If you leave the infrastructure of surveillance in place, people in power will inevitably find an excuse to resume using it.

[1337@techhub.social]

@evacide The city of Austin let their contract with Flock lapse after community input, then a few months later, the Texas DPS signed a contract to continue paying for them. Before this, some of the public was asking the government to take them down, but the government refused saying they're "private property" so they cannot. I have no doubt that Flock is using the cameras left up on some way; these people are actively hostile to the idea of consent.

[huntingdon@mstdn.social]

@evacide

Yep. You have to take that surveillance equipment out, even or especially if your private sector vendor "gave" it to you for free, so long as it could process the resulting data.

[rythur@mastodon.social]

@evacide

Actual Targeted Individual here...

Stay away from cameras.

They exist to bolster state power only.

They are not meant to protect you.

[ams@infosec.exchange]

@feld @evacide Because folks drive through it.

[autumnbaum@mindly.social]

@evacide
I imagine paintball guns might become a popular practavist gift.

[seed@mastodon.au]

@evacide This is exactly right. Infrastructure creates its own demand. Nobody builds a panopticon and then decides not to look.

South Australia just passed donation transparency laws for Saturday's election. The optimist in me says the same principle works in reverse — build transparency infrastructure and it becomes harder to undo.

[ruffin@mas.to]

@cmthiede @evacide

[gnomon@mastodon.social]

@minentromaxinfo @evacide in one specific place, yes: https://www.cp24.com/local/toronto/2025/09/07/torontos-parkside-speed-camera-cut-down-for-7th-time-in-less-than-a-year/ (which you might think would make it easy to catch the repeat offender, but bear with me until my third link)

There _was_ a city-wide swath of speed cam vandalism around the city at that time: https://globalnews.ca/news/11404488/toronto-speed-cameras-cut-down/ (though not repeat vandalism like on Parkside)

It is curious that our illustrious drug-dealing premier won political points with his base by demonizing speedcams & removing them: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/all-of-toronto-s-speed-cameras-are-gone-how-did-we-get-to-this-point-9.6995207

[gnomon@mastodon.social]

@minentromaxinfo @evacide (I am in favor of speed cams because they demonstrably diminish the number of people, primarily senior citizens and young children, killed and injured by motorists every year. But I am also in favor of pushing back *very* hard on broad surveillance tools. Pipe cutters and a three-lookout duty team with Baofeng radios are cheap.)

[cslinuxboy@mastodon.social]

@evacide Hell yeah!!!!

[eragon@pl.eragon.re]

@evacide@hachyderm.io Also, this is just an other example of ACAB.
They basically sold the life of all the residents to get some more power over them.

[gokushrm@mastodon.social]

@evacide u can't remove surveillance %from human life

[privacydigest@mas.to]

@evacide A new twist on the old IT reality - no one wants to be the one responsible for building the database, but once you do, everyone will find a way to misuse it.

[evacide@hachyderm.io]

@GOKUSHRM That would be a really powerful argument if that is what anyone here was proposing, but it is not.