Over the past three months, I've written about a couple of alarming mass surveillance stories that pushed into the mainstream discourse for a day and vanished under the howling gale of a modern Pig Empire 12 hour news cycle. First we learned that pigs were sharing data from private AI-powered license plate reading cameras nationally, and then we found out those same local law enforcement agencies were conducting searches for the ICE Gestapo using that data, despite neither ICE nor DHS have a contract with the company that produces those cameras, Flock. We then went on to further discuss all the ways these relationships between the Gestapo and local law enforcement were enabling an ethnic cleansing operation, and Trump's agenda to install a fascist dictatorship in America; an agenda which is powered by an AI-enhanced mass surveillance panopticon that companies like Palantir are helping Trump build out further.
Although a discourse may have moved on from the Flock surveillance network, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and 404 media have stayed on the story and recently turned up something both fascinating, and deeply disturbing. It turns out, that two large US home improvement chains in particular appear to have developed an ad-hoc data sharing arrangement with the police, who are then sharing license plater reader data with ICE. The story gets even wilder however when you realize that the stores sharing Flock data with the cops, who then share it with ICE, are Lowe's and The Home Depot, whose locations have been some of the most heavily, and intentionally targeted spots for Gestapo kidnapping raids to snatch random brown people ICE thinks might be an "illegal" for "reasons."
https://archive.ph/6XPWV
Home Depot and Lowe's Share Data From Hundreds of AI Cameras With Cops
“What we're learning is that two of the country's most popular home improvement stores are contributing to the massive surveillance dragnet coordinated by Flock Safety,” Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told 404 Media. “Do customers know that these stores are collecting their data and sharing indiscriminately? Probably not. Have these companies given thought about how this data might put their customers in danger, whether it's cops stalking their exes or aggressive ICE agents targeting yard workers? Probably not. If these companies want customers to feel safe in their homes, then they should make sure they're also safe where they buy their supplies."
Flock’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are stationed along roads or at entrances to parking lots around the United States, and constantly scan the license plates of cars that drive by. Because there are Flock cameras around the country, Flock often has a snapshot of people’s movements which police can search, typically without a warrant."
So, this is kind of a "holy shit" moment. For various reasons of legality, neither 404 Media, nor the EFF are willing to directly accuse two major American brands and an AI-surveillance company of collaborating with a fascist regime to conduct an ethnic cleansing operation, but boy does it sure look like that's what's going on here. It turns out we were wrong about Stephen Miller's hate on for Home Depot parking lots, and the Gestapo was probably just going where the easy arrests would be because those companies were sharing private data with ICE, through a national network of cop surveillance data the private sector gleefully helps compile on the regular to "fight crime" and "keep us safer."
So, why is there even a national network of cop surveillance data for private companies to feed into, and pigs to share with the Gestapo? Because in extremely rare instances, like perhaps the kidnapping of a child, or when an escaped mass shooter is on the loose, it can be very useful for the authorities to have access to a network of license plate readers. No privacy advocate has ever disputed that, but the reality is when you give murderpigs the right to surveil society openly, the vast majority of the time it doesn't lead to rescuing abducted children; it leads to shit like this - a national panopticon dragnet whereby fascist pigs who hate minorities can help fascist pigs who're being paid to brutalize and deport minorities, find their targets.
Finally, as with every story about the Trumpenreich's burgeoning fascist panopticon, it must be pointed out that even if you don't fucking care about this because you're a racist who doesn't think migrants and apparently legal immigrants who happen to be Hispanic matter to you at all, the reality is that companies like Lowe's and Home Depot are sharing your data with the Gestapo all the same. The fash might not care right now, but sooner or later they're gonna run out of people to deport and have lots of spare time to look into you and your life.
