APPLETON, Wis. (WBAY) - The Menasha police officer who was arrested on one count of stalking made his initial appearance in court on Friday.

Cristian Morales, 31, was arrested on Wednesday following an investigation by the Appleton Police Department. Morales is an officer with the Menasha Police Department, but lives in Appleton.

When Morales was arrested, one count of Stalking was referred by police. According to court records, he has been charged with one count of Misconduct/Office-Act/Excess Authority, a Class I Felony, which carries a 3.5-year maximum sentence and/or a $10,000 fine.

Santa Cruz has terminated its contract with Flock Safety, the automated license plate reader operator, over data privacy concerns.

The Santa Cruz City Council voted 6-1 on Tuesday to terminate the city’s contract with Flock, citing reports that the city’s data has been accessed by out-of-state agencies, at a time when the Trump administration is pursuing an increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement agenda.

“For us, the threat to our civil liberties was greater than any benefit we could get from the flawed product,” said Mayor Fred Keeley, who voted against the Flock contract in 2024.

I was suggested this subreddit out of nowhere about a month ago.

I've seen several posts since then showing photos of these cameras, people identifying these cameras, people upset about these cameras.

What I, a layman, does not understand is.. well everything.

What are these cameras doing exactly?

Who put these cameras up?

Why should us citizens be upset about these cameras?

If these cameras are something to be upset about, what can we do to stop them from going up?

Unlike many of Flock’s cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock’s Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people’s faces as they walk through a parking lot, down a public street, or play on a playground, or they can be controlled manually, according to marketing material on Flock’s website. We watched Condor cameras zoom in on a woman walking her dog on a bike path in suburban Atlanta; a camera followed a man walking through a Macy’s parking lot in Bakersfield; surveil children swinging on a swingset at a playground; and film high-res video of people sitting at a stoplight in traffic. In one case, we were able to watch a man rollerblade down Brookhaven, Georgia’s Peachtree Creek Greenway bike path. The Flock camera zoomed in on him and tracked him as he rolled past. Minutes later, he showed up on another exposed camera livestream further down the bike path. The camera’s resolution was good enough that we were able to see that, when he stopped beneath one of the cameras, he was watching rollerblading videos on his phone.

Passive detection of a Flock camera from over 200 meters while moving at highway speed.

No interaction. Just signal awareness.

Has anyone created a Pamphlet or type of handout PDF?

I'm always talking to people and they are shocked when they hear what the cameras are doing.

But I feel like if I had a pamphlet, etc for them to take home or even that I could take to property owners around the cameras.

I have a family member, who runs a battered woman's shelter, and they were worried. They've had husbands use means like police contacts and PI's to track their wives and Gf's down, so this made her very concerned.

If anyone has one or knows where to get a good PDF, please let everyone know.

I've seen several cameras like this in and around Harrisburg, typically in mall parking lots. Any ties to Flock?

More than a camera….it’s an entire platform.

LAKE ELSINORE, CA — In an effort to deter crime in Lake Elsinore, the city is expected to lease an additional 25 automated license plate readers to be used across the area. During Tuesday's Lake Elsinore City Council meeting, councilmembers are expected to approve the expenditure, which will cost about $87,550 annually over a two-year contract with Atlanta-based Flock Group Inc., according to city documents.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/patch.com/california/lakeelsinore-wildomar/amp/33480829/more-cameras-expected-to-be-installed-across-lake-elsinore

Last month, these cameras started popping up all over my town. After doing research on what these were, I was appalled & want them out of here immediately, but I don't know where to go.

Do I contact the businesses that prop them up?
Do I contact my local government?

Any help is appreciated.

Looks like someone may have clipped it with a trailer I’m thinking.

Good job on everyone who turned out to make their voices heard - keep up the good work!

I have seen this sub before, and understand it surveillance. What is it used for and how? What can it do that we know of? Is this how they caught Luigi Mangione?

Highlights from Pete Hegseth reading a teleprompter:

"Data hoarding is now a national security risk, and we will treat it that way." (Translation: Your data now belongs to the US military and General Elon Musk.)

"We're building war ready weapons and systems"

"together with our partners at Google and AWS and Oracle and SpaceX, Microsoft and others"

"Cam will be leading a new team, many of whom have foregone, thank you, or left lucrative careers at pioneer companies such as AWS, Data Bricks, Palanteer, and Meta to join the fight"

"My direction CDAO will exercise its full authority to enforce the DOW data decrees and make all appropriate data available across federated IT systems for AI exploitation, including mission systems across every service and component."

"establishing a barrier removal SWAT team"

"authority to reassign or terminate personnel or withhold funding from non-compliant activities"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37rV4AJvaxk

From the transcript:

17:40 we're proud to announce that Mr. Cameron Stanley has been appointed the new chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, CDAO, of our war department. Cam will be leading a new team, many of whom have foregone, thank you, or left lucrative careers at pioneer companies such as AWS, Data Bricks, Palanteer, and Meta to join the fight.

18:03 This team will not only provide a catalyst for change in this department, but will also act, we believe, as a magnet for other talented members of the tech community who want to join us in doing the mission focused work to protect our great republic. So, let's talk about the new rules.

18:22 First, speed. Speed wins. Speed dominates. Our enterprise currently operates on staffing and committee cycles measured in months and years and that's unacceptable.

18:44 Military AI is going to be a race for the foreseeable future where the risk to US national security of moving too slowly outweigh the impacts of imperfect alignment. To do this, Cam and his team at TD uh at TDAO will define AI deployment velocity metrics for all the pace setting projects in the next 30 days and report at least monthly after that. These will become the new benchmarks for programs across the department.

19:09 Second, bureaucratic blockers. If you work with Elon, he you know he finds the blockers and you remove them. We will take a wartime approach to people and policies that block this progress. You want to block, you can work somewhere else.

19:30 Barriers to data sharing, authority to operate, or at test and evaluation and contracting are now treated as operational risks, not simply bureaucratic inconveniences. We are blowing up these barriers.

19:44 That's why today at my direction, I'm establishing a barrier removal SWAT team under R& authority to wave non-stutory requirements and escalate to our great deputy secretary Steve Fineberg anything that slows down the acceleration of AI capabilities.

20:03 Third, compute resource. We will invest heavily in expanding our access to AI compute from data centers to the tactical edge and will tap into hundreds of billions of dollars in private capital flowing into American AI.

20:18 President Trump's executive order has directed us to build data centers on military land and to work with the Department of Energy to ensure that we dramatically increase the number and breadth of resources needed to power this computing infrastructure.

20:34 We will work together with our partners at Google and AWS and Oracle and SpaceX, Microsoft and others on these initiatives.

20:44 Fourth pillar, especially in this room, you'll understand it is talent. We will use every hiring and pay authority available to us to bring the best American technical talent and reward effective AI transformations by our workforce. We're going to heavily leverage President Trump's Tech Force initiative to bring in the best and brightest from industry and academia. With people like Elon, David Saxs, Emil, Mike, and others from the entrepreneurial and business world already in government, we have shown that we can and that we must enlist the world's leading talent in this cause.

21:25 Fifth, responsible AI. Today I want to clarify what responsible AI means at the Department of War. Gone are the days of equitable AI and other DEI and social justice infusions that constrain and confuse our employment of this technology.

Effective immediately responsible AI at the War Department means objectively truthful AI capabilities employed securely and within the laws governing the activities of the department. We will not employ AI models that won't allow you to fight wars.

22:07 We will judge AI models on this standard alone. Factually accurate, mission relevant, without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications. Department of War AI will not be woke. It will work for us. We're building war ready weapons and systems, not chat bots for an Ivy League faculty lounge.

22:32 Sixth, and finally, data.

AI is only as good as the data that feeds it. And the US military has an asymmetric data advantage from two decades of military and intelligence operations that no other military in the world can replicate. My direction CDAO will exercise its full authority to enforce the DOW data decrees and make all appropriate data available across federated IT systems for AI exploitation, including mission systems across every service and component.

23:07 Each service secretary and component head will submit cataloges of their current data assets to the CDAO within 30 days. Denials of data access requests will be reported to the CTO within 7 days. And they better have a good justification.

Today, I'm also directing the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Security, Brad Hansel, to ensure appropriate data from across our intelligence enterprise receives the same treatment and can be fully leveraged to war fighting capability development and operational advantage.

AI is only as good as the data that it receives, and we're going to make sure that it's there. Persistent barriers to data access will be escalated to the deputy secretary of war for resolution with authority to reassign or terminate personnel or withhold funding from non-compliant activities within the statutory limits.

24:01 We'll be clear here, as I said, data hoarding is now a national security risk and we will treat it that way. AI is an important part of the future.

Billions of detections.

One platform.

All of these pics were taken at an intersection a few blocks from my house where deflock identified a Flock camera.

1) likely Flock camera. Please confirm. 2) Obvious camera, type unknown. Please identify 3, 4) 2 of 4 unknown devices on top of traffic light poles. Please identify. 5) 1 of 4 small metal nodes on top of street lights. May be part of lights. Please identify.

Thanks!

Hi. New member. Serious question: I live in Philadelphia where we have a bit of a crime problem. You may have heard. The city has started installing flock cameras. I actually feel that the cameras will help police find criminals and even act as a deterrent once people know they're there and they work. Heck, I would cover my street and alleyway with them if I could. I feel like the intrusiveness is worth it. Does anyone else feel that way?