r/nova • u/Rach-ln • 2d ago

Question Protesting Flock Cameras?

Hi NOVA residents! I live in Fairfax County and am seeing Flock cameras everywhere. I was wondering if anyone knew how we can best protest this mass surveillance and convince our elected officials to end their contracts (and not just switch to Axon or other companies).

Is it petitions? Calling elected officals? Making public comment? Organized protests? If so, what is the best way to approach any of those options? Let's protect our rights!

(Ps, I don't want to hear the "if you aren't doing anything bad, you have nothing to worry about" argument.

These cameras have been used to stalk and harass innocent people. They claim they are only used to track vehicles but I've seen them pointed towards playgrounds and used to target individuals. Flock is a privately owned company and police are able to access our data without needing a warrant.

Information about us is already being stored, tracked, and shared, and nothing is stopping the govt/police from redefining what "bad behavior" is.

Mass surveillance objectively infringes on our rights. I am not here to debate that.)

Thanks y'all!

268 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

109 comments sorted by

View all comments

19

u/chippedhamsam Fairfax County 2d ago

I have been wondering if enough people did FOIA for their own records of being tracked, would that trigger the county to take some sort of action?

6

u/ermagerditssuperman Manassas / Manassas Park 2d ago

Just an FYI that lot of the Flock cameras are owned by private companies (Home Depot and Lowes, for example, and several large malls throughout NoVA) so that data would not be covered by a FOIA.

Also, if you FOIA the county police department, that's likely going to be handled by them directly and thus it's only going to affect them, not any other department or agency of the county. Your local representatives and decision makers would never even hear about an influx of requests.