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Comment by thaumaturgy | Hacker News Reader

Here in Oregon, I very nearly managed to get some decent legislation drafted that would have required a number of strong data protections from ALPR vendors.

Axon interfered heavily with that process and -- after the legislative workgroup had well concluded and just a couple of hours before the Senate committee was to vote on it -- managed to neuter one of the key protections in the bill.

Axon is not "better" than Flock, they are just slightly less transparent about some aspects and slightly less radioactive.

Community groups that have formed and activated against Flock should continue to harass local governments that immediately switch to Axon as a replacement.

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I was aware of your bill and had some activity related to it. Kudos to you and EOE for doing great work! Sorry your bill got fucked. :(

I was seethed by what happened to it, and sadly unsurprised by the attitude LE took. I want restraint, but I felt like so many concessions had already been made to get it into work session. E2EE was important, but we're still left with two ends that are deeply untrustworthy, and a bunch of regulations about data governance that I don't trust the state to be able to meaningfully oversee... especially among a patchwork of LEAs across the state. When lapses inevitably happen, I think they're going to mostly undetected, and those that are will be quietly swept under the rug without consequence to anyone.

Which legislator were you working with? (I'm not going to look the bill up up on OLIS, if that's going to dox you.)

Funnily enough, Portland (apart from big box parking lots) seems to be empty of those. I remember them trying to push ShotSpotter and being slapped down by the city's progressive wing.

I think at this point getting doxed is an inevitability. ;-)

I worked most closely with Senator Floyd Prozanski. He's my local senator, and was in many ways an ideal fit for this. After we successfully kicked Flock out of Eugene, Springfield, and Lane County, he reached out to form a legislative workgroup. Over a few months of effort, we developed SB1516: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2026R1/Measures/Overv...

Depending on where you fall on the spectrum of opinions on ALPRs, this is either a sort of okay bill or a pretty terrible bill.

Do you have a delta on the bill after Axon intervened?

-12 is what was queued up for the vote up until 2:30 pm that afternoon: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2026R1/Downloads/Prop...

-14 materialized, Prozanski called for a vote on -12, Senator Braodman voted with Republicans against -12, and then they unanimously voted in -14: https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2026R1/Downloads/Prop...

The sole difference between the two is that -14 removes the following language: "'End-to-end encryption’ means a method of data encryption that ensures only the law enforcement agency that owns the captured license plate data possesses the capability to decrypt, access or grant access to the captured license plate data."

This was just the latest move in a long, long series of behind-the-scenes work by Axon to undermine the entire bill throughout its development.

There's a lot more I'm eager to say about that process, but we have some work to do before it all can be made public.

Axon interfered heavily with that process and -- after the legislative workgroup had well concluded and just a couple of hours before the Senate committee was to vote on it -- managed to neuter one of the key protections in the bill.

This is why I'm increasingly jaded with 'get involved with your local legislative process!' proponents. If you don't have the ability to lobby around the clock and make campaign or in-kind political donations (and know how to communicate your willingness to do that), then you're at a massive disadvantage. As well, the process itself is highly corruptible, eg altering the text of a bill just before a scheduled vote.

As a general matter, I'm increasingly disgusted with the prevalence of tactics like holding votes in the dead of night or in closed sessions. Politicians engage in a lot of tricks to evade scrutiny from their constituents, relying on the fact that once a piece of legislation is passed people might be angry but the politician can often get away with saying 'there was no other choice, we have to work within the process' or some similar empty truism.

We need more good people getting involved to be able to change the way this all works. And, in less than a year, we've developed a ton of political capital and we're still gaining ground. So, I would sincerely encourage anyone to join this effort, or similar efforts in their area, and just do whatever you can tolerate.

But also, having just been through this process (for my first time!): however terrible you think the political process is, it's worse.

This is something I would LOVE to get involved with to support. At the end of the day though, it’s not something I have a lot of extra unbillable time for and that’s really what the problem is.

That’s good to know. I agree the cameras are the root problem. Flock exacerbated that problem and I think it’s good for them to get some negative publicity.

You could say similar things about Palantir - that it’s just a figurehead and that the NSA / TIA has similar capabilities but it’s still important to use the figurehead as an example to others.

But yes in general I think it’s important to not let this stop here. Denver needs to be pressured to remove the cameras entirely. This is a defensive move on Denver’s part and it shows they’re on their back foot.

Fellow Oregonian here. Have you got any local resources? I've been writing to my reps, framing ALPR's and cameras as a tool the feds will coopt, but I'm pretty sure nobody reads anything anymore.

We've got lots of local resources! I've been in the capitol about half of the last two weeks, my partner is there right now, we've been working closely with ACLU Oregon and National, a couple of other legal firms are keeping a close eye on this, and we've built a grassroots network with people from Eugene, Springfield, Portland, Bend, Florence, and more.

Also, your Reps do read your correspondence, and there's a critical moment coming up in this bill.

Drop me a line at contact@eyesoffeugene.org and I'll reply with a Signal link and we can talk more.

Sorry, I don't like mixing my on- and offline identities, but your site is a great resource and exactly what I was looking for. I'll definitely be reaching out to my reps about SB1516.

If you don't mind, what's the current situation with Flock in Eugene? Last I heard was that EPD was ending their relationship but it wasn't clear if the cameras were actually going to be removed. I believe Springfield has already gotten rid of theirs, and Florence voted to keep them.

(By the way, thank you, you guys are doing invaluable work)

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