The National Park Service (NPS), the agency tasked with managing the U.S. national parks and monuments, has purchased Flock cameras and had them installed at parks including in Yosemite.
Current and former NPS rangers are not happy about it.
“Flock protects property, not people or parks. People should be free to recreate in ways that are respectful to the ecosystem — but the surveillance is a disrespectful invasion of privacy,” a current NPS ranger told 404 Media. 404 Media granted the ranger and others anonymity because they weren’t permitted to speak to the press.
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Another current NPS ranger said, “I just think that every American should be free to visit our national parks without their location being traced and tracked by the federal government. Wild places are at the core of American freedom and nobody should be afraid to visit them.”
A former NPS ranger added, “I think if the public knew that their public lands were being surveilled, they would push back.”
Flock cameras constantly scan the license plate, color, model, make, and other identifying features of every vehicle that drives past, creating a timestamped record of where a vehicle was at a particular time, and by extension, a person. This data is then available to Flock’s law enforcement customers and is usually queried by police without a warrant. Many of Flock’s cameras are part of a national network that other law enforcement officials can then query. For example, a cop in Texas might query the network to look for a specific vehicle and
search cameras across the country
. This, among increased reporting of cops
abusing their access to Flock to stalk people
with no legitimate investigative purpose, and local cops
performing lookups for ICE
, has contributed to a nationwide conversation around Flock and whether c
… [more]
