In what was styled the German Democratic Republic – which was in fact Communist East Germany – the secret police, the Stasi, worked by using what felt like every East German to spy on every other East German. A man could not be sure his wife or best friend weren’t Stasi stoolies.
Fast-forward about 40 years. The car behind you – or coming at you – could be “Stasi” also, courtesy of Flock Safety.
You don’t really need to know more than that (the name) to know something not good is coming. Flock – a collection animals, such as sheep. Safety – goes without saying. Or ought to by now. Put the two together and what you have is a company that wants to use the “flock” – privately owned vehicles with dashcams – to force-multiply the Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) it builds for the American iteration of the Stasi; i.e., law enforcement.
That term, by the way, at least has the merit of straightforwardness going for it (unlike “democratic” as the greasy euphemism for Communism). The law must be enforced – because it’s the law. No room for nuance, much less difficult questions about whether a thing is right or wrong. Just inflexible, mindless obeisance.
Which brings us back to these Automated Plate Readers.
ALPRs are a species of intelligent camera system used by law enforcement to passively scan the license plates of all the vehicles that pass by the ALPR – they work very much like the bar code scanner that is used to identify groceries on the conveyor belt at a supermarket checkout – and cross-reference each with plate number with state databases that correlate license plate numbers with the owners of the vehicles the plates are affixed to.
The ALPR can quickly identify vehicles with out-of-date registration, un-renewed or nonexistent insurance and just about anything else that correlates the license plate number with the vehicle’s registered owner. It’s a fine way to force-multiply the fines that can be issued because it doesn’t even require that a cop issue them. They can be sent automatically, through the mail – while the cop sips his coffee and eats his donut.
You can bet the insurance mafia is champing at the bit to get in on this action, too.
ALPRs can also be used to create a massive database of people’s movements. Including the movements of people who have not committed any crime or offense against the state.
This latter is important.
If you drive by a cop and he sees your plates are out of date or your “safety” inspection sticker isn’t current, he has pretext to pull you over – during the course of which you’ll be identified and a record will be made of the time and location of the stop. But ALPRs are indiscriminate; every car that passes near one is scanned and the location/time is almost certainly is recorded. The system – multiple ALPRs, all tied into a central database – has the capability of monitoring the presence in real time of countless vehicles as they come and go. This can be used to paint a picture of where you and many others have been and when without anyone other than the state knowing this data has been collected – and without even the pretext that a law was violated.
It is like issuing everyone an ankle bracelet before they’ve been convicted of anything because they might do something. Even if they don’t. It doesn’t matter – to the state. It wants – as the disembodied voice in that old BBC TV series The Prisoner put it – information.
ALPRs an be mounted almost anywhere, as on a pole at an intersection or on a law enforcer’s vehicle. Flock Safety wants to mount them in your vehicle – effectively. It is reportedly partnering with Nexar, which sells AI-powered dashcams that are basically “civilian” iterations of ALPRs used by law enforcers. They record trillions of images a month – Nexar styles this a “crowdsourced vision” – including license plate numbers and even people’s faces. If tied in to the state’s network of ALPRs, the force-multiplication effect would exponential as there are many more private cars with dashcams than law enforcement vehicles with ALPRs.
Especially outside the cities and suburbs.
People who live in rural areas are much less likely to have their comings and goings recorded by an ALPR because there are fewer of them in rural areas. But if every third or fourth car has a Flock Safety/Nexar dashcam the chances of being identified (and recorded) go up considerably.
Not to worry. You’re not doing anything illegal, after all. Except you probably are. Do you “speed” – even a little bit? These cameras are capable of noting it – and relaying it to the appropriate authorities. Same goes for that rolling stop you just made and thought you “got away” with because there was no cop around to see it. But the dashcam in the car behind you saw it. State “safety” inspection out-of date? Not “buckled up”? Someone – something – just saw it and it’s alreadybeen reported to the proper authorities, citizen.
Whether this technology is actually being used this way right now is beside the point – which is it that it can be used this way. Authoritarian busybodies always make use of technology in this way.
It inheres in the nature of busybodies – and “technology.”
Once it becomes socially sanctioned to “say something” when you “see something” – which it already has – it is inevitable that society will transition into something like East Germany was, where it was smart to assume everyone was a snitch.
The catch was that you could never trust anyone and so never feel the freedom that arises from the knowledge you’re not being watched.
. . .
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Here’s a real world report on how this technology is used:
https://survivalblog.com/2025/08/30/data-collection-lives-anonymous-ohio/
And, they not just watching us. They are listening as well. There is a technology called Shotspotter, which detects and locates gunshots, and reports them to the cops. But it must be hearing more than gun shots. I recall a news story which claimed the Shotspotter heard, and recorded, the last words of a dying man. So they must be eavesdropping all the time.
Sadly, Orwell’s 1984 is here. Big Brother is watching and listening to us.
I read the article and creepy indeed! I grew up with this stuff and believe you me when once free people realize what they gave up they will be looking to blame anyone but themselves for it. And that is just a little taste. Wait until things really get rolling…
Found this guy on Youtube. He has some very good videos. In this one, he explores ways to confuse these plate readers. Though, he does hold back for legal reasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ
And, just like that the Flockers are no longer working with the Feds
Per ABC News
https://tinyurl.com/433a2929
The Big Jew is watching you.
The Prisoner
Television show from 1967-68
Patrick McGoohan, creator and star.
“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling that there is no expectation of privacy in public was the worst decision these idiot gods-in-robes ever ruled on. For it has since morphed into the Big Brother monster that has been birthed today. Never mind the Stazi, the NKVD/KGB was also proud of dividing husband vs. wife, parents vs. children. Sadly, years after the fact, parents (while secretly terrified of each other) learned later that they were on the same side all along, but were too scared to say anything, due to the eyes and ears being everywhere. Aaah, that divide-and-conquer strategy works very well. Ironic, in that even old Gorby admitted the only way to have a truly private conversation with his wife was out in the woods somewhere.
Enough kidaroos…
Complain , complain…yadda yadda….
For the record … local gvt can actually work!
Case in point, tooling along the N coast of Colombia ,
My Hot Shit Caracas Babe…A certified ANTI-CLOVER….( She drives , I medicate, perfect symbiosis!)…..
She’s cruising through Barranquilla ….suddenly a heavy traffic jam over bridge construction …..
What to do??
Simple ..”Go Italian Job”….and execute a “questionable” Venezuelan Traffic “maneuver”..
Success! However, while avoiding avoided traffic jam.. we got stopped by 2 Colombian cops with slung M-16s…
Did we get retrained??…have to show ID?….Pay for Bail? …Get our asses SR-22ed…etc etc??
Nien Danke , after “negotiating ” My Honey slipped the copper a 50k Colombian peso note…Approx 18 US deftly handed to the AGW and we were on our merry way!!
Please stop being pussies….I’m getting enough of that crap in Connecticut!
Useful idiots are going to idiot and karens are going to karen. the scamdemic showed how many retards there are per capita. 1-800- rat-out. I was 13 minutes in to the coof scam when logic took over, fake ….fake….fake to quote Elaine. Back in the eighties my younger brother got a Karen letter in the mail. From the AGms about certain traffic infractions he had committed that had been brought to there attention by some ken or karen. He called the the cop shop and asked where,s the ticket…..crickets, he said PFO and hung up.
Omg, this is horrible news. Karen’s now have a weapon against me/us? Our only hope is deep red states say no.
Maybe we need james bond license plate flippers and smart coders that will create software that flips it automatically when a cop is around?
Que Eric`s favorite lee Greenwood song… and a barf bag.
This is the reason for the AI data center frenzy currently underway, Big Brother needs all that computing power to build our dystopian prison. People will be more than happy to rat out their neighbors, as we witnessed during the scamdemic when all the Karens freaked out over anyone unmasked. The Stasi could only dream of this level of control, our advancements in technology have turned to bite us in the ass.
Do you remember TIA?
‘Total Information Awareness, conceived after the 9/11 attacks, was a controversial U.S. Defense Department project to create a vast database of public and private information to identify terrorists through pattern recognition.
‘Led by Rear Admiral John Poindexter and launched by DARPA’s Information Awareness Office (IAO), it faced public and congressional backlash due to privacy concerns, leading to its restriction and eventual termination in 2003.’ — Google AI Overview
‘Privacy concerns’ — LOL! How quaint! How 20th century!
AI is Total Information Awareness, delivered by the Tech Lords at a speed and intensity that bumbling Big Gov could never achieve. And it’s totally beyond their control.
Destroy the data centers.
Nailed it!
Eric, I’m astounded that you didn’t mention the insurance mafia.
You can be certain that the database of ‘violations’ of irrational laws will be for sale and the mafia will be first in line to buy it.
Then say good bye to your ability to buy insurance at any rate you can afford.
People will need 60 month financing just to pay for government forced “insurance.”
The solution, of course, is D.C. NIFO.
You’re right, Jon –
I need to add a line in re that. Thanks!
There is a meatspace version of the Stasi operating within the U.S., in addition to the cyber activities. It operates mostly in secret, targeting political dissidents and others who they do not want to succeed. If you know what to look for you may be able to recognize its agents and actions.
https://www.americanstasi.com/
‘Person of Interest’ tried to present that ‘moral’ dilemma with that much power. sureveillance and AI.
UK reality show ‘Hunted’ presents ‘simulated’ powers of the state and law enforcement while they track/hunt people. Cell phone, land line, ATM, credit cards, social media of all known contacts, ANPR for all known contacts… It has cheesy drama elements, but it shows how they ‘git you good’
Every tool can be (mis)used. Car can save a life or take a life. Data collection can give you an alibi, identify a hit and run perpetrator…
Who watches the watchers
Hi Mirk,
This Brave New World that’s a ‘borning makes me seriously consider quietly fading away to some very depopulated place accessible only via lifted 4×4 or dirt bike and turning off the world.
On the heels of your article, Eric, lookie here…an article about this very thing, and from left-wing MSN no less. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/hidden-camera-tech-now-standard-in-new-cars-owners-shocked/ar-AA1LFhNI?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=9db3afa823754b84b0d6b4c22ab30d4f&ei=12
Good stuff, Shadow!
My hope is that awareness is beginning to dawn – as it did with “safe and effective.” There seems to be a lag time between insouciant acceptance and the dawning awareness in just about every one of these “cases,” so to speak. That is the way of the world.
Patrick Wood wrote an article on these automated license plate readers last week. Looks like there’s only ONE state in the whole country that doesn’t have such invasive technology. The article includes a map that you can click on to see if there are any such readers where you live…..
https://www.technocracy.news/feel-safe-now-license-plate-readers-are-tracking-you-everywhere-you-drive/
Who is Jim Dalton Bell?
During covid, we saw how the US version of Stasi operates. People were only too happy to yell at, rat out, or excommunicate friends, family & strangers for the “common good” of health theater enforcement.
Why would that population think any different of tracking every move you make?
The cops have been known to patrol parking lots of such events as gun shows with ALPR, making a record of every one who may or may not own a gun and therefore be a threat to the good squad.
Mass ALPR deployment will create a record of where you’ve been and going to and when.
Remember the credit card and cell phone data were used to find January 6 defendants. This location data will be another tool that will be used to identify suspects whenever that data needs accessed.
Smell that freedom.
When the expense of such a system is justified by the fines collected, we can see the real purpose of the police is not to stop, deter, or solve crimes, but to collect revenue and keep the public under the constant thumb of an oppressive government that utilizes your freedom of movement on roads you have to pay for to make you a revenue stream.
‘Credit card and cell phone data were used to find J6 defendants.’ — Dan
A couple of weeks ago, using cell phone geofencing, a writer cited how many federal employees had attended protests, how many times they attended, and which agencies they worked at. Then he probably forwarded the list to ICE Barbie.
To participate in any activity that might compromise your employment or your liberty, you would be nuts to carry anything but a burner phone … or an old-fashioned camera. Or just go empty-pocketed (it’s not illegal). Mossad tracked bodyguards’ cell phones to assassinate Iranian leaders and nuclear scientists.
But social media has convinced the lemmings (90 percent of the population) that if you don’t post events in real time on X, then it didn’t happen, and you’re a basement-dwelling incel nobody with zero followers — a fate worse than death!
Yep, this is a good summary of why this is so offensive:
“It is like issuing everyone an ankle bracelet before they’ve been convicted of anything because they might do something.”
Sociopaths never apologize. They always double down and defend the indefensible. This gaslighting tactic sometimes works in the short term.
Oops. Should have been a reply to Jim H at the bottom. The first comment gets me everytime!
A digital prison is being built all around us in real time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ
Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care..
We’ll, except a few of us over here at EPautos.
AMC Guy,
Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care..
Have you heard the story on how to catch wild hogs?
First you set out a bucket of corn. The hogs are suspicious at first, but then they will eat the corn. This goes on for a week or so.
Then you put up one side of a fence. The hogs finally get used to the fence and start eating the corn again.
This goes on putting up a side of the fence at a time until you have a complete enclosure with only the gate missing.
The hogs continue to eat the corn without a care in the world until you finally shut the gate, trapping them. Then you take them off to the slaughter house. (I would recommend worming them first)
We are the hogs and the gate is swinging shut.
Anon
Yes, I watched an animated video years ago warning of this ‘Hog trap’. Been aware of the nwo plan since 2007, and it’s been quite creepy seeing things unfold.
That movie looks worth watching. Another decent movie about that era, if you can get past the girl boss nonsense, is Atomic Blonde. Pretty good depiction of the end of the Cold War era as I remember it. That article you linked to about Flock Safety is disturbing. Of course they would justify it with something 8O+% are in favor of. Sending dirty street shitters back to their homes becomes more popular by the day.
Once again, the easiest solution is the road not taken. Cut off all freebies and give them 6O days to leave with no penalty, after the 6O days, we go scorched earth on the Illegals and their enablers, real Genghis Khan type stuff. Publicize it widely enough beforehand and guaranteed most would leave. But instead, lets build a super surveillance state. The greatest the world has ever known. Sad how so many voted for this because they ‘had nothing to hide,’ and thought their side was morally superior to the side with no morals at all. Now I understand why you drink.
Since government is only good at one thing, killing people, how likely do you think it is that this tech will be used for anyone’s benefit?
A short piece of electrical tape disables any optical sensor. Just sayin’.
A few years ago, annoyed at the latest toll hike on the Hudson River crossings, I decided to retaliate. Using a piece of paper matching the license plate’s background color, I covered the final character of the plate number.
Then I cruised across the George Washington Bridge, made an illegal turn on 14th Street, and triggered an automated red light camera on the West Side Highway, leaving a trail of mayhem in my wake (not really, but flirting with danger is exciting).
Not a peep arose from the ticket writers, tax collectors and gov-contractor leeches. In my mind, I was made whole from the toll hikes of the highwaymen. Everyone should challenge the system now and then, by rattling the cages that delimit our movement within the lab rat enclosure.
Give me freedom … or give me a paddle to press with my little paw for a hit of cocaine.
Funny: “Give me freedom … or give me a paddle to press with my little paw for a hit of cocaine.”
The problem with getting rid of this invasive technology is that it isn’t against the law and the courts know that GovCo wants the information.
It isn’t against the law because the courts have ruled that you have no right to privacy in a public space. So if two people are having a quiet conversation on a park bench, it’s public. That’s all well and good, someone has the right to listen in if they can, but in most cases once you notice someone listening, you shut up and move to a new location.
Where I think it goes sideways is when people start using technology to tele-eavesdrop instead of what God gave them. That’s where the courts are mistaken. But as you say, the courts want to tele-eavesdrop too, so it’s allowed.
Back when iPhones were car phones it was possible to listen to calls. The general rule WRT listening to radio signals was that as long as you didn’t disseminate what you heard it was legal (An exception was news outlets, most of them had scanners in the newsroom). The same rule held true for analog cell phones, which had no easy way to scramble/encrypt audio. Then someone happened to record calls from John McCain and Newt! Gingrich (two separate occasions), which were leaked to the press. Because it affected them personally the Congress quickly enacted laws outlawing listening to cell phone calls, and required scanners block out cellular frequencies. But of course law enforcement and three letter agencies get a pass. It was a mixed win, and the argument was made that if the signal is passing on my property, indeed through my home and body, what right did the congress have to pass a law forbidding me from listening to it? And it didn’t cover metadata, or location tracking, or who owns what information you create.
The only hope is that with trillions upon trillions of data points the system they envision will be overwhelmed with so much info it will be impossible to analyze it all.
On another tangent, you mention that not only license plates can be discerned but, facial recognition as well. Note the recent trend for GovCo’s immigration goons wearing plain clothes and driving unmarked vehicles to snatch people off the street for deportation. They also wear masks. We are told the masks are to protect these “heroes” from being “doxxed”. The only reason they can be outed is the fact that with all the facial recognition systems GovCo has in place it’s easy to identify them.
Oh, the irony.
The systems they use to track and identify citizens can be used against them. I hope they get it good and hard.
Hi Mark.
Perhaps the reason they’re pushing AI is to make sense of all the data they collect to use it against us.
That’s why they’re building all of these “data centers”, especially out near where Eric lives
Also paintball guns, lots of paintball guns. And spray paint. In the short term stocking up on items like these may be more useful than guns and ammo as the ability to put a wrench in the gears of oppression may cause enough havoc to wake a few more sleeping sheep up.
‘The law must be enforced. No room for nuance.’ — eric
Three years and ten months ago, OHSA mandated covid ‘vaccines’ for large employers. The ‘Biden’ entity issued his own ukase, mandating all federal employees and contractors to be ‘vaccinated.’ In the aftermath, we know that their dangerous injections, approved in a matter of weeks without normal safety testing, killed around 300,000 Americans.
Today, in the wake of Dr Susan Monarez getting fired last week, nine former CDC directors have posted a manifesto at the New York Slimes. It contains this bald-faced proclamation:
‘We need only look to Operation Warp Speed during the first Trump administration — which produced highly effective and safe vaccines that saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic — as a shining example of what H.H.S. can accomplish when health and science are at the forefront of its mission.’
https://archive.ph/8NBoX#selection-793.287-797.143
Unbelievable! There’s no apology here to the millions they killed, injured and hospitalized, both with fake vaccines and by denying effective prompt treatments such as ivermectin. Instead, these unindicted mass murderers flaunt their dastardly crime. And the New York Slimes provides them the platform to spew their malicious poison.
Death to the Lügenpresse. Burn the CDC to the ground.
Sociopaths never apologize. They always double down and defend the indefensible. This gaslighting tactic sometimes works in the short term.
They believe their own bulls#!t. They are religious fanatics so sure of their own righteousness, and of the vileness of any heretics, that whatever they do is justified, nay holy and good.
The worst excesses of the Spanish Inquisition was as nothing to these bastards.