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How Police Are Using Flock Cameras to Track Women and Erase State Lines · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny, and I'm hoping to stuff I've
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: never told you, predicted by hurried you, and today we
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: are once again thrilled to be joined by the dependable,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: delightful Bridget Todd. Welcome Bridget.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever been called dependable before. I
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: like it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: You are dependable one, oh most dependable. Yeah.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: I think I was just trying to find a spot
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: for me and that's something. But to be fair, I'm
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: pretty much am. But it was an odd superlative.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You are very dependable too.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: I agree, that's a that's a fitting superlative. Did you
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: get us a senior superlative or a yearbook superlative? Except
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: christ I realized here, Yeah, I know.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I like how you had a moment of I was like,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: wait a minute.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Computing that, You're like, wait, Noel, let me ask that again. Annie.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Did you have a senior superlative or a yearbook superlative? Uh?
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: I did?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I I believe the one I got was most likely
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: to be successful. Oh, but we had a lot of
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: fun ones. And so a friend of mine got like
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: most likely to have the best life selling bananas in
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: South America or something. But I think I got a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: boring one. I mean it's good, it's great, but uh, successful,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's what I got.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: I feel that both of these were accurate. Samantha, you
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: are very dependable. Annie, you are successful.
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: What about you? Did you get one?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I got one? It was freakin' frack? Which it was?
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: It was basically, yeah, basically, Oh, these two people who
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: are always together, you're real freakin' frack. So yeah, me
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: and my good friend Christina got freakin' freck another Pristia.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I guess people don't know. Yes, that's cool.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah for listeners, I this is actually a problem that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I've had. The topic you've brought today, Bridget, has related
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to something we were just discussing. But we've had a
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: lot of tech problems today over at sixteenth. In the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: application we used to record it, usually I remember to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: change my name to Annie because the person's account I
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: use is not mine, not under my name. And I
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: learned this lesson because we had Michelle Norris, who's amazing.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, my idol, I.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Love her on the show and I realized halfway in
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: that the name I con under my video was incorrect,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and I was like, this is this poor woman, and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I'm she's a pro, so I'm sure she did research
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: before coming in. But that was not my name at all.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: So did she call you Christina?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: She did not call me Christina, but I'm pretty sure
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: there was a moment where she, like I could tell,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: she double checked to make sure, like she was looking
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: on the internet to make sure this is her actual
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: name is Annie and not Christina.
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: What's funny is I called you Annie Christina for a
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: moment and the re and I've known both of these
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: ladies for like fifteen years, so I go their name.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: But I'm coming out of another podcast recording with three
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: people that I don't that I'm like meeting for the
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: first time, and so I trained myself to look at
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: the name and the pronouns on the screen, and I
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: truly just had a like a brain rewiring moment, And
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: wait a minute, this is what are you doing? Where
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: are you looking at the person's name?
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: That to say it? That shows where my brain is
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: at right now, is what I'm saying.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Well, you've also got a lot going on, as always, Bridget.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: How have you been? Things aren't good? I as I
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: think I've shared with the sminty listeners.
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: I have an audiobook coming out called Love at First
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: Prompt comes out on July fourteenth.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: So I have been kind of switching into.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: Book promotion high gear, which I know you two have
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: also experienced. I in some ways it's more complicated than
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: the process of writing the book itself.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that has been all consuming in all the ways.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I am so excited for this audiobook. You got to
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: come back on and talk about it.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, I anytime.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: I meant to, like my publishing team, I mean, and
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: I actually curious if this was your experience too.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: They have me doing every podcast known to man. They're like, if.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: Any junior high you know, any like high school newspapers
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: reach out to you, the answer is yes, no, interview
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: is too small, do all of them. So was that
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: was that also your experience in trying to launch a book?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: No, but I'll just say this delicately. They kind of
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: had a set method that other podcast before us who
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: had published a book had used, and by the time
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: they got to us, they just were kind of like,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: this is like the bear minimum. This is what we're
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: going to do. But that did involve going on a
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: lot of radio shows, and that's I know, we discussed
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: this with you bridget a while back because we kind
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: of got a weird guys trying to I guess call
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: us out about trans women. Yeah, but that was kind
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: of the extent we did not get asked to go
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: to like high school podcast.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: That's interesting though, No, I think we got caught up
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: in the COVID aftermath.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: And this had been in the plannings for a long while,
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: even with host changes, even with show changes, and then
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: COVID happened, and then everything kind of just stood still,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: and then with the changeovers that happened in all of that,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: I think it just became not a chore necessarily, but
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: a thing to check off the list.
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so as much.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: As like Anny and I felt like we put into
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: it hoping to do some good things with it, you know.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: And the honestly, the audio part was a surprise to us.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: We didn't realize that was going to be a part
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: of the mix that wasn't told us, which is a
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: shouldn't have been surprising, but it was for some reason
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: to us. And then as it rolled out, it literally
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: was like, Okay, it's done, moving on to the next one,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: because they would think there was another I See project
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: after us, So not that it wasn't like we were
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: excited to do it. And of course we're both very nervous,
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: anxious people, so doing extra things we have to plan ahead.
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: So they put us.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: In a like quick turnaround, radio edits or shout outs,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: which were all like ten minutes, like not even ten minutes,
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: I think like five minute segments. And we had a
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: few specifically one in textas and being like trying to
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: get a gets you a moment and we were kind
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: of like, you know nothing about the show, you know
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: nothing about us, although you know nothing about my personality,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: and I'm.
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: Gonna scratch back. So that was kind of one of
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: those moments.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I think our experience was different in general
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: and how it came out because of all of those
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: underlying factors.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: I won't move it, but if I were to move
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: my laptop to pivot to show my living room, your
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: book lives on my coffee table, So every guest that
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: comes into my home has a thumb through because it's
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: it's it has a very prominent I have, like a
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: I love a coffee table book, and so it's like, yeah,
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: I have I have the the nice hardcover version of
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: your book, and so it fits beautifully and it has
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: a beautiful cover, so it's like, really, you know, it's
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: an inviting centerpiece of my room and anybody who comes
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: in is like, oh, what's this and has a thumb through.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to say I often think of the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: fact that aren't you on like CNN and you're you
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: were on some news network and your apartment got ranked.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, talk about talk about early days of COVID.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: I can tell you exactly what it was.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: I was on MSNBC and this was in the like
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: truly in the early days of COVID, and I have
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: I I have since updated it, but I have this.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: I had this sofa that was such an albatross.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: It made several moves with me, but I didn't have
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: enough money to upgrade it. It just was one of the
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: those big, fat, gray, drab sofas that clearly just had
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: seen better days. And usually I'll throw a throw a
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: blanket over it. But do you remember Room Raiders? Was
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: this a count that when you would go on MSNBC
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: or do a do a virtual hit in COVID, they
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: would like rank your the background and they tore my
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: couch apart, and deservedly so can I tell you something else?
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: A week later, I bought a new couch. The room
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: raiders got in your head.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, I honestly, I'd always I could. I could talk
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: crap about that couch all day.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Also, not to not to just go off on this couch,
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: but it was one of the couches where the the
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: cushions are embedded within the couch and so there is
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: no way to unzip the cushion and like want like
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: launder it, and so the couch is the couch. I
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: have cats, and so hear me when I say this.
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: If you have an if you need to buy a
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: new couch, make sure that you can remove of the
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: cushions and unzip the case that they're in and wash it.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: Otherwise your life will be miserable. I will never make
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: that mistake again. I don't even think I bought that couch.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: I think I inherit it from somebody's like a roommate's
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: sister who was moving out. You know, those pieces of
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: furniture in your life.
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: We still have some.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: As an adult in my mid forties, we still have some.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: I'm not going but partially I will say it is
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: because my dog is so hairy and it was kind
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: of like, we don't want to go super nice furniture
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: right now because of all of that. But at the
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: same time, I'm like, but I want to keep my
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: doll for a very long time, so I don't I
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: don't know what the solution is. Yeah, yeah, I just
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: feel like some type of way when you starty getting
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: like the adult furniture, you're like, oh, I'm grown now.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that kind of advice, like being able to
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: remove the cover that is really important, but also realizing
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: that dryers are not always your friend because sometimes that
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: will shrink it and you.
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: Have a whole other set of troubles.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: Imagine messing up your couch cushion covers so that you
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: can't put the cushions back in the cover. What would
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: you even do? I guess order a new that's that's
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: such a conundrum.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: So ours didn't straight shrink, but it did shrink a little.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: We had to like force it in, like we won't
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: make this. But and if finally stress back out, I've been.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Told there's some like secret place because I have a
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: couch that you can't remove the cover, and also the cushions.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: It's not like a cushion it's just a foam thing
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that's that's in the couch. I've been told there's a
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: secret spot Nikea I can go to and they'll they'll
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: hook me up. But I don't know if it's true.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: But a call us scares, but it is an Ikea couch,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: so maybe. But yeah, somebody told me there's like a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: place you can go in Ikea and tell them like
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: it's this model. I need help and they'll give you
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: they'll hook you up.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Wow, imagine somebody help. Yeah, like, oh, I got a guy.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I don't worry.
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: I got a guy at Ikia, don't. I got my
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: guy out there, don't. But I do think about that
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: all the time. Bridget that you cut your room got raided.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: It was, Yeah, it was really the kick in the butt.
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: I needed to get rid of that couch. I hated
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: that catch so much that when I got a new couch,
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: if I could have, I would have burned the old one.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I would have burned it like an ethogy.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: If I could have saved the area just in cases.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Well, So it's interesting because the topic you brought for
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: us today, we actually were discussing earlier with friend of
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the show Eves because we were talking about technology and
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: how you know, looking back, how things have changed and
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: looking forward, what are you afraid of? It's Amantha specifically
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: brought up this topic, so, well, what are we talking
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: about today, bridget.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Today we are talking about block.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: I know that you two have heard of flock, especially
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: living in Georgia, because flock is big in Georgia, but.
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: The base out of Georgia.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: And I have a couple of like Georgia specific incidents
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: that happened involving flock. But for folks who don't know,
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: flock is an automated license plate reader sometimes called an ALPR,
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: and it's this system of cameras that are all interconnected,
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: where it's cameras and license plate readers, and so if
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: you drive by one of their cameras, they capture your car,
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: they capture your license plate. And importantly, it is an
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: interconnected network. So law enforcement from one state can use
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: this interconnected system of cameras and license plate readers to
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: access information glean from other states.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, and just kind of pop up. And Samantha has
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: experience with that.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what has been your experience with flock?
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: I have one directly pointed out my house.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: No hush.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: When it came up, it became a whole thing from
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: my partner and I, who is very very tech aware
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: and like on top of all the things, have been
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: watching videos way before it became.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: Really known about who they were and what they were doing.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: So we've definitely been very wary of the situation against
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: specifically in Georgia, and watching where they're putting them up
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: and why and who approved them. But yeah, we have
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: one directly pointed at our house.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: That is I'm sorry to hear that that is upsetting
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: and no one understands.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I yeah, it's it's no good.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: And the thing about Flock is that they were sort
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: of sold to us and sold to cities as this
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: tool to keep us safe, right, find stolen cars, find
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: bad guys, find kids who've been kidnapped, or.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Amber alert children.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: And the thing about block is that the tool does
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: not distinguish between law enforcement genuinely and investigating crime and
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: law enforcement wondering where's my ex wife tonight, what's she
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: up to tonight?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: My estranged girlfriend, what she doing tonight?
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: And I bet you can probably guess how some law
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: enforcement male law enforcement agents are using flock it is
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: to stalk and harass the women in their lives, perhaps unsurprisingly.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, and you know, it's a really clear pattern
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: across almost every case of this happening, where it's a
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: male officer using this system to track either a current
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: or former romantic partner, sometimes that person's family, and just
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: searches dozens or hundreds of times over months where this
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: person is going, what they're doing, their whereabouts, And this
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: kind of abuse is almost entirely caught by accident. I
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: want to be clear, it's not like the police are
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: policing themselves or that block is doing a meaningful job
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: of making sure that this tool is not being a
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: misused by law enforcement. No, either the victim discovers it
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: herself or a third party transparency project or a journalist
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: will find it in public records. So internal department audits
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: essentially never catch this. It is the people who are
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: targeted or journalists who are doing the work of sniffing
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: it out.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Well, okay, so what does that normally? What does this
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: usually entail? Then?
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so four or four media shout out to them
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: because they've been doing so much reporting on this for
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: a while. They've really been breaking down what these cases
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: look like. So there's one case that they've reported on
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: where Jamarius Brown was an Orange City lorda police officer,
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: ran his ex girlfriend's license plates through flock at least
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: sixty nine times over the summer of twenty twenty four.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: He also searched her mom's license plate at least twenty
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: four times and her dad's at least fifteen times. Now,
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: Brown was not subtle about this, which really tells me
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: that he, I guess, did not think that he was
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: going to get caught, or perhaps did not even think
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: he was doing anything.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Wrong or actionable.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Another police officer caught him doing it while they were
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: sitting in their.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Police cars or his cruisers together.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: In an affidavit that four or four media obtained, it
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: is described that at one point Brown used flock to
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: catch his ex girlfriend in a lie about her whereabouts,
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: and then turned to his colleague and asked him if
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: he wanted to join a quote stakeout to find her car.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: According to that affidavit, it wasn't just flock he was using,
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: you know, Flock was part of it, but that he
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: had access to as a police officer. But he also
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: had planted an Apple air tag in her wallet and
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: controlled aspects of her daily life down to how much
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: makeup that she wore. And so, you know, it's not
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: as if Block is the chief way that this is
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: playing out. But if you're a law enforcement officer and
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: you have access to this warrantless trove of information about
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: the real time whereabouts about somebody a woman that you're stalking,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: clearly it's a pretty big piece of how that stalking
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: campaign comes together.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's wow. To it just feels so excessive, Oh gosh.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And then to use this technology for it, it's ridiculous
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: because we already know that like it can happen, cyberstocking
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: can happen in a lot of different ways. But this
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: is Yeah, that's really terrifying.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this police officer Brown, he admitted doing this to investigators,
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: telling quote, it was dumb as hell on my end,
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: emotions flowing, mind going. So that investigation did conclude that
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: he quote knowingly and intentionally accessed the password productive computer
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: systems Block and David, which is Florida's DMV database to
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: run the license plates of vehicles that his ex frequently
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: drove for his own personal reasons. There was no work related, justifiable.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Reason to do it.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: Now again, this is he has admitted this. The investigation
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: has confirmed that he did. You know, you might think
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: law enforcement officer using the tools, the tech tools presented
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: to him for his own unjustifiable nefarious means gonna have
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: some a steep punishment, right right, That's probably what.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: You would think. I am so sorry to say.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: He was charged with stocking and hacking related crimes and
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: served one day in prison and five years of probation
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: police policing, the police, am I right?
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Oh? One day? Gosh, who how big of a problem
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: are we talking here?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: So, Ben is a great question.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: According to the Institute for Justice, which is a civil
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: rights legal group who has been documenting this for a while,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: they documented at least eighteen separate cases nationwide of officers
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: using license plate reading systems like flock to stalk romantic interests,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: current partners x, and in one case just a total stranger,
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: a separate tracker.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: The ALPR Abuse.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: Library documented twenty specific cases that they categorized as stalking
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: and targeting. Block itself towed four or four media that
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: it was aware of fifteen incidents of abuse, which the
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: company says were surfaced because of the transparency and accountability
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: features deliberately built into the platform. Flock points out that
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: it has one hundred and forty thousand monthly active users,
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: so they're really trying to frame this abuse as statistically rare,
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: which we'll come back to later. But both of the
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: outlets that I just mentioned, the Institute for Justice and
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: the ALPR Abuse Library, both agree that the numbers that
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: they found are almost certainly an undercount because officers can
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: inter vague or fabricated reasons for a search, like sometimes look,
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: they'll put tests or investigations. It's not always clear, you know,
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: It's not like an officer's gonna put like find out
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: where my check's wife is into the search database. So
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: they're they're putting in ways, they're putting in words to
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: intentionally dodge scrutiny.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: It's feels odd because as Flock is saying, see, we
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: caught these things as it was our transparency, when in actuality,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: flock itself has been caught, the company itself has been
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: caught doing similar things here in Dunwoody in joy made
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: huge headlines. I don't know, I'm sure you're probably aware,
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: and we're going to talk about a little more, but
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: the fact that the vice president of Flock was caught
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: with file that says gymnastics or gym, which was a
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Flock camera pointed into a children's gymnastics building and had
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: files on it, as well as other locations that were
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: private companies, which that's a whole different thing that I'm
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: very creeped out by because we have locations here that
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: are just in the parking lot, like the Flock cameras
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: are surrounding the entire parking lot, but not actually towards
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: the streets.
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: So it's a little odd to me.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: But we have situations like that where they have concerning
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: cases that's within the employees high up doing the similar things,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: but in more nefarious ways, it seems.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: So I'm glad you brought that up. Importantly.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: The reason why we know the way that Flock was
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: being used in Dunwoodie, Georgia, is because of a resident
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: at a resident named Jason Hunter discovered that Flock was
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: accessing cameras inside of a children's gymnasium and he did
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: that through like public open records requests, and so he
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: basically brought his findings to the city and was like,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: what reason would it be for block employees to be
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: accessing the cameras inside of the you know, gymnastics room
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: of a rec center, Like what possible reason? And so
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: he presented all of this information and here's my thing.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: The city still re upped their contract with Flock even
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: after that. We talked about this on my podcast or
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: owner Bros.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: On the Internet.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: I have a theory about what's going on here, particularly
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: in the Dunwoody, Georgia case, and this is just my
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: anecdotal theory.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I think that there's a dynamic going on where.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: People think, oh, the cameras are to keep you safe
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: from bad guys.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Bad guys are like strangers, people from out of town.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: Those are the people that you don't want doing mytharious things. Me,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: I could have access to the cameras in your daughter's
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: gymnastics room at the gym because I'm not a bad guy,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: which I think there's a dynamic going on where serve
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: like you're telling people that it is a reasonable trade
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: to keep you and your family and your kids safe,
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: even if it involves strangers having access to cameras in
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: what we would all pretty much understand as places where
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: it's not necessarily reasonable for there to be cameras like
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: swimming pools, places that you think of as sort of
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: like intimate where you might be changing or in various
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: stages of undressed. I think there's a dynamic happening where
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: we have been told this is a reasonable exchange to
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: make if it keeps you safe.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: It is.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: It's an interesting cause, like because no one answered for it,
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Like this was brought out, it was made pretty big news,
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: especially in Georgia because again we are one of the
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: most beld cities and the cunt in the world and
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: flock has only become even more.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: Of a problem because of that.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: They also apparently just put up their cameras without a
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: necessary contract and hope to get a contract after the fact.
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: And again that's a whole other thing.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: But this conversation was like, okay, so instead of acknowledging
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: why and what's happening, And they did pause the voting
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: allowing it in the council for a minute because it
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: did incur such criticism, but it really did.
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: No one really answered anything. It was odd.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do find that really odd.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: And so you know, after this resident shurtle of this
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: with the city council, I read that Block's public position
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: is that their employees only access customer systems for tech support.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: But this resident, who found all of this out via
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: you know, public record searches, points out that the audit
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: logs never showed how long somebody watches, only when they started,
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: So there's really no transparency into you know what somebody
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: accessing a camera saw and for how long, and certainly
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: not you know why. So that resident his records requests
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: also suggested that Flock's own auditing really had serious gaps
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: and so.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Like issues like users who.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: Do not appear in the official logs being able to
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: access cameras, or the fact that an account just called
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: quote auto approved that shared Dunwhitty's data with outside agencies
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: nearly two thousand times with no real human review, or
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: the fact that multi factor authentication was disabled for users
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: by Flock employees. So this, this whole thing, the way
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: this whole thing played out, and Dunwoodie.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: Georgia is just clearly a mess for so many reasons.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: It's a mess for transparency, it's a mess for digital
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: security and hygiene for all these reasons.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: And again, I mean, it.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: Is still not clear to me why you would need
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: would why you would need cameras in some of these spaces, right.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: And like again we're talking about you know, like.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: Rec centers and gyms like like like it's not there.
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: I'm not a big proponent of this kind of security theater.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: I don't think that more cameras makes us safer. But
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: you might be able to make the argument for some
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: situations where it's like, Okay, well you want to have
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: a camera there for security.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I get it. I don't. It's not my personal bag,
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: but I get it.
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: You're not gonna be able to convince me that a
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: camera in a gymnastics studio at a rec center is
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: a is a reasonable thing to have for safety, right.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: And especially because it's not like people are chicking it lies,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like it's not an immediate
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: it's it doesn't necessarily deter crime. It might help somewhat,
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: but as we've seen, I don't feel like the whole
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: crime in a state of Georgia has gone down at all.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: And and we've got lots of law cameras.
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and also just like what about Okay, even if
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: someone were to tell I have not seen compelling evidence
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: that block meaningly does deter crime in a real way.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: As you said, I am still not sure that is.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: But even if it did, I'm not sure that I
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: would then want my kid to have cameras accessible to
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: god knows who, random flock employee, random retail associate, whatever.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: And that's a reasonable exchange. Even if flock cameras were
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: keeping people safer or solving crumbs or whatever. I'm not
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: seen compelling evidence to that point. But still it's like, well,
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: I don't want there to be cameras in my kids
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: gymnastics studio, Like I don't that anybody can access that
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: isn't like I'm not like that doesn't seem right to.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Me, right, and honestly, I don't trust the people who
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: have it now, Like I don't trust why what should
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: I trust the cops? Why should I trust this company
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: who doesn't have good faith standing? Like the way they're
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: putting things up, They don't give any kind of explanation.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: They do everything a little as politically is done today,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: where everything is about bidding and let me make you
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: more money. We are a privatized company that can help
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: make money in a way that also violates human rights
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: for the humans that we don't care about is what
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: it seems.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: So in all of that way, why would we want.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: That exactly that?
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: And we have You know, I don't think that anybody
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: should trust a company like Flock. And the reason I
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: can tell you that is that all of the way
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: I mentioned earlier, how the women who have been stocked
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: using Flock technology, they usually find it at themselves. They
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: get suspicious, they file public records requests, what have you?
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: The third party watchdog mechanisms that exist for people to
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: find out whether or not Flock is being used to
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: target them in this way.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Websites like have I Been Flocked? Block tries to get
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: those shut.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: Down, and so, in my opinion, if you were a
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: company that was interested in your technology not being used
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: in these illegal ways to harm women and other people
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: and immigrants and women who would need abortions and all
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: of that, you would not then target the only some
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: of the only avenues that people have to find out
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: if this technology is harming them in this way, because
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: Block is not doing it. We know that the most
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: of the women who find out that they're being stalked
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: in this way are finding out themselves, are not finding
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: out because Flock did some kind of an investigation that's
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: that's very rare.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, you're right to not trust this company.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, And as we've discussed on several episodes, unfortunately this
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: is not new, like these tech companies using this information
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: to hurt women in marginalized groups or not curbing at
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: all behaviors of stalking or ways that women people can
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: be stalked. They just don't really do anything about it.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: So sadly this is like not surprising at all.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Right, No, it's really not surprising.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: And you know, I think that the kind of one
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: of the main takeaways here is that block was developed,
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: deployed nationwide with no warrant requirement and really minimal proactive automning.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: And so with technology like that, to me, we already
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: know that it's not going to be a question of
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: is this going to be used to hurt women and
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: other marginalized people, it's when will this be used to
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: harm women and other marginalized people.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Like we've we've seen this movie before.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: It has not taken genius to figure out, oh, police
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: are going to use this to harm people.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: It's just how it works.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And I think the fact that the onus is on
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: you as a citizen moving about or an organization to
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: realize that this is happening is just such a such
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a burden, and you know, we didn't ask for this technology.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: It's just here in a lot of cases, and now
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: it's this big threat and you've kind of discussed but
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: you know, so it's used to stalk ex girlfriends or
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: ex wives maybe, but also people who might not even know,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: uh like complete strangers.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: So the main reason why people find out they've been
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: targeted in this way is.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: They get suspicious, right, suspicious.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: Women are doing the work of, you know, creating some
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: sort of institutional accountability. They're using sites like haveibenflocked dot com,
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: which is a site that compiles flock search records released
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: through public records requests into one searchable database. There's also
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: citizen transparency groups that do this kind of work. And
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: so it's upsetting because it's you know, it's the intimate
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: partner part of it is upsetting.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: But importantly, sometimes this technology.
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: Is used by cops to track women but they barely
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: know strangers. There was this case in Monroe County, Florida,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: where Deputy Lamar Roman allegedly used one of these systems
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: to track down and eventually pull over a woman that
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: he met one time while he was doing some moonlighting
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: security work on a TV set.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: He didn't know this woman.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: He just saw her on this at this TV set
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: while she was probably doing her job, and was like, oh,
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: I can use this technology to.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Pull her over. In his mind, that might have been
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: a meet cute, right Yep.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, so.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Gosh, and he's just the use of meat cute at
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: this situation.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: I know, but I.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Agree with you. I think he might have thought this
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: is a romantic I went, I guest through the effort
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to track you down. There's just that disconnect has always
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: really unsettled me. Yeah, where because I'm sure she was
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: probably feeling at the very least extremely uncomfortable, probably scared.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: And I think women can connect with this. I mean
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of friends and myself included. When
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you have like maybe somebody comes in to fix your
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: cable or whatever it is, and now they know where
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: you live and they've seen inside your house and all
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: this stuff, and then they'll ask you on a date
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: after like oh my finish up. And it's like, I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: do think they think it's kind of romantic, but it's not.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: It's so uncomfortable and now you're introducing like this technology in.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: There right in the world of AI, especially with these images,
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: like you should be concerned. You should be concern about
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: what this is recording, what data is taking, who's able
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: to take it and get access to these images. Because
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: what we understand right now in the world of fake
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: images and really bad takes and bad players, that this
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: is not great because they're not secure. They've obviously shown
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: that even though they want to matimilate they're secure, They're
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: not secure.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And just one other wrinkle of this, I almost
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: sort of don't know how to talk about it. The
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: fact that we're talking about the behavior of law enforcement,
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: the entity that ostensibly is there to keep us safe.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: If you believe that, we're talking about their behavior toward
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: women using the technology that they have available to them
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: without a warrant or much scrutiny.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I'll put it this way. If I had a.
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: Good girlfriend or a daughter or somebody like that in
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: my life and they were telling me about a new
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: guy they were dating, and that guy worked in law enforcement,
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: I would be concerned for them, you know, That's I
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: guess I'll put it that way. I don't like the
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: idea that these people who have all of these different
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: tech enabled tools at their disposal to harm us, you know,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: maybe to protect and help and serve, but also to
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: harm are are using all of that technology at their
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: disposal in this way. And it doesn't surprise me at all.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: And Yeah, as I said, if I had a daughter
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: and she came home and said, oh, I'm dating a cop,
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: I would be concerned.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I would be I would have concern for her. I'll
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: put it that way. Does that sound bad?
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: I don't want to make it seem like if you're
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: you know, I just have heard too many stories and
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: I know so many people who have experienced that.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: But if that's what I was told, I would have concerns.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Right, Well, I mean, let's just base it on what
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: we know, based on their training, what they're taught, what
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: they are shown in the likelihood of them doing bad
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: faith things. Cops City alone was built on the idea
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: of military training for cops who come in and prevent violence,
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: and instead they're being taught to do more violence and
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: being able to have accessibility to be able to be
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: more violent. But they don't have enough training. In general,
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: they're given mass of weapons in order to stop crime.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: When oftentimes the crime is not involving weapons, it doesn't
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: have to be violent. But based on what they are trained,
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: they're automatically trained to kill. Like literally, they are told
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: if you're shooting, if you're pointing a gun, making sure
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: you're aiming to kill. That's the whole point. So if
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: you have narratives like that, why wouldn't we think that
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: the basis of their training and what they're spending money
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: on right now is not going to be something volatile
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: like That's why you can't trust that because nothing is
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: being shown that they're doing anything to help society. They're
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: just trying to upgrade the ability to defend something and
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: it's definitely not the people.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I really said it.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: We have increasingly militarized police that are also using increasingly
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: militarized tactics and technology and tools to deal with civilians.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: And so I think, you know, the highly militarized tactics
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: of a place like copsity and what we're seeing with
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: flock this kind of like deep surveillance technology.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: I think they're one and the same.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: This increased militarization of tools and tactics not aimed at
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: like military combatants. Aimed at civilians, aimed at protesters, aimed
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: at regular people, aimed at a woman that you just
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: saw once, you know, because you liked her.
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: Right, and you're taking this narrative that I have to
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: go forward and make these bold moves because we have
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: the surveillance and nodges. And that's kind of the thing
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: with flock is they are setting up a narrative to
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: give people a playbook kind of whether it's an interior
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: exterior design of this is what the road looks like here,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: this is where they were traveling, and this is what
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: this parking lot looks like here. This is what the
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: gym looks like. So these are the accesses that you
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: can get to. It feels like it's more like, uh,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: a way and not necessarily to surveil, to help surveil
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: to see how you can get away with things. Possibly
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: that's just how it seems to me, because I definitely
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: don't feel safe with this block camera pointing to my house. Instead,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: I feel like I'm being watched for a reason that
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: I don't understand. It makes me want to go onto
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: sites like have I been flogged? And then at the
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: same time, I'm also a little worried that this is
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: a trick in order for me.
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: To put in my license plate number. I have a
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: lot of just persons in my head right now with this.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: But like the Flock has not shown any kind of
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: care in this situation. I feel like instead of actually
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: addressing these moments, uh, they're just paying more money or
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: lessening the sweet sweetening the pot for the for the
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: counties or the states.
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's essentially what Block has done. Four or four
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: Media spoke to a Flock spokesperson and what they what
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: Flock has to say about all this is essentially downplaying
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: the whole thing. They said, oh, we have one hundred
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: and forty thousand monthly active users of Flock. These instances
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: of abuse are well, they're obviously wrong and awful. You know,
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: they throw that in are rare, They said, humans are fallible.
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: Unlike most tools society provide law enforcement, Block ensures that
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: the instances what our technology is misused, the evidence used
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: to hold responsible parties accountable is right there in our system.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: So their defense is our system makes misuse provable after
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: the fact, not our system prevents misuse. And four or
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: four Media is they're reporting backs up that distinction. Because,
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: as I said, of the cases that they talked about,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: only a very small handful of those cases were caught
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: by flock's own internal audit tools or things like department review.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: The overwhelming majority of them were caught by journalists and
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: women who looks themselves up and things like that. And interestingly,
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: this it's gonna it sounds like I'm just talking about
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: like a handful of cops.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: It's really a much bigger problem.
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: There's this study called Grounding the Flock Confronting Police surveillance
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: of mobilities from the Journal of Mobile Media and Communication
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: that kind of makes this bigger claim that blocks design
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: let police in one state reach into states that have
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: completely different laws, effectively erasing whatever legal protections for women
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: and immigrants the moment they cross a jurisdiction line, or
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: even when they don't so in cases like Johnson County
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: in Texas, where a sheriff used BLOCK to track down
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: a woman that they believed had had a self induced abortion,
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: which was against the law in Texas, that search was
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: not limited to Texas, where that you know, where abortion
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: is criminalized. Police were able to reach into six eight
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: hundred and nine block networks and eighty three thousand in
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: three hundred and forty five different cameras nationwide, including in
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: places like Illinois or Washington where abortion is perfectly legal.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: And so the system, this FLOCK system, makes it so
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: that the jurisdiction, when you cross over to a different jurisdiction,
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: there is no distinction.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Police can just say like, oh, well, even though you.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: Didn't commit a crime in this state, we're in this
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: state and we're saying that you did commit a crime.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Like that case of the woman that they suspected of
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: having a self induced abortion in Texas is really a
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: case that stuck with me because it has really showed
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: how how this is a real complex issue that does
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: not stop at any one state line. Like being in
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: a state where you've not been accused of breaking any
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: kind of law is not going to necessarily be protective
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: with a system like this.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, let's terrifying.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and also, if we're going back to the
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: original premise of that Flock was trying to present, it's
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: all about safety, then you enter something like this into
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: the record of basically searching for women who are having
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: an abortion across state lines, then it just feels I
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: mean it's obvious that that's not what it's about at all,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: which is what we've been talking about. But this is
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: very clear to me. Oh, okay, you're not worried about safety.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah. In that case, the police said, listen, they were
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: just worried about her. Her family was worried about her.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: They just wanted to make sure that she was okay.
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: And the sheriff in Texas said, oh, she was not
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: being investigated as a suspect in any kind of abortion
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: related offense. It was just a safety search. If that
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: account is accurate, the presence of the word abortion in
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: the search note a flock doesn't necessarily mean that law
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: enforcement was investigating this woman allegedly, you know, getting reproductive
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: health care as a crime. But that defense doesn't really
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: hold up because according to information obtained by the Electronic
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: Frontier Foundation, they found that the sheriff's department actually had
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: opened a quote death investigation into the termination of a
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: quote non viable fetus and had actually those sheriffs had
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: actually consulted prosecutors about potentially charging that woman with a homicide.
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: So all that song and dance of like, oh, we
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: were just worried about her safety, We weren't using flock
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: to track her down because we were trying to charge
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: her with a crime.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Or arrest her.
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: That's clearly bs because EFF has the receipts, and Flock
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: has still not walked back their original defense, even after
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: the Electronic Frontier Foundation's records came out indicating that, yeah,
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: the police had spoke to prosecutors about charging this woman
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: with an abortion related crime, and so yeah, they're still
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: laboring under this, this claim that the police were not
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: using flock to charge her with a crime, when at
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: this point we know that's not true.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Right on.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: On top of that, a big contentious part of this
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: conversation is how FLOCK and ICE have worked together.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: Yes, I'm glad that you brought that up, because local
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: departments across the country have run FLOCK surches on behalf
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: of ICE agents who did not otherwise have access to
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: these systems, effectively working as a workaround for federal agents.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: And again, as I just said, because flock is this
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: nationwide connected, interconnected network of license plate readers and cameras
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: in states like Illinois a what is sometimes called this
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: a sanctuary state where cooperating with ICE in this way
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: is illegal without a judicial warrant, Local police reportedly handed
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: over block log and credentials directly to federal agents, which
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: just cuts out any kind of intermediary or oversight. Federal
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: agents separately used a flock pilot program to gain nationwide
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: camera access and illegally accessed cameras in Colorado, which is
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: also what is commonly known as a sanctuary state. In California,
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: police ran searches on people involved in ice protests and
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: illegally shared the results. And because Block retail partners include
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: places like lows and home Depot, you know, retail giants
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: where ice raids have specifically targeted undocumented day labors, the
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: network's private sector reach then compounds its law enforcement reach, right,
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: and so you can kind of see how this becomes
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: this interconnected, complex problem because all of these cameras are
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: connected across the country.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: That brings us to another question, because, as Samantha has said,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: we have so many flock cameras here in Atlanta specifically,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: but in Georgia as well. How widespread is this technology?
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Baby Flock is everywhere. It is so common.
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: If you are listening to this and I think, certainly
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: I don't have flock in my neck of the woods
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: do a little bit of a search because you might
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: be surprised. Flock is the largest ALPR vendor in the country.
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: It's got over eighty three thousand cameras, more than five
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: thousand law enforcement contracts, plus private clients like retailers and
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: homeowners associations. An independent tracking site called eyes on Flock
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: estimates close to two hundred and forty eight million vehicles
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: have been tracked through Flock so far across more than
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: twenty nine thousand reported cameras. And importantly, the technology does
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: not just read plates. The company's own promotional materials describe
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: the quote, vehicle fingerprint technology that can identify a car
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: by color, dense bumper stickers, or roof racks, and even
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: allows for you to free tech search for things like
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: blue SUV with racing stripe even if a licensed plate
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: is obscured. The company's own patents describe the ability to
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: identify folks by race, sex, clothing type, weight, and height.
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: And so none of this jives with flocks public statements
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: that oh, it's cameras do not and cannot track vehicles,
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: much less individual people. If that is the case, why
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: do your patents describe the ability to identify people by race, sex,
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: and clothing type and hide and weight. You know, why
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: does your why are your promotional materials describe vehicle fingerprint
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: as technology that can identify cars by things like bumper stickers.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: Like It's that they want to have it both ways.
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: They want this to be cuddly, non threatening technology to
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: the public, but then they want to highlight the ways
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: that it is incredibly.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Draconian to its potential clients and partners.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: I'm giggling at the five that you said cuddly for
• 48:50
  Speaker 5: this segment.
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it sounds silly, but oftentimes when we're talking,
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: you know, have technology like this, they'll use like a
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: cuddly like like I think it was ring You remember
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: that Super Bowl commercial where it had the lost data
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: and all those and so that, so like one that
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: was a pretty cuddly commercial that was trying to reframe
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: pretty scary, a pretty scary network of surveillance as, oh,
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: you can find your lost pet. They I think they
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: called it search party, right, And so they do. They
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: always have these sort of cuddly kind of like non
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: threatening ways to describe what is increasingly threatening surveillance technology.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I will say some of the flock cameras actually
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: can pick up voices, so it can hear conversations and
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: record in the span out and get actual data of
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: what conversations are.
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: Happening in a in a reach.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know how closed or how far you can
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: be away, but I know that's been one new thing
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: that they've been really excited to feature for a lot
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: of things that are happening especially like immigration, houselessness and
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: all of that in the in areas like the Cad
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: County where it's more of the black community are located
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: and more immigrant locations. So it's interesting to say it's
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: not doing all these things when in natuality you are
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: truly surveilling.
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: It's not just cars.
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and how that study that I mentioned earlier, how
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: they describe it is essentially flock allows or helps far
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: right policing cultures and tactics travel across jurisdiction. So you know,
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: a restrictive policy in one conservative county kind of functionally
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: reach into a state where reproductive care or immigrant protections
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: are legally guaranteed, simply because the camera network does not
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: recognize state.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Borders the way the law does.
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, it's a way to make sure that
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: that kind of draconian surveillance and policing is everywhere, regardless
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: of whether or not it is lawful where you live.
• 50:56
  Speaker 5: And it's kind of a concern though.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: We have to educate groups of people because they really
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: do take on the ideas like this is helping us,
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: this is protecting us, because you know, we're going to
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: be able to see who's if they try to steal
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: my car, and we'll be able to catch people who
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: all these things. And you have to explain because I
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: have again when those cameras popped up, which was in
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: the last year and a half, two years again like
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: having to explain to my elder neighbors what these actually are.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: We were having to be like no, no, no, no, no,
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: this is not for security. It's not what you think
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: it is. This is actually in order to surveil people
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: and really bring disruption in a great good, like all
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: communities have problems, absolutely, but what they're doing is like
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: a basis of discrimination that they don't understand, and trying
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: to teach them like these block cameras are not for
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: your security, because they really were excited, like the way
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: they talked about it initially, like oh, this is gonna
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: help this way, and you're like, that's not what you think.
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: Oh, I hate that you brought this up, But because
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: it's true, and it's complicated because I have a lot
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: of older folks in my life who are just down
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: for this kind of thing. They are down like when
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: they hear like, I don't know how big of news
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: this is nationally, but you know where I live here
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: in DC, they're talking about things like curfews to curb
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: like use crime, and I have people in my life
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: are like, well, that's good. They need more police, they
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: need curfews, they need cameras, they need surveillance. There are
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: people who hear this and think that's great, Like I'm
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: so down for these cameras. I want them to be
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: in my neck of the woods. But I think when
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: you start drilling into, okay, well, do you want the
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: agreed upon laws where you lived essentially be null and
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: void because of this camera system? Do you want to
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: have your rights invalidated in this way simply because it's technology? Like, Like,
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: I agree with you that it does take some really
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: drilling in to be like, what are you actually saying?
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Right, It's interesting because we've definitely had like the conversations
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: of like, yeah, you think this is what they're doing,
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: but the purpose of this is not because of this.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: They're just watching what you're doing on a daily thing
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: in a different way. And if they have you as
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: a subject, if they have you as a target, things
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: go downhill. Whether it's like Hoa's, I could only imagine
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: if they're trying to push certain people out that constantly
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: watching them, trying to get like violations and rules so
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: they can uproot them from their home, you know, like
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: stuff like that, which is already a problem with Hoa's.
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: So you have flock cameras in this situation and they're
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: pointed towards your house and talking about well you allowed
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: your dog to do these you know, like this is
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: a concern.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm glad that you put it that way, because
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: if I had to sell flock is bad to somebody
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: who was like I kind of like it.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: Think about if you got into.
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: A dispute with the lady who were the over zealous
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: HOA person in your neighborhood.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Do you want that person to have access.
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: To your real time location and whereabouts be a surveillance cameras. No,
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: of course, not think how much worse your dispute with
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: your HOA lady would be if that were.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: The case, right.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: And one of the things one of the things that
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: I my partner I've I talked about since the beginning
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: with the flock cameras is some of the sites that
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: are actually pushing back. I'm not saying that I've seen
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: a few tiktoks where kids have come out and done
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: things that are not legal in order to try to
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: get those block cameras out of their neighborhood. But I
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: have said a few situations where it does feel like
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: people are understanding, oh, this is not great.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: Yes, I have seen some of those methods that folks
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: are using to fight back against flock. I won't comment
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: on that, but I will say that there is pushback
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: happening within the law. Open source projects like dflock crowdsource
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: locations of these readers and these cameras nationwide so people
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: can get a sense of what's watching them. Cities including
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: Denver and Austin have declined to renew their flock contracts. Lynnwood, Washington,
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: paused it's program over concerns about unlawful immigration use. Kalamazoo
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: restricted what data it shares with ice and border protection.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: So it does seem like people are pushing back against this,
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: both in terms of creating projects to help people just
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: have information and provide some transparency into the whereabouts of
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: these cameras and how they're being used, and city saying
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: wait a minute, we're not so sure we want to
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: partner with flock in this way.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that came to mind when
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about this topic is that it's not
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: a new conversation, but I feel like it really started
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: after September eleventh, where all of these things were put
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: in place for our safety, for our security, and all
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: of this stuff, and we've never we never pushed back
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: against them like they It was just a backside where
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: everything built up and built up and built up, and
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: that understanding that we had that you know, maybe one
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: day the Patriot Act would go and it didn't, and
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: it became worse than all of this stuff and having
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: these technologies doing relying on that same thing of this
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: is for your safety, so you have to accept it.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: We're doing this for.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: You, and that is my big So what here is
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: that how easy it is for harmful technology to be
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: sold to us by the powers that be if those
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: powers tell us it's about keeping us safe. Right, These
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: cameras were sold to us with that promise of delivering
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: safety to do things like find missing kids or catch
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: dangerous bad guys. And you know, harmful technology rarely arrives
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: announcing itself as harmful. They're wrapped up in our fears
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: and our understandable desires, and our triggers and our blind spots,
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: and they arrive promising to keep us safe. But exactly
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: as you said, Annie, once that surveillance system starts, it
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: rarely goes away, and it rarely stays confined to its
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: original purpose. The same network that might be helpful in
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: finding a missing child or recovering a stolen car can
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: also help a police officer stock his ex girlfriend. That
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: same tool that is sold to us as a piece
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: of public safety infrastructure to keep us safe can also
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: become a way to reach across state lines and undermine
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: protections for abortion, healthcare, immigration status, or personal privacy right.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: And so what stands out to me here is that
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: none of these cases, again, we're uncovered by safeguards that
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: were supposed to be built into a system. They're uncovered
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: by women who get suspicious women who like I feel
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: like something is off, and you just have ordinary people
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: who are kind of forced to do the oversight that
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: these institutions and tech companies have failed to do themselves.
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: And Yeah, I just keep wondering, like, if all of
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: these cases were discovered by just ordinary people, or by accident,
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: or by somebody just looking into it or a journalist,
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: what does that say about the cases that we don't
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: know about? You know, because the real test of surveillance
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: technology is not whether or not it's working when things
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: are right, it's what happens when a you know, controlling
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: cop with a ex wife who is trying to get
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: away from him gets access to it. That's really the
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: question that we should be asking. And I feel like
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: it is women and marginalized people who are paying the
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: price for the institutions and systems that should be keeping
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: us safe failing to ask that question.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And that's so often the case, unfortunately, which reminds me.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Did you watch the trailer for the Social Reckoning Bridget Girl?
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: I did?
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: I'm so.
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: I know the trailer was not well received, but I
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: liked it. I mean, I had some questions about it,
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: chief among them is that. I feel like it kind
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: of presented Francis Hogan as which I thought the casting
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: was a really interesting choice there. It kind of presented
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: her as like I'm just sort of wide eyed and
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna do this whistle blowing thing, when in reality,
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: everybody that I know who is who has talked to
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: her or knows her, is like, oh no, Francis Hagan
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: is like an incredibly savvy, you know, wealthy person who
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: made very intentional and specific moves to protect herself financially, socially, politically,
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: which is great. Like I'm not, I'm not, but like
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: the movie, the trailer kind of made it seem like
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: she was like, I don't know, I whistle blowing, you know, right?
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: What did you all think?
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I liked it? I'm I'm intrigued because after I watched
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: that trailer, I went back and watched the trailer for
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: the first Social Network, and so I guess, I guess
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: I just had kind of a moment of this felt
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: very different to me watching that trailer versus that one
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: when it first came out, because, as we discussed in
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: our episode about the Social Network, I didn't know much
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: about the whole situation and now I feel like I do.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: So it feels a bit more as a disconnect, and
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not not as clear on how it's going to go,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: but we'll see.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: I will say I thought that Jeremy Strong sounded just
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: like Mark Zuckerberg.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: He sounded just like him an actor.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: An actor, but I did I haven't seen the trailer.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: I've only seen the controversy of the fact that Jesse
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: Eisenberg refused to be in it again because of like
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: he's like, oh, this is too much, I don't think
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: I can do this anymore type of gobb and then
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: he was in another like biopic resident he like he
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: was supposed to be put a stop to it because
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: because the network that bought out Oh.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: Are you talking about artificial.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this morning, and then they stopped it because they're
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: doing a whole deal with open Chat Gypt whatever whatnot. Anyway,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: But so I just got caught up in that per se.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: So I was like, I don't know, I haven't seen it.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: I'm like, huh, okay, So I would go in the
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: line other than the actors.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: I was just listening to the Big Picture of the
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: Ringer Movie podcast about this, and they made a good
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: point which is that, Yeah, it's I was looking forward
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: to seeing artificial and it sucks that like it's not
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: gonna happen via Amazon. But now they've got this built
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: in marketing slogan the movie Amazon and Open Ai didn't
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: want you to see.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: I think I could work for them.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: I think I could work for them.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 5: There's so many things happening.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: I feel like, as we're watching society crumble and having
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: a stupid billionaire and existing trillion trillionaire in existence, things
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: are things.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: Things are interesting, Things.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Are interesting well put.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: They are uh yes, and we always appreciate you bridget
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: coming on and helping us understand these interesting times. Where
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: can the good listeners find you.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: Well, you can preorder my audio book which is going
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: to be out on July fourteenth, called Love at First Prompt,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: all about intimacy and AI. You can get it at
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: Love at First Prompt dot AI. You can find me
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: at my podcast or on our Girls on the Internet
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: or on Instagram at bridget Ray and DC.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: Uh thank you as always for coming on Bridgete. Please listeners,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: if you have not already, check out all of the
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: past episodes Bridgette has done, Yes and her podcast there
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: are no groups on the internet.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: UH.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: If you would like to contact us, you can. You
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: can email us at Hello A Stuffnever Told You dot com.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Blue Sky at momstof podcast
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've Never Told You.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise at Common Bureau,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: and we have a book you can get where you
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: get your books.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: Thanks.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: It's always to our producers Casey Chandler and Rema and
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: our executive producer Maya. Thank you, and thanks to you
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: for listening. Stefan Never Told Me his production by heart Radio.
• 1:03:15
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• 1:03:17
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• 1:03:19
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