Flock cameras are getting mobbed | CNN

Over the last few months, people have cut down surveillance cameras owned by the company Flock Safety with an electric saw in upstate New York, thrown paint on them in Oakland, California, and rammed a truck into them in Idaho. One man in Florida sits in a lawn chair holding up a piece of cardboard on a pole to block the camera’s view. City governments have joined in by deactivating the cameras or canceling contracts with Flock in Fort Collins, Colorado; Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Knoxville, Tennessee; Syracuse, New York; and Walla Walla, Washington. Flock sells its services as a crime-fighting tool, built on a network of cameras that record and analyze everything that passes by them. Law enforcement agencies that have contracts with Flock use its troves of observed license plate numbers and other vehicle data to track or reconstruct the movements of vehicles in criminal investigations. If you live in the US, you have likely passed a Flock Safety camera. They log cars' details, capture images of people and feed data into one searchable system across 49 states. Some police officers have reportedly been caught misusing the technology. A number of residents are pushing back