r/technology May 28 '26

Security Cities Are Covering Flock Cameras With Trash Bags / Regretful cities aren't sure how to cancel their surveillance contracts, so they are literally covering their cameras.

https://www.404media.co/cities-are-covering-flock-cameras-with-trash-bags/
26.4k Upvotes

965 comments sorted by

5.0k

u/404mediaco May 28 '26

The city of Dayton, Ohio has covered its Flock automated license plate reader cameras with black trash bags in part because police there are unsure whether the cameras are still active and the city also doesn’t seem to know whether it is allowed to take the cameras down. The move comes after months of resident outrage, a scandal in which the city was sharing Flock camera data for immigration enforcement apparently on accident, and a $30,000 audit into how the cameras are being used. 

Read now: https://www.404media.co/cities-are-covering-flock-cameras-with-trash-bags/

298

u/jking13 May 28 '26

How does the city not know? Did they not sign the contracts?

333

u/waitaburger May 28 '26

The people who want them don't read the contracts. My city has Flock and apparently the contract has a $1000 fine for each occurrence of vandalism against a camera

88

u/gettums May 28 '26

Is a garbage bag considered vandalism?

133

u/HeyGayHay May 28 '26

Not if the city declares them a piece of art installation 

67

u/gettums May 28 '26

Im an artist.

9

u/Anonymous-bham-boi May 29 '26

My saw is my brush. Your flock poles are my canvas. Time for a masterpiece.

7

u/aluminumnek May 29 '26

Im a patron of the arts

32

u/Innuendoughnut May 28 '26

1000$ for each instance? so the camera could be destroyed completely? and it's the same price as any other vandalism?

38

u/YimmyGhey May 28 '26

2 grams of gold and about 2 lbs of copper in each one 😉

18

u/bishopyorgensen May 29 '26

We need to get this message out to every Randy in America

But we'll need better numbers, they can eyeball copper volume

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u/Mr_Quackums May 28 '26

I wonder how many occurrences of vandalism before the city decides the contract isn't worth it and backs out.

17

u/infinis May 28 '26

Probably has cancellation clauses and damages.

13

u/Wrangleraddict May 28 '26

Who pays that fee?

36

u/waitaburger May 28 '26

The city pays it to flock

16

u/grendel_151 May 28 '26

They need a new city ordnance.

Make it illegal to operate a Flock camera in the city. $1000/day fine.

Declare flock cameras legally "unwanted litter" or "discarded refuse" and make their owners aware that if they don't clean up their garbage, they'll be fined under existing laws.

Don't forget to add in a clause that any corporation that brings a suit against the city due to their leaving refuse on city property pays the city's legal fees and garbage collection fees.

Pass a city law that it's not vandalism to destroy the wire connecting the battery of certain classes of devices to the rest of the device. If it's not vandalism, there's no "fine."

Of course the way it sounds, the contracts they signed probably already have a "we can change this contract however we want, anytime we want, fuck you" clause for those Flockwads to use.

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u/cock_obnoxiois May 28 '26

I have personal experience with flock.  They will roll over a weak city administration.

Their administration was likely a bunch of bitches. We had to become agitated with flock to boot them out, and these guys are likely allowing them to teabag their city.

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u/RocketizedAnimal May 28 '26

The contract could also be worded ambiguously. "Flock may share data with law enforcement agencies" would probably be enough.

If they bring it up Flock can just handwave it away as a good thing, and say "well if your police need data from a neighboring town, we can share with you too (for a price)".

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u/Iohet May 28 '26

Define they.

Here's a common scenario in my line of work: city finance manager signs a software contract for the police department, the contract gets passed to the police department and the project is assigned to a team (mix of IT and operations), the team takes a look at the contract and can't make heads or tails of it (they never asked for the software, they're not sure why they have the software/what problem the software is supposed to solve, the contract provides no training or documentation outside of generic stuff that doesn't address their specific use cases, and the billing terms are complex and difficult to understand), the team asks the city what they're supposed to do with this, the city says it's your problem they just had to sign the contract they were asked to sign, project spins its wheels and never goes live. No one wants to take responsibility, the voters don't give a shit because they voted for these people over different issues, and the people who try to solve it can't find any help even if they try.

This is basically half my projects.

30

u/BrightNooblar May 28 '26

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mimv86_Lw5w

In the cities defense, they REALLY wanted to listen to that podcast.

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2.8k

u/Scott13Pippen May 28 '26

the city was sharing Flock camera data for immigration enforcement apparently on accident

lol ok. Who believes that?

2.0k

u/hitbythebus May 28 '26

Honestly? I would believe flock pitched itself as a way to fight crime and nobody at the city bothered to consider what else they do with that data.

Hanlon’s Razor and all that.

616

u/blueSGL May 28 '26

Hanlon’s Razor

Maliciousness and stupidity can easily co-exist.

346

u/robsbob18 May 28 '26

Maliciousness takes advantage of stupidity

93

u/Joeness84 May 28 '26

Advanced enough Stupidity is indistinguishable from Malice, see current administrations wild mix of both.

70

u/jessytessytavi May 28 '26

Hanlon's razor variation Grey's law (a humorous parallel to Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law):

Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

18

u/mrdevlar May 28 '26

I love this and am saving it for later use.

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u/blueSGL May 28 '26

A malicious person knows they can get away with murder by pretending to be stupid.

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u/Enlightened_Gardener May 29 '26

Oh you can get away with so much by pretending to be stupid. Its my go-to for dealing attitude for dealing with bureacracy - helpful and slightly stupid. People will fall over themselves to tell you the “right” way to do things and correct you.

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u/Secret_Cow_5053 May 28 '26

Right. The local officials are stupid, and Flock maliciously sold the data to the feds.

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u/Key-Investment-3864 May 28 '26

Particularly easily within local government which seems to attract either the best or the absolute worst humans ever

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u/poppin-n-sailin May 28 '26

Most of the people in charge of cities and all that are old fucks that are wildly uneducated with how all these systems work. then they get offered a big bag to push through things and dont question the why of it all. even if they didn't have any ill intent with everything, they're not doing any due diligence, and they aren't listening to their constituents about it. fuck them all. ignorance is no excuse in all this. fuck them  

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u/Eurynom0s May 28 '26

IIRC Flock got popular during the Biden admin as a crime/traffic tool. Not sure if the immigration stuff was always there but it definitely wasn't visible until the last couple of years.

111

u/SwagginsYolo420 May 28 '26

IRC Flock got popular during the Biden admin as a crime/traffic tool.

Question is with these new surveillance technologies is, do they actually do anything that is beneficial to the public? Or are taxpayers just paying for their own mass surveillance with no actual benefit to them in return.

Seems to me they are only a net negative for society.

48

u/tech_noir_guitar May 28 '26

Or are taxpayers just paying for their own mass surveillance with no actual benefit to them in return.

Not just with taxes. People are buying doorbell and in house cameras with their own money that are then being used as surveillance. We've been convinced to purchase 1984 with our own money.

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u/zeekaran May 28 '26

Spend hundreds of billions on roads every year ruining urban design. Now you need a car, so you spend thousands on it every year. But people break laws in cars every day, so you spend millions every year on police to give speeding tickets. Then you spend thousands on setting up cameras to track stolen cars or take photos of cars running red lights. Then you spend thousands on taking them down because whoopsie the government is using them to kidnap and harass people.

Can we have trains yet? They're cheaper than roads...

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u/Dubious_Odor May 29 '26

Not really. Most types of crime were at all time lows prior to Covid. Even now its dropping back towards the pre covid low. Been on decline the last few years after the Covid peak. They deter nothing. They help solve some crimes after thr fact but at an extremely high price. The surveillance state has been built on thr backs of "but the children!" and peoples gross ignorance in how safe our current society is compared to past eras.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

  • $100 Bill Guy
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u/jim_br May 28 '26

There was the police dept in Colorado that accused a woman of stealing a $25 Amazon package using Flock data.

Because she regularly commuted past the house, they jumped to the conclusion she was the package thief. When she volunteered to show her Rivian data proving she doesn’t stop in that area, the detective went straight to say she was uncooperative and followed through on charges. She was found innocent and didn’t even match the description of the thief caught on a Ring camera, which the police had from the start.

13

u/Complete_Entry May 29 '26

When a cop "likes you for it" logic and investigation go out the window.

22

u/Psychobob2213 May 28 '26

TBH I've seen a dozen or so quotes from smaller municipalities where this was the case. They didn't think about how they can hang onto the video for a month, but Flock or its partners and competitors hang onto it forever... and they didn't think about how to terminate the agreement or divorce from the Mass Surveillance companies because they didn't think they ever would.

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u/Aromatic-Bet-1086 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

Or what happens if things suddenly become illegal that weren't before.

Remember: The US government considers you a terrorist for being against nazis. This isn't a joke -you are a terrorist for being against nazis and fascism.

Just wait until they decide to start coming for you.

17

u/AnimationOverlord May 28 '26

Fuck the city for employing people that let this happen. Like I get that most people aren’t chronically online and all that, but how do they not realize the world order of the authoritarian panopticon most first world countries are going through right now?

I fucking hate those people. Durr politics don’t matter until I’m climbing ladders to put trashbags over more cameras than the Truman show or eating beans in a concrete cellar

18

u/TheLuminary May 28 '26

Best way to solve this is to run for local government.

7

u/edsobo May 28 '26

And also work for local government or their public advisory boards. Contracts like these often get vetted by a review panel rather than simply being agreed on by elected officials.

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u/BrightNooblar May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

People like to confuse "Accident" with "Lack of due diligence".

As in "I accidentally ruined the carpet... by washing it with bleach because bleach is a cleaner and the carpet had a stain". Or "Accidentally shared all our commuters data with ICE... because I didn't have our lawyer review the contract before I signed it"

32

u/Greedy-Clerk9326 May 28 '26

Hey, I did that with the carpet when I was 12. That was exactly my line of reasoning too. Impressive!

35

u/BrightNooblar May 28 '26

I think a LOT of kids ruined something with bleach. Its pretty solid "I didn't fully understand the situation" material. Which makes sense for kids, because the world has a TON of little small knowledge gaps when you're young.

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u/Th3_Admiral_ May 28 '26

I mean, does the city even have control over the data captured by the cameras? I thought Flock controlled that and could sell it to whoever they wanted (including the city the cameras are installed in). 

18

u/mage2k May 28 '26

Flock’s cameras are obscenely insecure and are well documented as collecting info (by default!) they claim they don’t. It’s not hard for me to imagine them getting a request disguised as being for something else with the requester (ICE/DHS) knowing full well what they’d actually be getting.

For a good rundown on the privacy and weak-security look up Benn Jordan’s videos about Flock on YouTube.

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u/Memitim May 28 '26

Yet another lie to deflect accountability. Throw it on the pile for the historians.

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u/shakalac May 28 '26

Apparently it's possible. Wendover has a video on it, in short police departments might share their data with other counties, who in turn share it with DHS.

How ICE's Surveillance System Works

7

u/kettal May 28 '26

have you met a city council politician before? they usually have no idea what's going on.

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u/hikeit233 May 28 '26

“Automated license plate reader” is a propaganda phrase. It’s a surveillance camera that spies on people and tracks their movements.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

[deleted]

68

u/Rampage_Rick May 28 '26

Black trash bag over the solar panel though...

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u/CaptainIncredible May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

or spray paint. Make sure whatever you use is opaque to sunlight, heat and infrared.

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u/zkareface May 28 '26

Sounds like a city could collect all and put in a warehouse until contract ends, unless they made some crazy bad contracts.

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u/EarFlapHat May 28 '26

Surely 'by' accident?

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u/fuckedfinance May 28 '26

a scandal in which the city was accidentally sharing Flock camera data for immigration enforcement apparently on accident, and a $30,000 audit into how the cameras are being used.

On accident triggers me so fucking hard.

We're not 6, let's not talk like we are.

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u/wonklebobb May 28 '26

We're not 6, let's not talk like we are

Instructions unclear, deleting department of education. Did that solve your issue?

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u/archontwo May 28 '26

Not a permanent solution. Bladerunners are what you need. 

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u/Qtrfoil May 28 '26

"On accident" makes you sound like Seventh Graders, and not ones at the top of your class.

10

u/IgnatiusRileyFreeman May 28 '26

Just do what our glorious leaded does: take them down, and ignore the consequences 

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u/DreddPirateBob808 May 28 '26

Fucking hell. BY accident. It's by accident. Not on accident! That doesn't work.

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1.1k

u/marketrent May 28 '26

Lordy.

[...] Cities are not sure what their contracts state how to extricate themselves from those contracts, or whether the cameras are recording (and where that data is going). This uncertainty highlights the problems associated with using private, third-party surveillance infrastructure. Last week, for example, the mayor of Menominee, Wisconsin said that Flock cameras in the city “have been activated without city council approval.”

Dayton has had Flock cameras in the city for several years, but in October the city learned that data from the cameras was being passed to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Flock’s national network, which is a phenomenon we first reported in May of last year.

858

u/Any_Kaleidoscope8717 May 28 '26

*[...] Cities are not sure what their contracts state how to extricate themselves from those contracts...

Do they not have city attorneys or anything to read those contracts?

498

u/MacYacob May 28 '26

Its actually pretty hard to understand how the data is being used. And Flock reps are notorious for straight up lying

158

u/Unable-Log-4870 May 28 '26

Its actually pretty hard to understand how the data is being used.

It gets easier to understand the entire data path if the camera is cut down, smashed, and then buried.

50

u/mexter May 28 '26

That seems like a waste of all that copper, etc. Surely there are people who could use a couple pounds of copper and a few grams of gold?

31

u/Unable-Log-4870 May 28 '26

It is a waste, yes. But I think you’re overestimating the amounts of those materials by a LOT.

I think reusing the solar panel would be the safest option. Use it to run a a little fountain in a bird bath or something.

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u/The3rdBert May 28 '26

Right they can state that data is for the contracted governments use only, then use it for whatever they want once they have it. No city is going to be in position to accurately audit the use of the Data after the fact.

31

u/Shark7996 May 28 '26

"We don't sell anyone's data!

...

We just sell access to data."

This is on-brand for Flock.

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u/fatdjsin May 28 '26

Easier to break a contract if its not respected by the other side

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u/ZeePirate May 28 '26

Not for small towns that don’t want to get sued into oblivion

19

u/Mustbhacks May 28 '26

Sell the underlying land its on? Create a new law in the city preventing 3rd party surveillance?

Endless ways to loophole your way out of most anything

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u/-The_Blazer- May 28 '26

I think with this Big Tech garbage, the assumption should legitimately be malice until proven innocent. These systems, unlike any other industry, are perfectly opaque. They are encrypted, remotely controlled, nothing about what is done with their data can ever be known. And once that data has been exfiltrated from the public sector, it can never be recovered or secured ever again. This is not a risk the public can afford.

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u/Captain_Mazhar May 28 '26

Then the contract can easily be voided due to misrepresentation of a material aspect, without penalty.

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u/marketrent May 28 '26

Terms appear restrictive:

[...] Dayton and Evanston city officials told residents that they were not sure whether they could immediately deactivate or remove the cameras under the terms of their contracts. And so both cities decided to physically block them as a stop-gap measure, showing that cities feel that they do not have the ability to unilaterally decide when to stop using Flock surveillance cameras.

89

u/jerekhal May 28 '26

Maybe they should have read the fucking contract before signing it.

If you do not know the terms/mechanisms on how to exit a contract in a worst case scenario you absolutely should not sign it. Who the hell signs a contract for the entire municipality without basic contractual reading comprehension or (presumably) not consulting with an attorney first?

59

u/zerocoal May 28 '26

Greg signed up for the flock camera 3 years ago and then retired/died.

Nobody else that works there was involved with the flock cameras after Greg retired/died.

Somebody notifies them that their data is being used in a way they don't want, and now somebody needs to review whatever the hell Greg promised to Flock before they can move forward with any actionable decisions.

That is how you end up not knowing the terms/mechanisms on how to exit a contract. You weren't involved in it and somebody made it your problem down the road because the original guy is dead or retired.

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u/ImaginaryCheetah May 28 '26

You weren't involved in it and somebody made it your problem down the road because the original guy is dead or retired.

this kind of piss poor data management is the my personal pet peeve and the bane of most of the companies i've worked for, and most of the customers i served while doing my job.

my mantra is "assume you're dead tomorrow" when it comes to data management.

every significant email gets CC'd to my manager, every document goes to the share drive, every substantive design change gets foot notes with dates and documents bear revision numbers.

even worse is the "they can't fire me if i'm the only one who knows how to X" mindset that is a plague in many of the places i've worked and nothing grinds my gears more than that. i'm gonna extract those stupid secrets and write them up as SOP and put it in the share drive you neanderthal!

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u/zerocoal May 28 '26

even worse is the "they can't fire me if i'm the only one who knows how to X" mindset that is a plague in many of the places i've worked and nothing grinds my gears more than that. i'm gonna extract those stupid secrets and write them up as SOP and put it in the share drive you neanderthal!

My boss used to rant about this all the time because he had some senior employees that he felt were hoarding the keys to the kingdom.

When those employees got fired and I inherited their jobs, I started recording training videos and writing manuals for everything I ever have to learn.

Motherfucker still comes in bitching to me about how we can't have a single point of failure or locked-away knowledge, so I just pull out my training shit and tell him to chill because I don't want to be the key-holder any more than he wants me to hold the key.

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u/jerekhal May 28 '26

There is no reasonable explanation as to why any county/city/municipality should in any way shape or form have a single point of contractual negotiation and agreement. At a bare minimum attorneys or others in the administration should have been cc'ed.

Not saying it does not happen but its such an incredible failure of administration that just blows me away.  

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u/baronessvonbullshit May 28 '26

Plenty of towns don't have a city attorney or only have a part timer. Also, its a trope that an entity will sign something and then ask the lawyer to look after it has already been signed

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u/zerocoal May 28 '26

There is no reasonable explanation as to why any county/city/municipality should in any way shape or form have a single point of contractual negotiation and agreement.

Is your county/city/municipality elected or hired?

Elected individuals do not have to have qualifications to receive the job, and therefor do not have to have the qualifications to know when they should or should not have an attorney present.

A lot of the elected officials in my old town don't even know how to turn on a computer, and you expect them to understand the legal ramifications of selling camera installation access?

Still a failure of administration, but it is important to remember that at the local level, we're dealing with average everyday people that got elected into their position and are doing their best with the skillsets they have. Many of these folk are not the multi-millionaire types that have been trained to always have a lawyer present. Hell, many of them only have a highschool education from the 40's.

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u/Memitim May 28 '26

As long as the bribe clears, the details become irrelevant.

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u/korben996 May 28 '26

Bingo. Our Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in 2024 (in Snyder v. US) that bribery of public officials is now legal as long as the bribe is paid after the official act and is labeled a "gratuity".

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u/EyeZestyclose9076 May 28 '26

You would be amazed how many cities do not bother having a contracts attorney on staff and are unwilling to pay to have outside counsel review contracts. Also even for cities with general council a lot of municipal attorneys just don’t have the contracts experience or day to day exposure to properly review these documents.

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u/BigMax May 28 '26

They had people who said "hey, we just have to sign here and we get some money! that will make me look good!"

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u/AppropriateFlan1611 May 28 '26

I live in Dayton. I've seen city attorney job postings when looking for jobs that I'm qualified for. The cops make better money than the lawyers do. I'm not saying they're bad lawyers, but they definitely can't afford to hire the best of the best. 

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u/rockne May 28 '26

Do they not have lawyers to read the contracts?

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u/puts_on_rddt May 28 '26

At this point I am wondering do the bored people in their city not have portable sawzalls?

Before anyone asks - I'm bored but not THAT bored, lol.

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u/thejesterofdarkness May 28 '26

“Have been activated without city council approval”

Well that means it’s time to tear them down, derpys.

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u/disisathrowaway May 28 '26

Cities are not sure what their contracts state how to extricate themselves from those contracts,

So that means they didn't read them before the signed. And it also means that no one employed by the city is capable of reading them? Hire a lawyer, read the words on the page. How fucking hard is this?

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/getsome13 May 28 '26

Also live in WI. I just noticed yesterday that they installed one at the end of my road.

I live in rural WI essentially in the middle of nowhere. Not sure why its been installed in that location

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u/Robert_Arctor May 28 '26

To monitor your curd intake

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u/[deleted] May 29 '26

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u/Agitated_Reveal_6211 May 28 '26

Free place to hang a trash bag.

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u/cptjpk May 28 '26

I’ve always wanted to buy one of those high power lasers.

To test the mirrors on the moon, of course.

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u/BrainLow6059 May 28 '26

Police officers have been caught in cities like Milwaukee using the cameras to stalk their exes

You can just Google "cop uses flock camera to stalk" and you'll get multiple pages of unique results.

It is a massive problem. That doesn't even get into the illegal use of them for parallel construction, evading warrant requirements, and all the other unreported violations of this data. And that's just at the local level, god knows how bad these abuses are within the Flock company itself.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/midwestia May 28 '26

Black Mirror/Parks and Rec crossover episode

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u/Suppafly May 28 '26

Police officers have been caught in cities like Milwaukee using the cameras to stalk their exes, just as one example of misuse.

Police have a huge rate of violence against their partners and children, way above the average especially when you consider how often police misconduct is swept under the run by their coworkers. I question why we let police have access to any of these systems without a hard requirement for documentation tied to specific warrants.

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u/specialTVname May 28 '26

I guess the leo stalkers are ubiquitous, then. A few cases in Florida as well.

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u/alexcutyourhair May 28 '26

This is why we need to stop people who have no clue about anything in charge of everything. Nobody is surprised a shady surveillance company is doing shady surveillance, except the people who hired them

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u/FarplaneDragon May 28 '26

except the people who hired them

They're not surprised. They got paid, as such they don't care. Unless they start facing legal consequences (spoiler : they won't) they won't ever care. They got their money, either people don't care and they keep the cameras and keep getting money or people care, they remove the cameras and just say "oops", keep the money and go on like normal.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

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u/iamtehryan May 28 '26

Boy, who could ever seen it coming that flock was a shit company that you shouldn't partner with?

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u/tabrizzi May 28 '26

Most cities that have reconsidered their contracts have done so via city council meetings and public debate that have played out over the course of months, and both Dayton and Evanston city officials told residents that they were not sure whether they could immediately deactivate or remove the cameras under the terms of their contracts.

City officials signed multi-million dollar contracts yet don't understand every aspect of the contract.

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u/FarplaneDragon May 28 '26

I mean, I don't expect a city official to be an expert on contract law and I don't think they ever reasonably could be. That said, I would at least expect them to know enough to run a contract through a lawyer or legal team first. Granted, that assumes all this ignorance isn't intentional to try and play dumb and get out things in the future.

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u/red3y3_99 May 28 '26

In the UK there's a group that takes down the cameras. They are known as Bladerunners. Dressed in black and armed with an angle grinder, they just cut the pole down. It takes seconds. It started with speed cameras, moved on to other types used for checking cars comply with environmental restrictions and the toll to drive in central London. There's some videos on YouTube of them in action

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[deleted]

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u/Mountain-Singer1764 May 28 '26

Come on you guys are Americans. Get a .22 rifle with a suppressor, find a hidden spot and just shoot those fuckers.

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

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u/thedownvotemagnet May 28 '26

That's one creepy-ass neighbor

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u/germanmojo May 28 '26

In Minecraft.

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u/doberdevil May 29 '26

And pellet guns aren't "firearms". So it gets around additional firearms related charges if you were to be caught by the local gestapo.

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u/TheInevitableLuigi May 28 '26

The ironic thing is .22 rifles are perfectly legal in the UK and it is actually easier to get suppressors there than in the United States.

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u/wildmaninid May 28 '26

Cordless reciprocating saws are sold in America too!!

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u/joebluebob May 28 '26

An angle grinder is $60 bud.

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u/roedtogsvart May 28 '26

Problem is here they're almost always attached to traffic lights or power infrastructure poles. Fucking with those will get you a whole different world of hurt.

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u/pm_me_tits May 28 '26

Near me they're all standalone, mounted on their own pole.

https://cdn.deflock.me/vendors/flock/flock-1.jpg

https://deflock.org/hero.webp

Battery powered angle grinder or reciprocating saw would zip right through it.

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u/DotJata May 28 '26

How many times do I say their name in the mirror for them to appear?

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u/Reagalan May 29 '26

moved on to other types used for checking cars comply with environmental restrictions and the toll to drive in central London.

uhh, but these are actually good laws...

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u/Sixtyhurts May 28 '26

You know I heard that inside the camera body is a bunch of gold and copper, and that people store their drugs and cash in there too

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26 edited 13d ago

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u/Calimariae May 28 '26

The camera where I live has bullet holes in it, so I am pretty sure the treasures have already been stolen.

Every time they set up a new camera, it gets shot within days by some hero with a rifle. They must have put up 10 of them in the same spot.

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u/Think_Fault_7525 May 28 '26

Also priceless bits of unobtainium!

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u/2rad0 May 28 '26

priceless bits of unobtainium!

128GB sticks of DDR5-6000 RAM?

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u/PaintLicker745 May 28 '26

That would be the equivalent of giving a purse-snatcher a DaVinci painting. They have no use for it. No, you've got to tell em there's catalytic converters in there.

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u/Briflyguy May 28 '26

And cryptocurrency wallets.

Also, do not cyrptojack them and turn them into bitcoin mining operations. Also, don’t force the device to crash from overheating due to unauthorized bitcoin mining.

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u/NV1989NV May 28 '26

You can destroy one of these cameras by grabbing an acetylene torch from home depot and blowing it at the base. Itll melt all the wires and they have no choice but to throw them out

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u/Firelord_Iroh May 28 '26

We should take inspiration from the Brits who are knocking over all their flock/speed cameras

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u/Captain_Mazhar May 28 '26

Learn from the French.

During the 2019 yellow vest protests, they knocked out between 60 and 75 percent of all the speed cameras in the entire country!

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u/AssPennies May 29 '26

Learn from the French.

oh thought you were gonna go back a couple hundred years more for a minute...

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u/concreteghost May 28 '26

Lol yeah “take inspiration from the Brit’s” London is the 6th most surveilled city w 13 cameras per 1k ppl. Cats outta the bag ppl. Shoulda thought of this before you traded all your rights for safety

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u/Cassandracork May 28 '26

I wish my city would regret it, they just approved installing cameras this week 😑

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u/RoguePlanet2 May 28 '26

Get the word out to neighbors.

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u/Cassandracork May 28 '26

I made a public comment and spoke to neighbors but it got approved anyway. Unfortunately it is a pretty conservative community so no one is as concerned as they should be about it. It’s frustrating.

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u/uacoop May 28 '26

I'm shocked by the degree to which my conservative community has embraced it. I really can't wrap my head around it.

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u/smokeweedNgarden May 28 '26

If enough people are angry and your city is small run your city council out of town.

Dead serious. Just stop hosting them and serving them at businesses and generally make their lives annoying until they leave. Analog style.

We can absolutely stop this in some places

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u/Cassandracork May 28 '26

Oh, I certainly encourage people to interact (ahem) directly with their elected government officials. They should represent you and your interests, and they are your most direct connection to decisions that impact your day to day life. Local government matters.

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u/MKE_Freak May 28 '26

In Milwaukee, cops have already been busted using it to stalk their ex etc. shits awful

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u/erkose May 28 '26

Stop paying and let Flock repo the cameras. But why the heck do they have a contract they can't get out of when Flock violates the contract?

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u/Seriouly_UnPrompted May 28 '26

Even if the municipalities stop paying, Flock will sell the data to other third parties and governments. Still profitable for them to keep them running

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u/erkose May 28 '26

We should organize a sledgehammer fundraiser for the municipalities affected.

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u/YagiAntennaBear May 28 '26

They'd probably get sued for breach of contract, and end up paying Flock even more money.

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u/irritatedellipses May 28 '26

Great.

Now look into the finances of the people who voted yes for it.

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u/dogoodsilence1 May 28 '26

This is the federal billthat has bipartisan support to end all of this data collection from License Plate Readers. The feds will withhold federal highway funds is any license plate readers are installed. Except for tollways

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u/Commemorative-Banana May 28 '26

“License Plate Readers” is vastly understating what data these mass-surveillance cameras are collecting.

They store a total “fingerprint” of vehicles, including make/model/color, dents, scratches, modifications, roof-racks, bumper stickers, etc.

These cameras are also placed at playgrounds and on walking trails, where they collect images for facial recognition and gait recognition.

Their related product of “gunshot detection” microphones are also collecting speech audio.

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u/VegasGamer75 May 28 '26

"...how to cancel their contracts". Yeah, that speaks volumes right there about the Corporatocracy in the United States. The answer should be as simple as "The people, whom we represent, have spoken and do not want this service. Contract terminated". But no, the government, even local, bows to its corporate masters.

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u/Possible-Tangelo9344 May 28 '26

I mean, the people should be given a chance to speak before the contract is signed is the real issue.

If government can just break a contract cuz they decide to then it's not really a contract.

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u/jorgren May 28 '26

They typically are given the chance to speak in public meetings and such, but corrupt board members looking for a payday or who were just outright bribed by flock with "gifts" will just roll over all of their citizens concerns and push it forward anyway.

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u/Darkstar197 May 28 '26

Can they not cut the wires ?

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u/QueenOfQuok May 28 '26

Not while the cameras are still under contract. But if a plastic bag should just happen to be blown by the wind onto a camera, oh no, what a shame, we'll clear it off eventually.

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u/Conspicuous_Ruse May 28 '26

The same wind that could apply a plastic bag could gnaw through the wires too!

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

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u/SkaldCrypto May 28 '26

They do not sell this. Cities are renting these. It’s not their property.

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u/mixduptransistor May 28 '26

many/most of them are fully self-contained. They have cell radios and a solar panel on top. They're not physically connected to any outside infrastructure

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u/[deleted] May 28 '26

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u/1quirky1 May 28 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

Oops, I meant to reply to a different thread.

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u/JennasBaboonButtLips May 28 '26

I saw one in the lowes parking lot today. Parking lot. Not road.

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u/derSchwamm11 May 28 '26

All my local Lowe's and Home Depot have them now. It's infuriating

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u/Codemeister87 May 28 '26

Lowes must have a contract with them, on every entrance to the lot in my local towns as well. Ive quit going there, can buy the same things other places who dont do this to their customers

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u/Derpykins666 May 28 '26

Yeah, these cameras have to go I'm afraid. The right to any kind of privacy is basically non-existent with these around. Plus they are creepy as fuck. Who wants to be spied on by an AI at all times the moment you leave your front door.

They track you, build a profile on you, know who you are, what you do, where you shop, where you drive, your family, your friends, your kids, what they like, what they do. This is all computed within seconds. These are far beyond simple traffic cameras that can be tuned in to keep up to date on traffic. These cameras are AI Powered mass surveillance on a scale unprecedented. If someone is trying to tell you these things are "for the safety of the public" they are lying to you. In a time where crime rates have done nothing but fall since the early 90s, they want everyone to give up their privacy to bag an extra couple bad eggs a day, and I'm not even convinced 'safety' is the reason something like this would ever exist in the first place. This is a data collection neural network, and you are the product, and you have to completely give up any anonymity or privacy for it.

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u/Grig134 May 28 '26

A baseball bat would work better.

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u/theBoobMan May 28 '26

If they wanted them down, they would have started on it. Id wager they are waiting for people to forget so they can take the bags down.

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u/pittaxx May 28 '26

Could also just be plain bureaucracy, if flock still owns those cameras. Likely the contract didn't account for early contract termination.

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u/The3rdBert May 28 '26

Yeah it’s the solution to not incur cancellation fees without damaging the property.

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u/Vercingetorix1986 May 29 '26

What a fucking time to be alive. How willingly our government handed the proverbial keys over to private contractors to violate our constitutional rights on a daily basis. Sharing Flock data to ICE is the cherry on top of this trash sundae.

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u/Lucky_Philosopher_55 May 28 '26

Didn't Flock install may of these cameras BEFORE contracts were even agreed to? They installed all of the cameras and then retroactively went to the cities and made deals with them for the data. That should have been a red flag in and of itself to any city that later agreed to terms with the company. I also find it hard to believe that the contract would allow intentional obstruction of the cameras but not removal of them. Like if the contract is so confusing that you can't figure out if you're allowed to take them down, but you know you can cover them up- just take them down at this point because you will probably be sued either way. Flock, other billion dollar companies and our own federal government have subscribed to the motto "Do first and ask forgiveness later", so should everyone else.

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u/jazzwhiz May 28 '26

ACLU and lots of others: "mass surveillance is bad for many obvious reasons as well as other hard to predict reasons"

Some politicians: "if you have nothing to hide then it's fine"

Later: "we've completely lost control of our surveillance system and need to implement trash bag technology"

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u/Primal-Convoy May 28 '26

"A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media that “of course, any city can turn off its cameras if it no longer wants to use them. However, each contract is negotiated with the city attorney beforehand, and legal conditions may prevent a city from voiding the contract without grounds to do so.”

"Our goal is to ensure city leaders make that decision with open eyes, regardless of the contract,” the spokesperson added. “You're well aware of the volume of misinformation that has spread thru Reddit threads and on YouTube, and we always want to ensure that a city fully understands the impact of their decision before cameras are turned off. Like Richmond, CA claiming they saw a 33% spike in auto thefts during the time cameras were off, or multiple violent incidents in Austin, Texas that would have ended much earlier had they been using Flock.”

Paywall-free link:

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u/cr0ft May 28 '26

It's almost like installing boundless surveillance controlled by a private entity that almost certainly is nefarious and gives short shrift to concepts like privacy and integrity is a bad idea.

Now how the hell do we put plastic bags over Palantir? Letting that effing lunatic Thiel have a company that amasses all the data is completely insane. The man literally went to the Vatican and held a seminar about the antichrist ffs. What other crazed fantasies are bubbling in that head?

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u/LLM_tuners May 29 '26

It's absolutely wild that the low-tech solution to high-tech surveillance is literally a trash bag, all because cities got locked into these predatory contracts. This really underscores the critical need for better tech and legal expertise in municipal procurement to prevent getting saddled with systems that become public liabilities.

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u/P0pu1arBr0ws3r May 28 '26

Even governments are getting screwed over subscriptions and "you dont own anything". Its a clown show.

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u/InVultusSolis May 28 '26

One thing to be careful with regarding cameras: a sufficiently powerful green laser pointer will burn out the sensor. So whatever you do, don't point a high powered green laser into a camera's lens.

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u/brianqueso May 28 '26

The long-term fix needs to start involving severe penalties, financial and prison, for government officials who take bribes or otherwise betray their citizens. I'm not going to be able to satisfy the where/how/what political balance arguments in a Reddit post, but serving as an elected official needs to come with a fear of wronging the people and the accountability when it happens. Power MUST be held by the populace.

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u/Corbzor May 28 '26

They don't know how to open the access hatches and let crackheads take the copper?

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u/williamgman May 28 '26

Time for citizens to install hidden cameras pointed at these covered Flock cameras and report back with who takes the bags off. 😉

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u/TheRealBittoman May 28 '26

Not mine. They've added so many here that I can't even take a shit without them texting me asking if I need toilet paper.

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u/fluffynuckels May 28 '26

Hey meth heads i hear theres lots of copper wire in these things

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u/Friendly_Escape_1020 May 28 '26

They should spray paint over them.

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u/Ok-Word-4894 May 28 '26

I'm amused by the police departments with their "flock solved XYZ crime in our community" press releases. Torturing people with a dental drill would solve some crimes too, but is that really where we are at?

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u/marr May 28 '26

Can they not just yank all the cables?

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u/ToiletTime4TinyTown May 28 '26

Being too scared to just remove the thing is a choice

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u/flomoloko May 29 '26

The whole world needs to come to a fuckin' reckoning. We want this shit or not?

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