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.

How about Denver just doesn't surveil its citizens, at all?

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Many states do not consider a trailer hitch ball as "obstructing" the license plate...

...so I have a trailer hitch ball hung directly across my identifier, entirely obscuring the plate (but not "obstructing," to letter of poorly-written laws e.g. Tennessee's).

Been rolling with it for months and nobody cares. Now I'm in Flock's database as the white Camry with no visible identifier (no bumper stickers nor tag visible).

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First time you get cited for "obstructing license plate," in Tennessee, is a $10.00 fine. Second is $20.00. This state also doesn't require plates for trailers, so after my second citation I'll just start hauling my 2ft long canoe trailer everywhere (which conveniently covers license plate).

They must be making huge profits, assuming every bodycam needs some kind of recurring revenue (for evidence.com, maintenance, replacements). BUT as far as I can tell, they are also taking the judicial requirements very seriously. Unlike Flock, I haven't heard anything about AXON providing tools to circumvent the 4th amendment. In fact, AXON makes tools that make it easier to comply with the law. For example, record requests for bodycam videos are (again, afaik) easy to satisfy with their tech.

I don't know what ownership they have of videos stored on their services. Can they use it for LLM training? can they sell anonymized data? do they? no idea, but trust in Flock is at about a 0 out of 10.

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.

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.

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.

https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/axon-plans-to-sever-apis-wi...

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.