this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are AI-powered cameras that capture and analyze images of all passing vehicles, storing details like your car’s location, date, and time. They also capture your car’s make, model, color, and identifying features such as dents, roof racks, and bumper stickers, often turning these into searchable data points. These cameras collect data on millions of vehicles—regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime. While these systems can be useful for tracking stolen cars or wanted individuals, they are mostly used to track the movements of innocent people.
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This is a city of ~25K people, so quite small. Several articles have pointed out that the city, not Flock, bears the costs of the vandalism, so in this instance the city counsel that enabled the city to enter into the contract with Flock to the detriment of its citizens have now burdened the city with a substantial budget item. If the cameras are replaced, you can bet that they will likely be torn down again. At some point there will be a reckoning with voters, and hopefully the idiots that enabled the surveillance state will be voted out.
They don't even have to be voted out if the voters persuade them to resign.
Even if it's the city that beats the cost, at some point they will decide it's no longer worth the cost to replace them.
Probably still paying for them even if not there. Some stupid contract.
Yes, but not paying for new cameras to be installed, and the contracts will end.
My City Council made an agreement to install them early last year when they should have known better, but with all the recent backlash against them they're pretty much guaranteed not to renew the contract. I'm hoping they decide to cover the cameras for the remainder of the contract, but I'm not sure if the contract allows that.
Maybe. But still incentivizes not renewing the contract. One can hope.
That money will be gone either way, might as well not have the dystopian cams.
Lol. You know that last sentence is satire or you are an idiot.
Should we all just give up and never resist? Resistance can work.
Fuck off. Voting works when people do it.
We shouldn't be waiting for elections to come around to get rid of fascist politicians.
You’re right but that’s not at all what I was saying or pushing back against so thanks I suppose.
Last election in the US the people voted for the fascist politician. Knowing he was a fascist politician. Some stayed at home knowing the fascist politician could win.
It might be that people just enjoy the fascism and the online echo chamber is not reflective of real life.
The catch here is the question of democratic legitimacy: If people believe that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed and that this consent should be established and communicated through the results of a popular vote, it's gonna be hard to get them to support a replacement whose mandate doesn't derive from such an election.
So you can take out the fascists, but that doesn't mean that you can install non-fascists and have the relevant organs of government obey them.
It doesn't really matter if they support it. As we've seen with the current administration, things can be forced through in spite of the will of the governed.
...because the people carrying out the orders obey the people giving them. My argument is that they do so because they believe that the people giving these orders have the right to give them (legitimacy).
If you installed an illegitimate (in the sense of "not democratically elected", even if it had broad support anyway) government, people loyal to the democratic system rather than any particular faction may not be so cooperative.
No one working for the current administration is loyal to the democratic system. That went out the window as soon as Trump got in office and started pumping out executive orders.
I think you're confusing the politicians with the people carrying out the orders.
If your boss, elected or appointed according to the rules, gives you an order his office is empowered to give, without the organs that have the power to check him interfering, it would be quite presumptuous of you to decide whether or not the order is lawful.
A state governed and administrated by institutions hinges on those institutions carrying out their function. The issue isn't that people are obeying orders, it's that the institutions whose job it would be to declare those orders unlawful are dragging their feet or just plainly not doing their job.
It's the tip that's abusing the democratic system to derail it, but you're not gonna save it just by blowing up the rails yourself: You'll need to have new (better) rails ready for a quick and smooth transfer.
Literally Nazi logic.
The rails are already blown. We're not getting rid of these fuckers without playing by their rules. Once that's taken care of we can work on strengthening the safeguards that will prevent that in the future.
With clearly immoral ones, sure. ACAB, fuck 🧊, fuck people bombing civilians, fuck people evicting the destitute. They should know that they're playing a part in atrocities. They should disobey such commands.
But for the government workers further down the pecking order, it can be hard to tell their part in the big picture. If it's less obvious, even if the legality is questionable, that's harder for a layperson to decide. Without a high-level view (particularly if that view is discussed behind closed doors and only gets out much later), individual orders may seem benign.
Edit: I should clarify that I'm not condoning blind obedience. I'm acknowledging that a lot of people work that way, and it would be reckless to ignore that factor in planning any kind of action.
In a working (representative) democracy (which we both agree isn't the case), the courts should strike illegal ones down and the representatives should stop those that threaten the people. If neither happens, it's easier for the worker to assume that what they're told is in line with the democratic will and that they're doing the right thing. Crucially, that requires them to assume that their chain of command actually is legitimised by the democratic process:
An elected president, governor, mayor or town council member, even if fucked up, has a democratic mandate. Someone claiming command without such a mandate will have a harder time being respected.
Hence, it's important that whatever comes after the fascists is confirmed by democratic election. The election alone might not fix things, but you're not gonna make any fix stick without either an election to legitimise it or a thorough repression apparatus silencing all dissent, Stalin style.
Are elections still a thing? Are offices at least ostensibly being appointed by popular vote? Then the rails of my metaphor still exist. The conductors are fascists, but so far, they haven't managed to completely dismantle the notion that government should be installed by the people.
"Blowing up the rails" here would mean appointing non-elected people to the offices that the fascists previously holding them have "vacated".
No argument from me there; my argument is focused entirely on what happens after they have been gotten rid of.
And on this point, my advice is to prepare those safeguards already. Whatever form "taken care of" might take will cause disruption, and while people have some patience for it, stabilising the result will require limiting it as far as possible to make it clear that you're not their enemy, just the fascists'.
So once the latter have been disposed of, the transition to a new, orderly and (actually) democratic system should happen as swiftly and with as little additional disruption as possible. That's what I mean with having new rails ready.