It continually surprises me that these tools operate on basically trust. Why cops have direct access to these databases is baffling. I don't have much hope for florida to regulate its police but at least mandating providing a reason to use the database seems like a very reasonable thing to legislate.
Flock knows what inter-agency data sharing is legal and not legal in what states. So you think they'd have the functionality to disable forbidden data sharing when they sign a new agency in that state. They don't do that. "That's not our responsibility." And not only that, but:
Agency: Could we get training on how to do [forbidden data sharing]?
Flock: Absolutely. It's illegal in your state. Now that I've said that, here's how you do it in the app.
https://www.sf.gov/news--san-franciscos-new-public-safety-ca...
Because Americans think everything is a partisan issue, despite things like this happening under multiple federal administrations of differing parties and in States that are, effectively, single party of both major parties.
Edit: anyway, the "bureaucratic" overhead of providing a reason seems to be unlikely to impede police work if indeed there is a legitimate reason to access these databases.
But bureaucracy itself exists for a good reason. The hard part is finding a balance.
https://x.com/pjreddie/status/1230524770350817280
https://pjreddie.com/darknet/yolo/
https://medium.com/@graham.wallington/the-evolution-of-yolo-...
https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/monroe-county-deputy-arr...
https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/sfpd-says-license-plate-...
"San Francisco police said they have disabled access to their network of Flock Automated License Plate Reader cameras"
Also of note, how much backlash the Mayor and SFPD faced about approving the contract in the first place against public opinion.
I'm looking for what evidence it would take to convince you that this isn't a partisan issue.
Before that the "spoils" system was able to check size of the executive branch as the people were allowed to elect someone to shit-can the previous servants. As it stands now the people have been essentially ripped of their previous voting power to elect an executive to make significant reductions of the civil service.
So I'd argue the Republicans did start it.
https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/10/newsom-vet...