Flock cameras haven't improved Atlanta's crime clearance rates

Who thinks a surveillance state is about reducing crime? It's about control!

I spent half my day today in Atlanta's inner loop... soooo many Nissans just don't even have license plates, anymore (and other cars, too; but all other OEMs summed == Nissans).

It makes me want to purchase a beat-up silver Nissan (without plates also) and then I can blend in through obscurity?

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My own ATL adventure today involved zero license plate scans, but obviously the machines are doing way more than just LPR (I have no illusions that my activities aren't still traced, even without a legible tag).

Sort of related. Across the street from my cousin's house in Portland, OR, a car ran over the curb and into landscape features that knocked off the car's bumper and license plate. The perpetrator then backed up and drove away. My cousin's doorbell camera caught it all. Police are not interested, saying no one can prove who was driving. Who needs a license plate reader when you can get a license plate?

That loosely resembles research about economic impact of adopting PC. Which was not as great as could be imagined. Increased competition sets prices lower, increased data flows are not compatible with manual labour. Like in running faster in "Through the looking glass"

People who like Flock: is this a surprise?

Flock is about surveillance for profit sometimes that also has positive results but often the costs are too high

Crime?

I thought these were deployed so that Cops could keep track of the women they want to beat.

Conspiracy theory: Cops are worried about essentially being replaced by Flock cameras (if Flock cameras do, in fact, reduce crime rates, it's only a matter of time before the city council starts looking for ways to reduce the budget, and the police is often the biggest spend for cities), so they intentionally report slightly inflated crime rate data to remind the public: "See? Y'all still need us!"

They are for identifying dissidents to round up in the future, not for reducing the incidence rate of petty crime.

Governments and AI billionaires are all talking about some utopian future where we are all free to do what we want and have a universal basic income to support us. But the deployment of a draconian surveillance network, militarised police, domestic concentration camps and 'left wing terrorist' rhetoric is not painting a picture of a future utopia.