also for those that dont know, i read an article that said FB takes every photo that people tag with a name and sells them to facial recognition companies like everseen and clearview. it also said that walmart does the same thing, they capture your image and info when you pay with a card of some kind, especially at self check out.
citizensrulebook.us
Flock’s Connection to Video-altering Technology
Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company founded in 2017, operates one of the largest networks of automated license-plate-reader cameras in the United States — reports estimate the company has as many as 100,000 devices across nearly all states. The solar-powered or hardwired cameras capture a vehicle’s license plate; make, model, and color; and other identifying features, feeding data into a searchable national database used primarily by law enforcement. Flock markets the system as a tool for solving crimes.
Critics call Flock cameras instruments of warrantless search, and public backlash has been harsh.
The Toka Link
New information adds fuel to the fire — Flock may have ties to an Israeli company capable of altering camera footage. The lead investor in Flock also funds an Israeli firm that “can hack cameras and change the footage.” The company is Toka, co-founded in 2018 by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former Israel Defense Forces cyber official Yaron Rosen. Haaretz reports that Toka develops tools that allow government clients to locate security cameras or webcams in a given area, access live feeds, and manipulate both live and recorded video without leaving forensic traces. The company has positioned itself as a provider of offensive cyber capabilities for state actors and has sought business with U.S. agencies. The documented link between Flock and Toka runs primarily through shared venture capital rather than ownership, technology licensing, or operational control. Andreessen Horowitz is the leading foreign investor in Israeli start-ups, and is also a major investor in Flock Safety and in Toka.
Amdocs
The situation recalls the Amdocs episode of 2001. Fox News’ Carl Cameron reported at the time, “Here’s how the system works. Most directory assistance calls, and virtually all call records and billing in the U.S. are done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an Israeli-based private telecommunications company. Amdocs has contracts with the 25 biggest phone companies in America, and more worldwide. The White House and other secure government phone lines are protected, but it is virtually impossible to make a call on normal phones without generating an Amdocs record of it.”
“In recent years, the FBI and other government agencies have investigated Amdocs more than once. The firm has repeatedly and adamantly denied any security breaches or wrongdoing,” Cameron continued. “What U.S. government officials are worried about, however, is the possibility that Amdocs data could get into the wrong hands, particularly organized crime.”
Abetting Organized Crime?
Fox News drew sharp criticism at the time for implying that Amdocs and another Israeli company called Comverse Infosys may have been using telecommunications data to tip off Israeli organized crime.
Fast-forward to the modern era. If Flock cameras are used in tandem with Toka’s footage-altering technology, a very real possibility exists that images could be erased or video altered to protect sensitive Israeli operations on U.S. soil or delete any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Israeli organized crime in the United States. The technology could be used to delete real evidence and/or plant false evidence.
Increasing mass surveillance has been yoked upon the citizens of the United States for decades, and when they've finally had enough and speak up for themselves in a loud voice, law enforcement decides the citizens are being problematic, not the mass surveillance network. If citizens do not assert themselves in ending mass surveillance, increased tyranny and persecution is inevitable.
In Soviet Eastern Europe a traveler would have to show their papers (identify themselves) to the government whenever they traveled even to another state or city within the state. They were subject to being tracked without probable cause nor warrant anytime and every time they moved. How are FLOCK cameras and the abuses they are prone to any different?
Sorry sheriff. Every LEO I’ve heard in favor of the surveillance cameras keeps harping on catching criminals. What did you do before these cameras? There are many other modern ways to catch criminals without trampling on all our rights. Today it’s a criminal tomorrow it’s let’s pull the records of an individual for the last 2 years on nonsensical stuff because we don’t like what they’ve said or their political stance. Just like the federal government bends the rules for nonsensical warrants, cloak themselves behind 911 or anything else they can twist.
reason.com
www.nbcdfw.com
1. Flock's MO is to hire a local politician as a consultant or employee to build them a roadmap on which charities to donate to, which local contractors to hire for quick authorization and access to tax dollars. Ya know,... bribery. This is how they popped up all over the country without anyone really noticing for a couple years, it was done quickly and quietly with corrupted local officials.
2. Flock often mounts cameras unsafely, and they're actual systems often bear little resemblance to the versions approved by the state. *Roadside javelins.
3. Flock actively aggregates and sells your data (that they acquired with tax dollars) to anyone and everyone who will pay. This includes marketing firms and foreign governments. They also refuse to release info about who it's sold to, and claim FOIA requests only apply to info provided to US government agencies, and even then they've been caught lying. Flock has been caught repeatedly lying about who has access to the information.
*All of the above is on purpose. I haven't even gone into innate and serious flaws in how things like facial recognition work, or the omnipresent vulnerability you will always find large systems to individual corruption and incompetence.
In short Flock has suborned local and state governments and is streamlining access to the intimate and almost total movements of Americans. It's a ready made mass production espionage tool for foreign governments paid for with your own tax dollars.
The system structurally rewards failure. If things like Flock actually worked they would quickly have no justification for keeping them, but as long as they fail they use their own failure as justification for growth.
When has the idea of the government keeping a dossier on every citizen ever been acceptable?
Having a private company doing the same thing that sells it to the government is actually worse because now it’s motivated by both control and profit. There is no way to insure that data isn’t sold to anyone who is willing to pay for it.
This electronic dossier on steroids has the added benefit of having value high enough to motivate hacking and theft simply because it exists….there is zero guarantee in keeping that info secure.
Our government, Foreign intelligence, criminals, corporations, military…..our enemies…..would all gain access to it. Its guaranteed. That data would be a new currency.
No one can be trusted with acres to it, which means it shouldn’t exist. Period.
I can’t fathom right now how anyone actually thinks a 24/7 surveillance state is a good idea. What in the actual F. It’s the worst kind of tyrannical wet dream.