We Can Stop Flock

Let me tell you a story. I don't know how many years ago, probably over 10 years ago. I'm at the age where I think something was 3 years ago and then someone goes, "No, that was 15 years ago." But probably over a decade ago, the county I live in, uh, it got red light traffic cameras. Those things are horrible. They're just a scam. Uh, and I can't believe the counties have them. Luckily, after a year, my county got rid of them. We only had them for the one year. I don't know what happened. I don't know if people complained or if just the right people complained, but we were able to get rid of them. And they just they don't work, okay? I mean, they work at giving people tickets, but do they make things safer? That's That's something you can argue. Now, I'm a firefighter for those of you who don't know, and I see lots of accidents. And there are lots of accidents of people trying to run red lights. Uh, sometimes by accident, sometimes people just trying to make the light. But also, I see a lot of people in accidents slamming on their brakes to avoid going through red lights. This happens a lot at fire stations, funny enough. So, lots of our fire stations will have a flashing yellow light out in front of the station, and then we have a little button we can click, or actually, we used to click a button. Now, that the truck automatically triggers it when our lights are on. Um, and it will make that light cycle to red. And it goes from a flashing yellow at the bottom to a solid yellow and then to a red. It is quite often people slam on their brakes for those. And I I remember when I, you know, before I was a firefighter, driving by a fire station that I went by regularly and doing the same thing. I don't know if it's just in our minds where they're used to not stopping at that light. And then all of a sudden, it's changing to yellow or if it's just because it's going from a flashing yellow to a solid yellow. But people slam on the brakes all the time. And accidents happen a lot, and even more so, people almost get into accidents. The first person slams on the brakes, the next person kind of slams on the brakes, and so forth. It's like, lots of times we're leaving this fire station, it's like, "Oh, no, there's going to be an accident right here." Slamming on your brakes to not go through a red light is almost as dangerous as going through a red light. >> [clears throat] >> But my point here is my county did get rid of it. When I'm driving on road trips, my Mazda I bought used, the last person paid extra money to have the navigation system in there. It's a 2016, so it's 10 years old, so the maps are a little outdated, but when I am in certain towns like certain parts of Orlando or Tampa, it will tell me when there's a traffic light camera. It will go traffic camera light camera ahead. It's actually quite annoying. Like I'm glad that it didn't like those maps aren't from when my county have it cuz it would be really annoying if it was constantly saying it when I'm driving around, especially if there aren't traffic light cameras. But when I'm on trips, I really appreciate that. And I always think when I hear that why do the people in this county allow this? Cuz it clearly this is this is these are uh private companies and I'm sure that these politicians are getting kickbacks cuz there's there's no other reason to have them. It's it's collecting money uh and going to a third party. I'm sure the county or city or whatever gets some of the money, obviously, but it's not making things safer and it's just annoying. But my point here is you know, if you've been keeping up on things, everywhere you go, there are these Flock cameras. Um and we could get rid of them if enough people speak up because just like the red light cameras. I And again, with the Flock cameras, I'm sure that these politicians, a lot of them, I'm not saying all of them, but a lot of them are probably getting something on the side. Um cuz cuz it's just an invasion of privacy. They tout that oh, it's it they usually the way they word it is it's used is so many times in the solving of crime. Well, just cuz it's used doesn't mean it actually solves the crime. And maybe And I'm sure it does help. And I can do a whole video on on how there's a whole bunch of cameras everywhere and how my main issues with these is one, that it's government-run and the government shouldn't be watching us all the time. Individuals still, you know, stores and stuff, there are cameras everywhere where And the Flock cameras just kind of avoid the whole needing to request that through proper channels. If a store wants to have cameras on their property, that's fine. And you know, if they want to request that, that can help solve crimes. We don't need to feed this all into one system AI system that's following it all. But I saw a post on Facebook uh of a friend of mine from high school, someone I haven't seen in over 20 years. But she posted something, you know, talking about how bad the Flock cameras are. And someone else commented on it, "Oh, people complaining about these Flock cameras, uh they're they're over exaggerating. We all have cell phones in our pockets, they're way more intrusive." Okay. First of all, let's say that's true that that that that's that's how you do it. Just because there's something bad over here that people are ignoring, doesn't mean we should also ignore the bad thing over here, right? So, if the cell phones are bad, that doesn't mean that we should ignore the Flock camera bad. But there is a huge difference, right? I have no control over the Flock camera besides going to politicians and complaining. Where a phone, I could say "I'm not going to carry my phone." Okay? So, I could also, if you have a phone that can be unlocked, I can install and control all the software on my phone, except for maybe some some stuff that's embedded in the chips. That that's hard to get around. Uh you can be like, "Oh, that's a technical thing." Uh maybe people aren't technical, but you still have the choice at any point not to bring your phone with you. Cuz even shutting off your phone, or even even if I clear out and I mistrust all the software on my phone, you're still pinging these towers, and the cell phone provider probably knows who you are. So, there's still a private privacy concern there. But at any point, I can make the decision, "I'm going to leave this phone at home." Right? Or I'm not going to install this app. And there's there's you know, again, leaving it at home or not even having a cell phone. A lot of people say it's not an option, but it is an option cuz we all used to not have cell phones back in the day. You could do that. You could choose to do that. It might be difficult for you, but you could choose to do that. These Flock cameras, I have no choice. The only thing I could do is have a cell phone with an application that tells me where they are and gives me routes around them. But sometimes you can't even do that. I'm pretty sure I can't go I can't leave my house and go more than 3 miles cuz where I live uh it's a bunch of dead end streets. There's only like two exits and I'm pretty sure there's Flock cameras at both of them. So, I I I can't leave my house without going by a Flock camera. Um and I don't have a choice in that again other than speaking up and complaining and and informing other people about it. But my cell phone, I could not have a cell phone. I could have a burner cell phone. I could leave my cell phone at home. I take the steps uh as much as I can to to make sure my software isn't spying on me. But again, even if you have all free and open source software and you trust all your software, you still have a device that's pinging a server so they know within a couple of miles where you are at all times. Um but that's just there's no way around that. Other than not having a cell phone. So, saying, "Oh, there's this privacy concern, just ignore that because we already have this privacy concern." No, no. Address both of them. This one, get rid of it. This one, get rid of it or modify it. Th- there's always something that can be done. But just to ignore it, yeah, that person's part of the problem. Uh and I know lots I I don't know lots of people. Most people I talk to are like, "Yeah, these Flock cameras are bad." And a lot of people aren't going to do anything about it other than maybe complain and make some posts on Facebook. But even doing that, complaining and in in informing other people. But I have had family members who go, "Oh, I think these cameras are great cuz I like watching these mystery shows where they solve crimes and watching them use all these cameras to track down the criminals is so great." And it's like, "Well, great. And you'll give up our freedom so that you can watch some interesting show." And again, companies and businesses, you can't stop people on their personal property from having cameras. Uh my issue is even if you have one on your property, like these Ring doorbells, I any any type of device. I don't understand why people use these services that are monitoring, tracking them when it's so simple to do things yourself. And And that's one of the points of my channel to show people how to do that and point out how simple it is. Um for example, uh I have cameras on my property that I have replaced with fully free and open source software. Um and I've done videos talking about that. So, depending on the camera, some cameras smell matter of copying a file to an SD card, putting it into the camera, and then turning it on, and it will flash it with open source free and open source um firmware that you have complete control over and you can trust. And this is great because it works great with really cheap cameras. So, I find most times the cheap stuff that most people are concerned about because it's coming from China and other countries that they're worried about spying on us, you can buy them cheap, but they're the ones that are usually the easiest to modify to remove that stuff. Unlike getting something from the Ring doorbell or Google, where it's locked down and there's not much you can do. But, my point is main point is in this video is that we do have some control and say it's it even if we were to get to a point where we have to get our freedoms back, it's probably not going to be in my lifetime. It's going to take a lot of work, but we shouldn't just ignore it. We shouldn't just go, "Oh, there's already something bad. I should ignore this other thing that's bad." Uh and if you're not familiar with the Flock cameras, do some YouTube searches. Uh and and part of the issue also is the way it's so easy for people to get into them and view them and pull down that information that they shouldn't have access to. But, I mean, the companies have access to it. Uh recently, one of the people uh I'm friends with on Facebook posted an article, I guess over in Orlando, the or near Orlando, I don't know if it was Orlando or near Orlando, but Central Florida area, there's a sheriff who temporarily, at least, has shut down the Flock camera program because and this has happened a number of times they caught one of their uh their investigators, or somebody working for the sheriff's department using it to stalk people. That person was fired and is possibly going to jail. And they at least temporarily shut down those cameras. There are many, many issues with these Flock cameras. And it's just it's just circumvents freedoms that we should have. Uh and letting people know is part of the battle. So, I'm here talking about it. Again, for the example in my county, we had those red light cameras for 1 year. And I'm sure the county just didn't go "Oh, we put them in for a year. Now we're taking them out." cuz I'm sure the county was making plenty of money off the tickets and a lot of it going to a third-party company. Somebody, somewhere complained. And the right people talked to the right people or the right number of people complained. You you do have control. Sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but you get enough people and we get rid of these people who go, "Oh, it's a non-issue." We get enough people who say, "This is an issue." and they complain, well, then we can make changes. And that's just an example of it. It's hard sometimes, and it seems like it's slow-moving, but you can do it. And enough people, it seems like, are complaining about these Flock cameras. Uh most people just don't know about them. People who know about them, I think a majority of people are against them. Then you have the handful of I'm just going to say it, idiots who think that it's a good thing. So, let me know what you think in the comments below. Do you Are you what I would consider an idiot that think these are a good thing? I'm all for tracking down crimes, but there's no reason that police can't go and go, "Oh, there's a camera on that business over there. Let's go request that or get a warrant like I should to get that information." Um you know, and sometimes things are urgent. You can go to that business and ask. I'm sure you can ask and not force them, and they can give it over. Some If if I had a camera on my property that recorded something and a cop came and said, "Hey, can we we had a a crime happen over here? I could go in and go, "Hey, yep, here's the 30 seconds you need or the minutes you see." Not, "Oh, here's everything." I have some control of that. Or I could say no. You know, I have that option. Go get a warrant. Um but there's plenty plenty of cameras around. We don't need AI dumping through and reading through and looking at our faces, looking at our bumper stickers, looking at our license plates, and just tracking everywhere we go. And again, I know that's not the only thing it's tracking. Again, if you have a cell phone, uh they or not even a cell phone, right? Uh our cars have tire gauges in them that send out wireless signals that can be tracked. And and I've Again, I said 10 years ago, probably 20 years ago, I saw video on Hak5. Does that channel still exist? I haven't watched it in forever. Uh where they interviewed a guy who made an open source project with a little um a radio uh software-defined radio dongle and was able to monitor the tire pressure sensors that send out, you know, basically a serial number regularly. And if you have enough sensors, you can track where people go. Supposedly, there are po- poles around that are doing that. They're less conspicuous than the Flock cameras. But just cuz those exist doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about Flock cameras. Maybe we should be concerned about both. Anyway, thanks again for watching. Film Riot Chris.com. I hope that you have a great day.