{"id":63470,"date":"2026-03-06T07:41:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=63470"},"modified":"2026-03-06T08:38:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T13:38:47","slug":"abaj-surveillance-footage-enters-slapstick-comedy-tv-genre-and-that-could-be-dangerous-lawyer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=63470","title":{"rendered":"ABAJ: Surveillance footage enters slapstick comedy TV genre, and that could be dangerous, lawyer says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ABAJ: Surveillance footage enters slapstick comedy TV genre, and that could be dangerous, lawyer says<\/a> by Adam Banner. About halfway in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

The rise of surveillance cameras and the myth of \u2018passive\u2019 surveillance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, why would we invite so much scrutiny into our homes when we have already agreed, or at least acquiesced to, near constant surveillance outside of them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take license plate readers, including systems operated by companies like Flock Safety, for example. These cameras, which capture vehicles and license plates in real time, promise safety through a faulty premise: They don\u2019t watch people, they just collect data. I can assure you, while that may be the intention, it\u2019s far from the application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proliferation of these systems raises a familiar constitutional question dressed up in modern tech language: At what point does convenience become consent, and when does consent become coercion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t even begin to count how many cases I\u2019ve had over the last few years that start with law enforcement questioning a motorist about their recent travel history, only to end with an arrest once the relevant tracking information reveals an inconsistency. Many of those situations happen while agents access camera databases in real time during \u201cconsensual conversations\u201d with motorists, who are ordered into law enforcement vehicles against their will after a minor traffic infraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who think that Flock Safety and others are solely focused on insurance enforcement or some other less intrusive function, just look at Flock Safety\u2019s website. The company\u2019s homepage is replete with calls to action far beyond remedial enforcement measures. With headings such as, \u201cStop Crime in Real Time,\u201d \u201cBeat the Clock, Every Call\u201d and \u201cSolving More Homicides,\u201d it\u2019s clear that the focus is assisting all government investigations in any way possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be fair, while Neighborhood Watch doesn\u2019t scream \u201cgovernment overreach,\u201d it does at least whisper it if you\u2019re willing to listen. After all, the implication is obvious. The series documents how society continues to grant immunity\u2014legal, moral and psychological\u2014to systems designed to record our day-to-day existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once installed and normalized, though, these tools rapidly move from optional safeguard to expected infrastructure. Once that happens, questioning them starts to sound suspicious to the uninformed or the uninvested, almost like a healthy dose of skepticism is shamed into opposing safety itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we stop questioning the things that threaten our freedom, though, we acquiesce to invisible chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABAJ: Surveillance footage enters slapstick comedy TV genre, and that could be dangerous, lawyer says by Adam Banner. About halfway in:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-surveillance-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63470"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63473,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63470\/revisions\/63473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}