What A Brand

Honestly, you have to admire Flock's brand. It is everywhere. Everyone recognizes them when they might never notice competitor cameras. Yes, Flock has competitors. But that branding isn't flawless and recent company missteps have tarnished the brand causing what may be irreparable damage.

From the outset "mistakes were indeed made." One is the camera itself.

In retrospect, getting your inspiration from Darth Vader's helmet might have been suboptimal.

Then there was some foot-shooting going on. Flock's training materials for PoPo (police and politicians) emphasizing how best to market and justify extensive government surveillance became public. Looked a lot like propaganda though it could be viewed as smarmy marketing. "Own the narrative, or someone else will." Sounds like an effort to drown out the public's questioning voices. Vox Populi is never good. For business. Or for politics. 

Then came their "deplorable" moment when a top Flock executive declared that opposition, particularly DeFlock, were terrorists. Not very diplomatic and it doesn't look like it is working any better for Flock that "deplorables" did for Hillary. 

A goose and gander situation surfaced recently when a Flock employee servicing equipment in the field, and hence in public, took umbrage at an ordinary citizen putting them on video. Police arrived, as it now seems that Flock is their new master, though it isn't clear how Flock can do deep surveillance of someone in public, the same someone who cannot take a video of a Flocker, in the very same public arena. 

Only time will tell if Flock have something up their sleeves or under a table that allows them adequate control over their customers such that they can weather what they certainly hope is a passing storm. The concern, regardless of where you stand, is whether or not this will become a political "single issue" for a significant portion of the electorate. Then the current crop o' clowns will either react or they will be replaced by folks who represent the will of the people. While those people of will may not have a constitutional right to privacy in public spaces, by the same token the government has no constitutional mandate for suspicionless, pervasive surveillance of we the people. 

Speed Walking

Pedestrian Tracking

It's The Optics, Stupid

This is no more true than today, what with click-bait, virtual adoration and hate, and all that. You are what you appear to be. Take care to appear to be what you want people to think you are. Sometimes that isn't easy. Sometimes you really want something, you do something that just doesn't look that good. What to do? Well, most folks try to do it in the dark. There is a name for many of these people: politicians.

Optics have gotten really bad in daVille.

Intersectionality. Government surveillance meets political opacity. A marriage made in, well, made in somewhere or something. But the wedding was held at city hall, though a recent tryst was held further away. Enter the optics. 

Yet, not unusual, at least in politics. A vendor exec. A politician. They meet. Neutral territory. No published agenda. No public notification. But...results. Shortly after, vendor gets concessions on a contract. Correlation? Causality? Who knows. That's what political opacity is all about. But opacity came up against open records requests. Revealing emails were revealed. Timelines were drawn up. Not a good look.

Opacity meets optics. But the politician is term limited. Could an executive position be in the future? 

Q.E.D.

It's time to hug your local politician. Why? Because they have proven a principle upon which this country was founded: that government cannot be trusted. 

For those with a recent public education, shortly after ratifying the US Constitution they immediately added the bill of rights, securing the enumerated rights of the people of the United States. And...to protect them from a government, gone rogue, that would take those rights away. 

And here we are. 

Now many, with possible connections to a certain surveillance company, who loudly proclaim that no one in America should expect any privacy in public spaces and that should a government wish to surveil anyone...everyone...by any means available, that is just fine. SCOTUS precedence on the one hand suggests that is true, but on the other hand, SCOTUS has recognized the impact of digital technology by placing restrictions on digital tracking. Clearly the current technology is not mere observation. And this is how our current crop of government overlords have proven our founding fathers' wisdom. 

The founding fathers entertained the notion that the "bad guys" would not be restricted to the general population and that in fact they might worm their way into positions of power inside the government. And so they have. Recent reports indicate quite a few bad actors using this vunderbar "surveillance" technology for what to every observer is nothing but stalking. Well, to be fair, there are the occasional pervs who want to watch kids in bathing suits, but that's surely on the up-and-up. What the stalkers have proven is that the American public needs protection. From the government in the USA. At every level, including right here in daVille. 

So, in this 250th anniversary year, if you bump into the Mayor or a member of Council, thank them. Thank them for proving that those wise leaders in our past were absolutely right.

Gutless Wonder

America is divided. No news there. Apparently Dunwoody is as well. Again, likely not a surprise. But, is it getting worse? That seems to be the case. That great, and widening, divide seems to be between city hall's bureaucrats and politicians, and the electorate...the citizenry. It started with bonds and general tax increases. City hall loves 'em. Citizens don't. Then there is the "pave paradise" folks at city hall, whose enthusiasm is largely driven by grant funding. Folks in daVille are less enthusiastic about an interstate lane in their front yard. Then there was attempted theft of the First Baptist parking lot that left more than a few folks wondering what they were drinking at the palace. The Dunwoody Dildos are universally regarded as ugly (or worse) and are now seeing "D" lids disappearing. Apparently city hall has so pissed off folks that a little malicious vandalism is cropping up. And the latest? That would be government surveillance. The Flock surveillance system. 

A bit of vandalism here too.

Reminiscent of the Biden stickers cropping up back in the day. Probably about as effective, no matter what they're trying to do. These are just a protest. 

At least one protester decided on something perhaps a little less harmless than a sticker-protest.

That blue box hanging below the gutless camera is the power and brains of the operation, keeping in mind that the real brains are in Flock's cloud. This vandalism speaks to excessive anger combined with minimal restraint. 

It isn't clear how widespread the anti-Flock sentiment is in daVille, and we'll never know because this city will never put the matter to the citizenry for a vote. It would be interesting to find out how many folks have tried the old see-click-fix on this bad boy. 

Best Of All...

...it's Dunwoody!

 

But Is It Really Warranted?

The law is a funny thing. There's laws. There's the constitution. There are courts. There are judges. There are processes. Many of these are intended to protect us. From the government. Some work. Some don't. In many cases we are being protected from the police, from heavy-handed law enforcement. Many folks today are concerned about a ubiquitous, pervasive surveillance state. 

But is it? Is it a surveillance state? Flock's acolytes would say thee nay. They claim that their extensive hordes of cameras, their exhaustive data collection and processing is not surveillance, it is observation. You know, exactly like a cop standing on the sidewalk, taking down license plate numbers. An objective observer would see this for what it is. Bullshit. But, is it surveillance? 

Legally, probably not. There is some merit, legally, to the notion that this is simply watching folks who have entered public areas, shedding any expectation of privacy. Then it gets tricky, because we're a quarter  of the way through the 21st century. Past the Information Age. Filled with Digital Natives. And, the law, the Supreme Court, has caught up. There are precedents around Digital Tracking, and warrants are required to access records. Almost as if you have an expectation of privacy in your own person. And this includes geofencing. Geofencing is arguably exactly what that flock o' cameras, and the information collection behind it are doing. 

It won't be long before this is argued. In court. Before a judge. Maybe even the Supreme Court, and if it makes it that far precedent suggest SCOTUS will not see this extensive data gathering as the legal equivalent of a cop with a pencil and pad. Maybe it is time for state and local governments to step up. Maybe they should establish requirements for a warrant, even an administrative warrant, to perform Digital Tracking. As it turns out, the government does not have a Constitutional right to surveil us. 

Cockroaches VS Vandals

The Cockroach Janta Party, started as a bit of a lark, has proven quite effective at forcing government change by forcing the resignation of a national leader during a high-stakes testing scandal. This in a country suffering under increasingly autocratic rule which ironically is the largest "democracy" on the planet. 

Closer to home we have vandals attacking government installed, though privately owned, surveillance systems. This is likely to go as well, and be as effective, as the anarchist takeovers in Seattle and Atlanta, with the noteworthy support of the local politicians, who proclaimed the areas held by anarchists "autonomous zones." These, like the professional protestations of the Police and Fire Training Center, resulted in nothing more than arrests, and in Atlanta, the death of an innocent child. 

Perhaps the folks rising up against government surveillance should learn a few lessons from the Cockroaches. 

There's That Word Again

The Blue Bag Rag has been long on ink for former politicians of late most recently on a record-holding former councilman who, to date, is the only incumbent to face defeat at the ballot box. His miscalculation was getting too far ahead of the city by immediately discarding the promises of fiscal prudence before council meetings were even being held in Dunwoody. Yes, it was foreshadowing and the city has indeed followed that lead. He even went on to advocate a charter re-write removing any mention of a millage cap. This kind of fiscal imprudence has brought us to the point where we hear that word.

Fair.

Let us not belabor the point that nowhere is it carved in stone that life, in any aspect, is fair. We'll not even question who died and made this man god, a god to decide what is, and is not, fair. After all, this is a politician, former and failed, but a politician nonetheless, with unwavering allegiance to the left. When the mouth spouting the word fair hails from that direction, you can be assured of one thing: it's gonna cost you money.

Indeed, that was the pontification, taking issue with the property tax freeze committed to in the pre-city sales pitch. When the left wants to talk tax increases, commitments to fiscal integrity, or any integrity for that matter, have a very limited shelf life. While one might expect some of the New Blues to come in and start bitching about how they are paying taxes on valuations at the time of their purchase while others have their value frozen some time in the past, but just wait for it...in a few years even newer comers will say the same thing about them. This valuation freeze encourages long-term ownership, a defining characteristic of Dunwoody from the days before more government was piled on. 

But Varuca Salt wants that money, and wants it now! So out comes the Word Hammer. Simply declare this to be unfair, after all we all get the same city services (whatever those are) don't we? And what is more American than a wealth tax? More seriously, that kind of thinking only inhabits the left. How is it fair that a taxpayer in a $1M home pays so much more than a nearby taxpayer in a $500K home when they get the same city services? The only way this can be characterized as fair, is if your goal is to maximize the amount of money the government collects, with utter disregard for how that money is spent. 

It should surprise no one that this councilman did not win re-election. 

Something's Wrong Here

 

The picture is fine. The caption...not so much. Exactly HOW does DCSD earn sales tax? Is it by bamboozling voters into supporting an eSPLOST every five years or so?

Well, they have earned something.

Who IS This?

30 Years Old

Gee, Our Old LaSalle Ran Great...

...those were the days.

A Column Once Appearing In The AJC

Who knew there even was a thing like "Everyday Ethics?" Where did it go? Nowhere near the palace on Ashford Dunwoody, that's for sure.

Outside Your Remit

AT&T are trying to decommission all POTS accounts and have picked up some resistance from the powers that (think they) be in California. No surprises there. What is interesting is the quoted source of data for the number of accounts for Landline service which is all too often the term used, incorrectly, to refer to POTS, and "landline" can include VOIP over cable that uses the existing in-home legacy copper pair wiring. That ain't POTS. 

Back to the data source. 

In a Newsweek article on the topic they get their information from what most normal people would consider an unlikely source.

According to the latest  from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Health Interview Survey, in 2024 almost 20 percent of American households nationwide used landline services alongside wireless phones, while 0.9 percent relied on landline services only—which amounts to about 3 million people.

Clearly, "landline" is more than good ole POTS, as it is entirely unbelievable that one in five households have real, honest-to-god POTS.

This is where the CDC is way out of line, out of their lane. How in the hell would POTS matter to disease prevention and control? Do pacemakers still use analog modems with acoustic couplers? Not very likely. Surely the CDC is not concerned that legacy FAX technology will be left stranded, which, by the way, will also not work with VOIP over cable (or anything else). And the only real reason to use a FAX is to contact a Senator or Representative (you figure it out). 

The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola has claimed several hundred lives. So far. There is no vaccine, nor are there any effective therapeutic measures. Maybe if the CDC stayed in their lane they would have been working, effectively, to control and prevent this deadly disease. 

Community Effort? Really?

Here's a clue for some (or just one) of the clueless at city hall: the Fourth of July parade is put on by Dunwoody Homeowners' Association. Always has been. Even before someone set light to this dumpster fire of a city.

Mother Mayor did not get the memo. She effuses gratitude, thanking all the little people in the community for helping out. "Thank you to our incredible partners..." and then lists "their" partners, the last of which is the DHA. It is this kind of politicians' condescension we were told we would leave in the past when we tore ourselves away from the county. Mother Mayor didn't get that memo either. Instead, she takes the podium to express her gratitude as if it were she, and maybe city bureaucrats, who put on the parade, rather than the community itself. It is this grandstanding, this taking credit for the good works of others that cultivates disdain for politicians, and greater government, in the electorate. 

Mother Mayor did fulfill one role as she rode in a convertible in the parade, just as Cynthia McKinney did a few decades ago. Apparently they have more in common than one might have expected. 

Why Do They Bother?

Brookhaven is all in a tizzy because their bureaucrats have successfully foisted a 40% millage rate increase on the citizenry. As expected, the spend-and-tax advocates, mostly elected officials, have come out in support with the usual, feeble rationalizations. The first is the "pennies a day" that somehow is supposed to justify their out-of-control, profligate spending. This garnered pushback from taxpayers with one commenting "Back at you. What have you done to save pennies a day?" The obvious answer is "nothing" as they haven't even tried. 

Next they trotted out the "city taxes are a small part of your total property tax." Yes, you've heard that one before from our very own Mother Mayor attempting to justify the constant back door tax increases in our slice of heaven. While there is a property assessment freeze, do not think for a minute that property sales are nonexistent or forget that at closing that property marks to market. Hence, a free and easy tax increase. 

You have to wonder if the Georgia Municipal Association puts on seminars offering up all these talking points. While they are incredibly idiotic they are equally consistent. Surely these apologists didn't meet up at a pub with one saying to another, "well, this is what worked for me, after all I did win re-election." That said, in the world of politics, stupid is virally contagious. 

The irony? Well, these spend-and-taxers are all Blue Bellies and these faux cities would not even exist had it not been for the efforts of fervent Red Breasts who wanted to isolate our communities for wasteful spending at the county level. Clearly no good deed goes unpunished.

It Isn't What They Say

They call them "Automated License Plate Readers," but that is hardly even the tip of the iceberg. These systems also track vehicles by color, body style, and even bumper stickers. A license plate is merely an afterthought. In fact, cops, from the comfort of their Aerons can search for, and track, a car by description alone. 

Apparently that is not enough.

These devices now include "SignalTrace," a technology that tracks phones, smart watches, health rings, AirTags, and yes, even automobile electronics. They have your phone, your location and the time you were there. No car. No license plate. But hey, you're in public and that makes you fair game, but just for a moment consider that law enforcement needs a warrant to obtain location tracking information from your cell provider. 

Apparently that is not enough.

Bring on the drones. These can indeed track and follow cars, but they can do with people what they do with cars. They can find and track individuals based on a description. "Find the Black dude wearing a gray hoodie." Things like that. But trust them, Flock says they are not using facial recognition. You believe that, don't you?

Apparently that is not enough.

They are now mining internet data, scraping social media platforms and even suggesting they'll mine the dark web. To be fair, Flock have said they decided not to do the dark web thing. You believe that, don't you? So now the cops can enter your license plate and get an entire workup on you. 

Apparently that is not enough.

Enter AI. Now they are able to track multiple vehicles, determine how often, and where these particular vehicles congregate. How useful is that? It gets better, or if you ask an aficionado, more useful. Now these systems determine that some behaviors are suspicious, identify the usual suspects and alert the po-po. That's right, a corporation's AI is issuing BOLOs to cops, and they're getting paid to do it. So who, exactly, is in charge these days?

When will enough be enough? Will it ever be too much?

Living On The Edge

On the edge? Which edge? The financial edge. Who? That would be the DeKalb County School District. A recent Blue Bag Rag has dramatic opposing page headlines. On the left: DeKalb School Board narrowly passes a $1.6 billion budget. On the right: ESPLOST overpayment forces hard choices for DeKalb Schools. 

Between these two we find the ragged edge where DCSD lives.

Looking at the overpayment, which implies re-payment, the current cost estimate is $10-15 million. This overpayment has been going on since 2022 (can they blame it on pandemic induced incompetence?), so going forward, barring increases in overall sales tax revenue, the shortfall will be $3-4 million. It is the pearl clutching over approximately $15 million taken from a $1,600 million budget that is most alarming. This represents less than one percent of the recently approved budget. So, one percent means the bottom has fallen out? What kind of financial wizards are running this shit show? Does the budget not include open positions? Hard to believe it doesn't, do don't fill them. Yes, at a burdened cost of a quarter of a million or so, you forgo around a hundred vacancies, but is that really a bad thing? This likely exceeds vacancies in the central administration but there are many "teaching" positions with no classroom exposure that rightly should be classified as administration. Just not with an office at the palace. Maybe, just maybe, they could ditch some of the expensive packaged programs our merry-go-round of supes have installed. 

The bottom line? A one percent hit to a budget, any budget, should not be a financial threat, as it should come from this budget item: contingency funds.

It Must Have Rained

What's The Point?

There are several systems supporting encrypted text messaging. Does it work? Apparently not.

You might wonder how the FBI did that. You should. Did they get a warrant? It should not have been very difficult. Do they have a "relationship" with the messaging services? Maybe that ended with the change in administrations. Who knows? Can we ever find out? Unlikely.

It makes you wonder if there is any benefit to using these apps.

But Is It Yours?

You just drove home in that brand new Ford or GM. Love it, right? But do you own it? Not in the sense that you have a bank loan and they hold the title, but in the sense of "is it really yours?" Is it yours to do with as you please, to fix it when it breaks, or to have whomever you choose repair and maintain your automobile? Well, the answer from the Ford and GM CEOs, Roger Penske and an automobile dealer lobbyist is pretty much "Hell No!" And they said this, out loud, to Donald Trump at a recent Whitehouse meeting. And Trump? What did he think? Well, he disagrees. As hard as it is to believe, the Trumpeter disagrees with auto execs when it comes to Right to Repair.

These power players were really there to lobby the administration against H.R. 1566, the REPAIR Act, and found themselves afterwards in the uncomfortable position of clarifying their statements and positions without further irritating Trump. Ballet meets tap. Their biggest problem is that in order to achieve that goal you must say some pretty idiotic things and run the risk of exposing more than you want. It isn't just government that hates transparency. Businesses do too, especially when dealing with government. 

So what's really going on?

Glad you asked, and as always you should follow the money. And there are lots of threads to pull there.

Back in the day, maybe up to this day, about the only thing more unpleasant than taking your car to a dealer for service was dealing with the cable company, partly because dealerships were in the business of selling cars, not repairing them. They would service them, but they preferred to let independent shops handle that and it wasn't nearly as profitable as sales. Times have changed. Service makes money, and dealerships have seen a decline in service visits from 33% in 2024 to 29%, a bit over 10% decline. Rest assured this is not because these vehicles are suddenly more durable or reliable. Another factor to consider is that dealers dominate EV service visits with over 2/3rds of total visits, with EV market share indicating that non-EV service visits have fled the dealerships. 

It gets more amusing. The Ford CEO has recently whined about having 6000 open bays, bays without auto technicians. He seems to think this is because there are not enough techs, and in part he is correct, but if you take a stroll down YouTube lane looking for auto techs who explain why Ford cannot hire, or keep, technicians, well, you can spend days down that rabbit hole. It all comes down to compensation, and it is multidimensional. Auto techs pay to get trained before they get their first job. Like ya do. Then, they have to buy mechanics' tools and the tool chest to keep them in. Drop in on Harbor Freight and check out the prices of their professional quality Icon line. Ain't cheap is it? Maybe ten grand to get started. Now, the shop does pay for the shop tools, like lifts, compressors, scanners and the like. As they should. 

Then there is the pay side of the equation. Techs get paid "rate" which is the number of hours it should take for a particular repair. This rate is set by the auto manufacturer. And, should the cohort of techs come under the limit, the manufacturer will lower the rate. It never goes up. But it does get worse. If the work is on warranty, the rate is slashed, at least by half. So if it is an engine replacement, happening with increasing frequency, normally spec-ed at 20 hours, then the warranty rate is maybe 10 hours. Maybe. Now you can look at this a couple of ways. The boss, the manufacturer, is making the techs pay for their, the manufacturers' mistakes. Or, you could say that the manufacturer and dealer are ripping you off, charging much more than the work is really worth. In any event, the tech gets paid the same hourly rate, probably 20% or less of what the dealer charges you. Why is this? Because of who is paying. Customer work is revenue and adds to the top line. Warranty work comes right off the bottom line, right out of profits. That's something CEO's care about. And they have no problem ripping you off, so to improve the optics, they abuse the techs, then wonder why techs are leaving. The fact that the CEO is responsible for the incredible increases in warranty work is just rubbing salt in the wound. 

The execs' bogey man is "security" claiming it would be a risk to public safety for non-dealer techs to gain access to encrypted information. This bogey is bogus. They already control the software needed to access modern vehicle computer systems and have a secure gateway module that restricts access to every other module in the car. And even with access to this software, it can only be accessed by an authorized technician. And this authorization is managed by third party organizations that act like identity notary publics. So a technician's identity and access will be authenticated for each software diagnostic tool they are allowed to use. And they do not have to work for the manufacturer or one of the dealers. And, if they have made a computer system that is riddled with security holes, and many are, that is on them, not on the consumer and not on the techs and not on the independent service companies. 

Given they were lobbying Trump, maybe they should have hidden behind negative consequences of burdensome regulations, which is real. It is widely known that CAFE standards have taken a horrible toll on vehicle, and particularly engine, reliability and longevity. Many are now blowing up under warranty, including engines from Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM as well as others. You need look no further than stop/start which greatly reduces engine life, or even more obvious: engine oil specs. Cars sold in the US and abroad will require 0-w20, maybe 0-w16 and now even 0-w8 engine oil to meet CAFE regs. The same car sold outside the US will require 0-w30. At least. This was exposed when Chrysler issued recalls due to engine failures. The fix? Replace the engine oil with 0-w30 and put a new sticker on the oil cap. Maybe presented with these facts, these regulations, controlled by the administration, might change.