„Sie werden heute Abend nicht über Flock sprechen“ – Der County Commissioner weigert sich, Anwohner, die Flock ablehnen, bei der Versammlung sprechen zu lassen

Excerpts from article by Jason Koebler, ft. video:

*[…] “How many people are here for public comment dealing with license plate readers AKA Flock?,” Michael Garrison, the chairman of the Madison County Board of Commissioners began the public meeting by saying. Nearly everyone in the audience’s hand went up. “Probably most everybody. Per our county policy, I’m going to respectfully ask that you guys take a few minutes to converse with each other, designate one person to speak … we’ll move forward with only one person, whoever that happens to be.”*

*“What? No. We all want to speak on this,” someone in the crowd said; others can be heard trying to object as well.*

*“You will not speak on Flock tonight,” he responds. “One person designated. You can pick that person … if I gave everyone three minutes to say the same thing, which is opposition to Flock, we’d never get done … I’ve spoken. I’m not debating this. I am taking advantage of our policy as it is written to streamline this process, you can either do it or not.”*

*“You’re in a room full of people who care!,” a person in the crowd says.*

*“We’re not going to engage in this back-and-forth conversation,” he responds. “We’re going to allow one person. Pick a person or not.”*

*[…] It is common practice at city council and county council meetings to allow all residents who have shown up to speak provide public comment, which is one of the reasons that these types of meetings are often many hours long. At the Madison County meeting, these residents were not allowed to speak, which is much different than the practices we’ve seen at other, similar meetings.*

First amendment, never heard of it

Catching republican vibes

Beholden to corporate interests, not yours

What if everyone was holding a brick? Would he let them speak then? 

Seems people keep forgetting what the next step is when they refuse to let you speak. When the first fails, the second prevails.

Get an IR LED for your license plate. No one wil know because you can’t see the light from it, but they will show up as a massive lens flare on a flock camera at night.

Not sure how legal that is lol so maybe make sure its not illegal first… but I know this works on most security cameras because they sell hats and headbands for the same purpose.

How does the Sheriff get land to put up Flock cameras on?

Crazy, I would have thought this was Florida.

Can’t speak about Flock cameras?

OK then, we’ll just cut them down without discussion.

$$$Money has been exchanged. Simple as that. Sure sign of your weak position when you won’t let you constituents, whom you work for, raise concerns.

We should go back to tar and feathering

I’m not a lawyer, but when they finally put up the policy he was referring to, it seemed to me like it was saying if a group of people came to speak then one person could be made to speak on their behalf. But these people were not a group of people that came together, they were individual independent people who happened to want to speak on the same thing. It really seems like a key difference to me that I imagine some smart legal minds out there are trying to argue that they misinterpreted. It’s a poorly written policy at best, and awful for public engagement at worst.

„We will ONLY speak on Flock tonight, and you can’t stop us.“

The township im in also did that. They announced flock cameras and then proceeded to not hold a hearing about it whatsoever and passed it

Public servants who demonstrate that they’ve forgotten who they serve should be forcefully reminded. For example, by losing their role in government and never being able to find a path to any other elected office.

But don’t worry, the tech oligarchs lining their pockets will help them, right? Even after they have no power to carry forward their corrupt agendas… RIGHT?

The flock money must be REALLY good. It got my mayor to go behind city councils back and he couldn’t even face a townhall meeting and made one of his sniveling flunkies do it and he got absolutely demolished by the crowd and basically said ‚too bad, the deal is done‘.

Vote them out.. ALL of them

Imagine denying everyone in that room their constitutional right to free speech. He’s cooked.

I wish we weren’t too fucking socially atomized to realize that that man has no power. If that group of people refuse, as a bloc, to leave the room…they’re not leaving the room.

Solidarity has been beaten out of us from the goddamn crib.