to get to a point with ALPRs where it
| becomes so abusive that the Supreme Court decides
| municipalities can't track cars at all
|
| Sure. But they may get _restricted_ somewhat, as they are
| if they want to demolish my house without my consent.
| mminer237 wrote:
| It depends on how. The Fourth Amendment prohibits
| warrantless searches, not any information itself. The
| police can always just have an officer tail you 24/7, and
| it's perfectly legal. Placing a GPS tracker on your car
| physically invades your property and therefore counts as a
| search though. Generally any public photography is not a
| search, so they're free to record and keep records however
| they legally can.
|
| Though at some point, even SCOTUS just does whatever feels
| right, regardless of what the law says. In _Carpenter_ ,
| SCOTUS ruled 5-4 that your cellular company voluntarily
| handing over historical cell data also counts as a
| government search. An appellate court has held that if
| photography is extensive enough, it becomes a search.
| SCOTUS has held before that uncommon photographic equipment
| can constitute a search. That logic honestly doesn't really
| make sense, but it is what it is now. I wouldn't be
| surprised that the courts rule against it, but that's not
| what the law really says.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That may change as they get more widely deployed; scale
| matters.
|
| https://courthousenews.com/judge-holds-norfolks-license-
| plat...
|
| > "Because rapid technological advances, such as the rise of
| artificial intelligence, make it impossible to predict how
| police surveillance will evolve, the Fourth Amendment
| analysis must remain nimble even as it remains grounded in
| founding-era traditions," the George W. Bush appointee wrote
| in a 51-page opinion. _" Plaintiffs are unable to demonstrate
| that defendants' ALPR system is capable of tracking the whole
| of a person's movements."_
|
| > Davis drew distinctions from two significant precedents in
| determining that the pair's Fourth Amendment challenge lacked
| merit. In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court held
| that the government violates the Fourth Amendment when it
| accesses a suspect's historical cell site location
| information without a warrant. The Fourth Circuit ruled in
| Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police
| Department that the department's surveillance program, which
| captured and stored aerial images of nearly the entire city,
| violated the Fourth Amendment.
|
| > Davis ruled that, unlike in cases where the government
| tracked people's movements through cellphone data and aerial
| photos, the collection of Flock data does not capture enough
| information to catalogue citizens' movements in their
| entirety. Davis reasoned that the 176 cameras, located in 75
| clusters across the city, do not constitute a search.
| tptacek wrote:
| This is going to happen in a lot of places that aren't large
| enough to make news: people dumping Flock over bad publicity, and
| simply installing ALPR cameras from vendors smart enough not to
| get themselves embroiled in politics.
| fusslo wrote:
| AXON seems to be really good about not pushing things too far.
| I don't know if they lobby/amplify the need for police body
| cameras, however. Even that, IMO, doesn't have the stench of
| evil
|
| They must be making huge profits, assuming every bodycam needs
| some kind of recurring revenue (for evidence.com, maintenance,
| replacements). BUT as far as I can tell, they are also taking
| the judicial requirements very seriously. Unlike Flock, I
| haven't heard anything about AXON providing tools to circumvent
| the 4th amendment. In fact, AXON makes tools that make it
| easier to comply with the law. For example, record requests for
| bodycam videos are (again, afaik) easy to satisfy with their
| tech.
|
| I don't know what ownership they have of videos stored on their
| services. Can they use it for LLM training? can they sell
| anonymized data? do they? no idea, but trust in Flock is at
| about a 0 out of 10.
| reactordev wrote:
| AXON wrote the book that Flock put into practice. They have
| really great lobbyists that shield them from any news.
| tptacek wrote:
| And yet you can see on this thread people saying this is a
| good thing, because Axon is the good kind of ALPR company
| and Flock is the bad kind. This is just WWF rooting
| interests, not public policy.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Standardized bodycam implementation nationwide was a
| fantastic improvement to policing post-2020. Axon seems to be
| king of that coast to coast. Watching bodycam video on
| YouTube has improved my perception of the police from "often
| unethical jerks" to "wow, I can't believe the nonsense these
| people have to deal with". Asshole cops now have to justify
| their behavior before judges and their bosses in a way maybe
| they didn't before.
|
| Freedom of Information requests to axon seem to be given our
| somewhat freely given how large the bodycam genre on Youtube
| is.
| xnx wrote:
| Seems like a good move. Lots of value to ALPR systems responsibly
| managed. Flock is just an ass of a company.
| fundad wrote:
| I thought Flock and Axon were affiliated.
| terrabitz wrote:
| No, two completely separate players. There was a partnership
| agreement a while ago, but that got severed a while back
|
| https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/axon-plans-to-sever-apis-wi...
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| Here in Oregon, I very nearly managed to get some decent
| legislation drafted that would have required a number of strong
| data protections from ALPR vendors.
|
| Axon interfered _heavily_ with that process and -- after the
| legislative workgroup had well concluded and just a couple of
| hours before the Senate committee was to vote on it -- managed to
| neuter one of the key protections in the bill.
|
| Axon is not "better" than Flock, they are just slightly less
| transparent about some aspects and slightly less radioactive.
|
| Community groups that have formed and activated against Flock
| should continue to harass local governments that immediately
| switch to Axon as a replacement.
| therobots927 wrote:
| That's good to know. I agree the cameras are the root problem.
| Flock exacerbated that problem and I think it's good for them
| to get some negative publicity.
|
| You could say similar things about Palantir - that it's just a
| figurehead and that the NSA / TIA has similar capabilities but
| it's still important to use the figurehead as an example to
| others.
|
| But yes in general I think it's important to not let this stop
| here. Denver needs to be pressured to remove the cameras
| entirely. This is a defensive move on Denver's part and it
| shows they're on their back foot.
| helterskelter wrote:
| Fellow Oregonian here. Have you got any local resources? I've
| been writing to my reps, framing ALPR's and cameras as a tool
| the feds will coopt, but I'm pretty sure nobody reads anything
| anymore.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| We've got lots of local resources! I've been in the capitol
| about half of the last two weeks, my partner is there right
| now, we've been working closely with ACLU Oregon _and_
| National, a couple of other legal firms are keeping a close
| eye on this, and we 've built a grassroots network with
| people from Eugene, Springfield, Portland, Bend, Florence,
| and more.
|
| Also, your Reps _do_ read your correspondence, and there 's a
| critical moment coming up in this bill.
|
| Drop me a line at contact@eyesoffeugene.org and I'll reply
| with a Signal link and we can talk more.
| helterskelter wrote:
| Sorry, I don't like mixing my on- and offline identities,
| but your site is a great resource and exactly what I was
| looking for. I'll definitely be reaching out to my reps
| about SB1516.
|
| If you don't mind, what's the current situation with Flock
| in Eugene? Last I heard was that EPD was ending their
| relationship but it wasn't clear if the cameras were
| actually going to be removed. I believe Springfield has
| already gotten rid of theirs, and Florence voted to keep
| them.
|
| (By the way, thank you, you guys are doing invaluable work)
| nxobject wrote:
| Which legislator were you working with? (I'm not going to look
| the bill up up on OLIS, if that's going to dox you.)
|
| Funnily enough, Portland (apart from big box parking lots)
| seems to be empty of those. I remember them trying to push
| ShotSpotter and being slapped down by the city's progressive
| wing.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| I think at this point getting doxed is an inevitability. ;-)
|
| I worked most closely with Senator Floyd Prozanski. He's my
| local senator, and was in many ways an ideal fit for this.
| After we successfully kicked Flock out of Eugene,
| Springfield, and Lane County, he reached out to form a
| legislative workgroup. Over a few months of effort, we
| developed SB1516: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2026
| R1/Measures/Overv...
|
| Depending on where you fall on the spectrum of opinions on
| ALPRs, this is either a sort of okay bill or a pretty
| terrible bill.
| philips wrote:
| Do you have a delta on the bill after Axon intervened?
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| -12 is what was queued up for the vote up until 2:30 pm
| that afternoon: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/20
| 26R1/Downloads/Prop...
|
| -14 materialized, Prozanski called for a vote on -12,
| Senator Braodman voted with Republicans against -12, and
| then they unanimously voted in -14: https://olis.oregonle
| gislature.gov/liz/2026R1/Downloads/Prop...
|
| The sole difference between the two is that -14 removes
| the following language: "'End-to-end encryption' means a
| method of data encryption that ensures only the law
| enforcement agency that owns the captured license plate
| data possesses the capability to decrypt, access or grant
| access to the captured license plate data."
|
| This was just the latest move in a long, long series of
| behind-the-scenes work by Axon to undermine the entire
| bill throughout its development.
|
| There's a lot more I'm eager to say about that process,
| but we have some work to do before it all can be made
| public.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Axon interfered heavily with that process and -- after the
| legislative workgroup had well concluded and just a couple of
| hours before the Senate committee was to vote on it -- managed
| to neuter one of the key protections in the bill._
|
| This is why I'm increasingly jaded with 'get involved with your
| local legislative process!' proponents. If you don't have the
| ability to lobby around the clock and make campaign or in-kind
| political donations (and know how to communicate your
| willingness to do that), then you're at a massive disadvantage.
| As well, the process itself is highly corruptible, eg altering
| the text of a bill just before a scheduled vote.
|
| As a general matter, I'm increasingly disgusted with the
| prevalence of tactics like holding votes in the dead of night
| or in closed sessions. Politicians engage in a lot of tricks to
| evade scrutiny from their constituents, relying on the fact
| that once a piece of legislation is passed people might be
| angry but the politician can often get away with saying 'there
| was no other choice, we have to work within the process' or
| some similar empty truism.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| We need more good people getting involved to be able to
| change the way this all works. And, in less than a year,
| we've developed a ton of political capital and we're still
| gaining ground. So, I would sincerely encourage anyone to
| join this effort, or similar efforts in their area, and just
| do whatever you can tolerate.
|
| But also, having just been through this process (for my first
| time!): however terrible you think the political process is,
| it's _worse_.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| This is something I would LOVE to get involved with to
| support. At the end of the day though, it's not something I
| have a lot of extra unbillable time for and that's really
| what the problem is.
| helpfulclippy wrote:
| I was aware of your bill and had some activity related to it.
| Kudos to you and EOE for doing great work! Sorry your bill got
| fucked. :(
|
| I was seethed by what happened to it, and sadly unsurprised by
| the attitude LE took. I want restraint, but I felt like so many
| concessions had already been made to get it into work session.
| E2EE was important, but we're still left with two ends that are
| deeply untrustworthy, and a bunch of regulations about data
| governance that I don't trust the state to be able to
| meaningfully oversee... especially among a patchwork of LEAs
| across the state. When lapses inevitably happen, I think
| they're going to mostly undetected, and those that are will be
| quietly swept under the rug without consequence to anyone.
| officeplant wrote:
| Evil Corp B has been demoted, Evil Corp A to take up the mantle.
| psadauskas wrote:
| Axon, the taser company? They're not any better, ethically
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yd9nLQx3qQ
|
| How about Denver just doesn't surveil its citizens, at all?
| parineum wrote:
| The service that Flock provides is the problem, not Flock.
| Switching to another company to perform the same task makes no
| difference.
| baggachipz wrote:
| How about... and hear me out, here... no ALPRs? Perhaps we
| shouldn't be violating the Bill of Rights in the name of
| "safety"?
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