Privacy, encryption vs. Surveillance state

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WOAH 🚨 Texas State Police purchased new vehicles that have surveillance systems that will READ YOUR PHONE as you’re driving down the highway

Phones will soon be monitored. “Texas State Police recently bought vehicles equipped with technology that can intercept mobile phone data”

The Texas Department of Public Safety approved an emergency $4,487,500 purchase of four 2026 Chevrolet Tahoe Police Pursuit Vehicles loaded with Cognyte FalcoNet gear. Only $600,000 of that was for the trucks themselves. The rest bought the surveillance systems

Purchase order included:

- Four FalcoNet core systems: $2.85 million
- 5G perpetual licenses: $280,000
- Backpack-portable units so it can leave the vehicle
- Antenna kits, amplifiers and mounting hardware

Once connected, the system pulls identifying phone information like your IMSI, IMEI and location data. 3 system can be operational in about 3 minutes and process THOUSANDS of devices per minute

(Holy sh*t)

The surveillance state is expanding in America and Texas seeks to be leading the way

“I'm in Houston, the largest city in Texas, where authorities are quietly building a web of cameras, drones, sensors and AI systems”

- The cameras at some businesses like gas stations are required by law in Texas and police can request the footage
- Roads are getting a new AI traffic camera system
- Houston scrapped its old gunshot detection system after opposition, but it's approved a new one which can detect gunshots, cars screeching and glass breaking
- Drones are also being used. Police used them during the World Cup, but won't say how many they have now

“And is my phone being monitored? Texas State Police recently bought vehicles equipped with technology that can intercept mobile phone data… and the most controversial tool right now, Flock license plate readers. Officials here won't say how many they have or where they are, but there's at least 3,800 in the county alone”

The police vehicles equipped with this new surveillance system will look like ordinary state police Tahoes. Antennas are concealed behind a raised false roof
Click to expand...



Well. That's the final straw for me. Time to order a Faraday cage bag for my phone (plus extras for the family) for use when driving around. I'm looking at this one at the moment:

 
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^^^^

Just leave your phone at home. Take with you an obsolete cellphone, with no number assigned to it...by LAW it MUST connect to the 9-1-1 operator in the region it's active in, even if there's no account or number assigned.

FWIW, I have tested that. At least in my area it's absolutely true - I was in communication with the emergency switchboard. To be sure they didn't send the SWAT team out to my geofenced location, I told the operator it was a butt-dial accident. She accepted that...and I knew it was a good emergency resource.

The Faraday bags...I forgot where, but someone seemingly-competent, tested about six Amazon bags, and only one worked. It was not the most-expensive one, either.

Of course glowing product reviews on Bezoszon, mean nothing.
 
Casey Jones said:
Just leave your phone at home. Take with you an obsolete cellphone, with no number assigned to it...by LAW it MUST connect to the 9-1-1 operator in the region it's active in, even if there's no account or number assigned.
Click to expand...
If in airplane mode, I don't think it'll do that. It still needs access to the cell network and airplane mode tirns the cellular transmitter off.
....and wi-fi can be turned on with airplane mode on. So you can still connect to the internet.
 
We all gotta find the solution we can live with.

IF you find an actual, effective Faraday Bag...and put the phone in...I know from experience, back from when the various G networks were NOT completed and ubiquitous...once out of signal, the phone will literally cry itself to sleep (dead battery) looking for a way to link to the Mothership.

It will wear your battery down in short order. My last DummPhone was good three days on a charge, normally. But, take it up into the mountains, it would search, and search, and shut down with LO BATT after about six hours unless I turned it off.

I expect that would be even more a problem with a StupePhone that can't get the signal, either to find out where it is, or to report it to the Fruit Company or Microsquish.
 
Casey Jones said:
... Just leave your phone at home. ...
Click to expand...

Not an option for me. I need to be able to reach and be reached by family.

Casey Jones said:
... The Faraday bags...I forgot where, but someone seemingly-competent, tested about six Amazon bags, and only one worked. ...
Click to expand...

They are easy enough to test yourself and I plan to do that immediately. If it doesn't work, I'll just return it.

Casey Jones said:
... the phone will literally cry itself to sleep (dead battery) looking for a way to link to the Mothership. ...
Click to expand...

Not if you turn it off before putting it in the cage, which is what I plan to do. Phone will be off and in the cage while I'm traveling. On and out of the cage when I'm where I want to be (and have need/use for it).
 
Casey Jones said:
once out of signal, the phone will literally cry itself to sleep (dead battery) looking for a way to link to the Mothership.
Click to expand...
Airplane mode turns the cell radio off.

The faraday bag stops it from using gps to track you.
 
Joe King said:
Airplane mode turns the cell radio off.

The faraday bag stops it from using gps to track you.
Click to expand...
The phone has to use battery power to communicate - identify itself.

I don't know the mechanics of it, but I don't believe just a ping from a tower to a phone not using any current, will identify the phone. It could MAYBE return a static ping, that yes, there's some sort of transponder there...but not who/what/where.

They SAY that turning the phone off doesn't stop it. Probably true.

But then, it's using battery power while "off."

Here we are, arguing basic electronic technology...just about every Tech Bro in the phone field, knows the answer, but somehow they're not saying.

Probably because they're all autistic deviants and have common-consent not to talk about it. Because these damn spy-phones are how they can elevate themselves to being the Normies' taskmasters.
 
Casey Jones said:
The phone has to use battery power to communicate - identify itself.

I don't know the mechanics of it, but I don't believe just a ping from a tower to a phone not using any current, will identify the phone. It could MAYBE return a static ping, that yes, there's some sort of transponder there...but not who/what/where.

They SAY that turning the phone off doesn't stop it. Probably true.

But then, it's using battery power while "off."

Here we are, arguing basic electronic technology...just about every Tech Bro in the phone field, knows the answer, but somehow they're not saying.

Probably because they're all autistic deviants and have common-consent not to talk about it. Because these damn spy-phones are how they can elevate themselves to being the Normies' taskmasters.
Click to expand...
The whole reason for airplane mode is to turn off the cellular radio.

No cellular radio, no pinging.

Wi-fi can still be used if you turn it on.

Ie: you can put it in airplane mode and toss it in a faraday bag and it won't be able to connect to anything until you take it out of the bag.

Airplane won't work on it's own because of gps. It'll still know location* and cough that data up soon as you turn off airplane mode or connect to wi-fi.

*gps location is done by receiving data, not sending, so airplane mode doesn't turn that off
 
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A little more stuff related to the 100+ million compromised drivers licenses and ID's.


Has the Florida DMV been hacked?

A well known hacker group is threatening the Florida DMV to either pay them ransom, or their data will be released on Sept 11th.


 


Flock Camera Installer SWATS Atlanta News First Investigative Journalist
-----

As it turns out, Flock Camera Installers don't like to be watched.

In this video, a Flock camera installer calls the police because a news journalist is documenting him installing cameras.

I say the Flock camera installer SWATed the journalist because of what the installer says at 1:54 in the video.

"I work with Flock Safety. And I'm getting followed.
Harassed, pretty much. Taking videos and pictures.

I'll just put out my first name because I don't want them to hear my full name on the 911 call when they get it."

When they get the 911 call?

How many people do you know who are illegally harassing and threatening violence to someone, will then later seek out the 911 call of the incident via a FOIA request, and publish that call to the internet?

None. But that is exactly what an investigative journalist would do.

The installer KNEW that this man was a journalist and was acting within his rights and responsibilities. Yet, he called the police on him anyway, claiming the journalist was illegally harassing him and causing him to fear for his safety, so that the police would come and harass the journalist and risk a possible physical altercation, even though the journalist was doing nothing wrong.

Full video:
 


American shows up in a disco suit and his own homemade Flock safety camera that he made in his garage to the Lee’s Summit, Missouri City Council meeting

He’s exposing how the city spent $909,000 on only 54 Flock cameras the cameras remain property of Flock. Even if the contract runs its course and they cancel, Flock will keep the cameras despite paying nearly a million dollars for them

It’s true I looked into the flock contracts and they maintain all rights and ownership over the cameras, once installed the city can’t even move the location of the cameras or remove them

- Flock hardware “is owned and shall remain the exclusive property of Flock.”
- “Title to any Flock Hardware shall not pass to [the city].”
A The city may not remove, move or take possession of the units
- At the end of the term, Flock removes the cameras

The city is leasing the cameras and using the software…. This sounds like one of the biggest ripoffs to taxpayers in history

That’s $16,833 per camera over the 5 year contract
 
^^^^

This is, or should be, well-known to anyone who's lived with one. Plug it into a Linux computer, and (with a password) you can see the contents of the phone.

That program of course has better organization, in that it identifies apps, usage, and will read texts etc. But this is obvious to anyone who's gone in, trying to transfer photos out of the phone without subscribing to a cloud-based, subscription photo service run by Gurgle or the Fruit Company.

Bottom line is, those stupephones about as private as a porn-shooting set. Be DAMN sure, when you walk across it, delivering your DoorDash to the set crew, that your pants are zipped up, because the whole world will see, if it's not.
 
ritholtz.com

She Saw the Flock Story Coming... - The Big Picture

Note: This guest essay was written by someone who works for a regulated entity and must therefore be highly circumspect with regard to any public commentary, regardless of topic. They have been closely following the evolution of the mass surveillance situation since early 2025. Why Jessica...
ritholtz.com ritholtz.com
 

Red and blue America have found something to agree on: Flock cameras must go​

In the liberal Blue Ridge Mountains city of Asheville, N.C., progressives fear the Trump administration could use Flock Safety cameras to spy on political dissidents, transgender residents and undocumented immigrants.

In the foothills 95 miles south, Republicans in conservative Oconee County, S.C., view the same AI-enabled license-plate readers as a threat to constitutional privacy rights and have even read aloud from the Federalist Papers at tense public meetings.

Days apart, both communities recently voted to stop using Flock cameras. Though political opposites, they have landed on the same side of a fast-growing national backlash: a fight against government surveillance that has forged rare common ground in America.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/...-cameras-must-go/ar-AA2ct9Cg?ocid=socialshare
 


Police use Flock to jail completely innocent woman for weeks​

When 23-year old Lindsey Brooke Isaacs surrendered to police at the advice of her attorney, she was treated like a hardened criminal. Facing eight felony charges, including three counts of vehicular homicide, she spent her first days in custody in solitary confinement, separated from the rest of the jail population.

Having been denied bond, Isaacs would spend nearly two weeks in jail, swallowing the prospect of spending the rest of her life behind similar bars.

“I was devastated, I was scared,” Isaacs told Fox News. “I thought my life was over.”

As grim as it looked, the Florida woman did have one thing going for her: she was completely innocent.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/othe...-woman-for-weeks/ar-AA2ci5ee?ocid=socialshare
 
searcher said:


Police use Flock to jail completely innocent woman for weeks​

When 23-year old Lindsey Brooke Isaacs surrendered to police at the advice of her attorney, she was treated like a hardened criminal. Facing eight felony charges, including three counts of vehicular homicide, she spent her first days in custody in solitary confinement, separated from the rest of the jail population.

Having been denied bond, Isaacs would spend nearly two weeks in jail, swallowing the prospect of spending the rest of her life behind similar bars.

“I was devastated, I was scared,” Isaacs told Fox News. “I thought my life was over.”

As grim as it looked, the Florida woman did have one thing going for her: she was completely innocent.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/othe...-woman-for-weeks/ar-AA2ci5ee?ocid=socialshare
Click to expand...


More

 
searcher said:
www.supermarketnews.com

Seattle becomes first city to ban surveillance pricing

Union calls it the strongest ban in the country
www.supermarketnews.com
Click to expand...
How are they going to enforce this?

ESPECIALLY given how, with local Living-Wage laws and catch-and-release policies for criminals, retail stores are fleeing to surrounding areas. Even Starcucks has closed shops - in addition to moving many of its operations to Tennesee.

For the ones left...what policing, what monitoring tools do they have? They're not going to do away with bar codes. Electronic screen-signs for price, are probably here to stay. Short of having undercover monitors WATCHING stores and open officials comparing receipts (do they even print receipts, now? Locally, in Wally World, printing one is optional)...that would be the only way.
 
Bottom Feeder said:
Ya know, I've never seen an electronic screen price sign in any of the local stores I've visited.
Click to expand...
Nor I; but we're at the tail end of these things. Only two motherflocking cameras in town, both aimed at commercial establishments.

Saw pictures of them, though, in articles discussing it. Screen the size of a digital-camera viewer, back when. Black lettering, white background - looks JUST LIKE a paper label.

But ready to change on a keystroke.
 
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