Over the weekend I checked "Lake Ontario" on Google Maps (in the U.S.) Google had allowed the automatic U.S. government API to change the name of Lake Ontario to stupid "Lake America." The next morning I checked again and found this "subtitle." I believe this is referred to as “malicious compliance.”

REJECT THE BILLIONAIRES. VOTE IN EVERY LOCAL ELECTION.

Commissioners were ready to cut nearly half of voting locations last time, but everyone showed up in opposition.

https://christackett.substack.com/p/tarrant-county-was-poised-to-cut

Even though a lot of the individual cut sites were smaller, together those cut sites still accounted for almost 40% of everyone who voted on Election Day in 2022. That’s not a rounding error. That’s a huge percentage of the county’s Election Day voters whose specific polling place no longer exists.

After massive backlash they're trying to negotiate by cutting 30% of polling locations, even though population and voter registrations are massively higher this election cycle

https://christackett.substack.com/p/tarrant-county-is-cutting-92-voting

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Section 2) is our strongest protection against this, but it has been repeatedly gutted recently by the supreme court. They sided with Abbott to racially gerrymander even after the Texas maps were found to be racial in nature. Section 2 prohibits any voting standard, practice, or procedure that results in the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/12/supreme-court-allows-texas-to-use-redistricting-map-challenged-as-racially-discriminatory/

The 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause and the 15th Amendment prohibit states and local governments from intentionally designing voting policies that discriminate based on race.

Texas Law: Mandated Objective Methodology (Section 43.007): Section 43.007(f) requires the county to adopt an official "methodology" for determining where polling places will be located, which appears not to have been followed.

Tim O'Hare is a long time leader in True Texas Project. O'Hare told his white nationalist group he does this kind of thing to help Maga cheat.

But Garcia lasted only a few months under O’Hare: In April 2023, he resigned his position, citing his relationship with O’Hare in his resignation letter. “Judge O’Hare, my formula to ‘administer a quality transparent election’ stands on respect and zero politics; compromising on these values is not an option for me,” Garcia wrote. “You made it clear in our last meeting that your formula is different, thus, my decision is to leave.”

One day after Garcia resigned, O’Hare told members of True Texas Project — a group whose leaders have sympathized with a white nationalist mass shooter and endorsed Christian nationalism — that he was encouraged by the potential for low turnout in that year’s upcoming elections, which he said would help Republicans win more local seats. (O’Hare previously served on True Texas Project’s advisory team, according to a 2021 social media post by the group’s CEO, Julie McCarty).

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/11/texas-tarrant-county-tim-ohare-far-right/

When Tim O'hare talks to the media he says it's all non partisan, and gaslights everyone who calls him out on it being partisan. When Tim O'hare talks to his republican circles, he says it's purely partisan, and they can count on him to do anything to help Maga win. To Tim any end justifies the means.

r/FortWorth/comments/1w274w6/tim_ohare_tarrant_countys_population_is_exploding/

I've read a lot of Flock coverage over the past year and almost all of it is about the cameras, the network, and the retention window. Sure it's out there, I haven't seen much coverage about Flocks AI prompts That's strange, because the prompt is the part with a person in it. A plate read is a machine noticing a car. A prompt is an officer deciding what kind of person to look for and writing it down in a text box.

On August 13, Flock Safety announced a set of reforms. Audit monitoring now mandatory, searches need a case code, accounts lock automatically when sketchiness arrives, 2FA (hello?!) is required, and the default retention on plate reads drops from 30 days to 7.

That came after local Atlanta media reported on officers getting arrested for using the system to look up people they knew. Flock is headquartered up the street from Coca-Cola.

So on August 31 I filed a 15-category, 32-page open records request with the Atlanta PD.

One category about the reform list. Announcing a policy and switching it on are two different things. They leave two different documents.

Another asks for the text of every FreeForm search. Think ChatGPT, say "dark SUV with rear bumper damage."

Another asks for the blocklist. Flock says it moderates FreeForm to stop subjective and invasive searches. If that's true there's a list of terms officers can't type, and a log of the ones they tried. Imagine that CSV file of delight!

Another asks for logs from the Loudermilk Video Integration Center, funded by the Atlanta Police Foundation. Hard to fuck with a machine-generated log file.

I expect a big fee estimate. Like GIANT, say $5K. So I asked the City how it builds those estimates.

The full writeup, and be warned, it's technical, precise, and dense, is found on my Substack.

UPDATE, because I buried the lead.

I sat on this waiting for today, about to mash send, thinking I was done.

Then it hit me.

Holy shit, thanks autism.

The pink Yugo scenario is normal policing. A few keystrokes, out goes Car 54. Like Flock or don't, that's the job.

Here's what I missed. LEOs misusing Flock. Stalking exes. Tracking girlfriends. Running plates on people they knew. Every one of those cases got made off a plate query.

But FreeForm isn't a plate query. It's a text box. So what does the misuse look like now?

You don't need her plate anymore. You need a sentence. Silver Civic with the dented rear quarter panel, run across the whole network.

But wait. Did you see it?

It's not the car. It's not the dented quarter panel. It's Susie the ex, wearing her pink Mouse House pullover.

They track clothing. Flock says so. That's the whole reason it isn't facial recognition.

So what happens when Susie's riding in her new guy's blue Pacer?

The plate is useless. The pullover isn't.

Which means the question is no longer what car she drives. It's what Joe Swanson typed. That sentence is his intent, and it's sitting in a database in a text field.

Which is also Flock's problem. How do you moderate that? A blocklist catches slurs. It doesn't catch a man describing his wife's car. There's nothing in "blue Corolla with a Braves sticker" for a filter to grab.

And there's nothing in "pink Mouse House pullover" either.

So either the system can't tell the difference, or the audit assistance they announced last month can, and there's a log of it flagging exactly this.

Either answer is worth having in writing.

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/flock-safety-ceo-garrett-langley-privacy-compromise-home-address-leak-1816933

So I'm a regular with Resist.bot. I sign petitions everyday, got the app, paid subscriber, the whole nine. A couple of weeks ago, the bot sent me a link for,

https://www.amendment.app/

I've been kinda messing with it on and off, still not entirely sure what all it can do. It's cool I can see all the bills that are in process for my state. I was wondering if y'all folks here could help mess around with it.

There's a button at the bottom, Asks, and that's nifty. You can ask, via this bot, to have your representatives to support a bill you also endorse. I like I can see what's going on specifically for my state, elections and bills. There's a chat thing, but it's empty. (It's lonely in there, or maybe I'm not using it right.)

I really do like Resist.bot I get reply emails from my state rep, (the guy can kick rocks, Save Act supporting pos) and from 1 of my senators. The other senator for my state doesn't reply to emails, doesn't have a voicemail for calls, nothing. (Someone like to hide from the bill collector) If this thing works, which it probably does, it'd be a great resource to find exactly wtf is going on, what to support and what to resist. And we have 5calls.org to get these folks numbers and call they asses up.

I've asked a few irl humans to mess around with it, and haven't gotten any feedback yet. When y'all get some time, push buttons on this thing, and lemme know what your figure out.

It obviously doesn't need to be inflammatory. I wear Fuck MAGA because I want them to know I am not afraid. Their notion that liberals are weak empowers them and I want to dispel them of that.

Based on comments from a previous post:

• No, it doesn't need have negative messaging. Wear a shirt with the Mexican flag, with the rainbow, with a name of resistance organization...anything that shows support for at risk communities.
• No, not everyone has to wear it. Its a team effort by the community. Everyone is in a different situation so there is no judgment.
• No, this is not virtue signaling. It's a call to action for those that can.
• No, this is not the only thing we should do to support the community or resist this administration.

Atlanta police are checking whether officers used Flock license plate cameras to spy on people for personal reasons. Cops in other Georgia towns were arrested for that this summer. The ordered a review.

An audit needs records. On August 23 I filed a public records request with Atlanta PD. Sixteen items. The Flock contract, user list, logs, and written policy.

Four days later they sent 900 pages. It was a contract for security cameras and door badge readers. Flock is not in it. What the Flock? Thirteen of my sixteen items got the same copy-paste answer. Policies said to be attached, but gone MIA.

Flock gave the cops free access for three years. That deal ended in 2024. Nobody can show me what replaced it.

The cops are auditing a system they cannot find the paperwork for. Three more requests are in. Full story in my Substack.