[smalltorch]

In this case, law enforcement selectively enforced local laws. So the commissioner exhausted his options. And flock didn't seem to be bothered by breaking the local laws and their action was inaction.

So what else are you suppose to do? I think it's reasonable to decide that if no one is enforcing the new local law, that it may be the commissioners purview and authority to enforce after exhausting all his options.

Charging the commissioner with felony theft is clearly just bullying at that point.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> So what else are you suppose to do?

File a civil suit and get a court order for their removal.

[smalltorch]

Silliness. Who enforces it then? The local law banning it was already equally as valid as a court order would have been. Would the county need to ask the judge to take it down?

Someone has to physically take it down and I'm guessing flock didn't put that in the budget.

[dragonwriter]

Ultimately, as a member of a legislative body, if you don’t like the way the executive bodies charged with inplementing a law are doing so, your choices are:

(1) Work with other members of the legislative body to hold the executive accountable for failures, via hearings, sanctions (often, if at the same level, including removal), etc., or

(2) Work with the same body to file a lawsuit as a body to compel compliance, which has additional enforcement provisions (including contempt orders by the court for noncompliance) not available with the bare law and no court case,

(3) Taking any avenue open to the public at large (including individual lawsuits, public advocacy including including electoral advocacy against any elected executive officers involved, etc.).

What is not generally an option is unilaterally assuming the role legally assigned to the executive in inplementing the law, or simply assuming whatever other powers you imagine are best to realize the intent of the law even if they are outside of its letter.

[fc417fc802]

I agree in general but on the other hand, isn't removal of unauthorized private property from public lands a routine duty of local government employees? So if anything I feel like flock is lucky the cameras weren't physically destroyed upon removal.

For example, if a maintenance worker had been instructed to remove them how would this have played out?

[tptacek]

The cameras would have been removed. Munis don't generally destroy random tech infrastructure they pull off poles, though they might throw it in a big pile. Flock could invoice for the cameras, but most munis would probably tell them to go fuck themselves.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> Who enforces it then?

The executive can enforce judicial orders. This is civics 101.

> The local law banning it was already equally as valid as a court order

The ban is an ex post facto law. Rights holders to property have a legitimate reason to defend those rights across policy changes.

[tptacek]

An ordinance banning ALPRs that impacts previously-installed Flock cameras is not an ex post facto law. But a municipal ban on private Flock cameras poses constitutional problems --- and not because of post facto or takings. Generally, the ballgame here is over publicly-owned cameras, so none of this is really apposite.

[tptacek]

The court enforces it. We're getting into movie plot politics here. The sheriff's department will not in fact ignore a district court ruling. These scenarios rapidly reach the point where the sheriff is removed from office and imprisoned for some amount of time. This is what happened to Joe Arpaio.

This is much simpler in a municipality: the board simply fires the village manager and the chief. A sheriff is usually an elected though.

Before you reach the point of suing, you cancel contracts, payments, IT infrastructure, and have public works remove the cameras from any county-owned infrastructure.

I mean, all this is pretty silly, though, because what you really do is just turn the cameras off.

[beart]

Joe Arpaio was not removed from office. He was charged with contempt but was never incarcerated. He was pardoned and then lost his next election.

[chasd00]

or just start fining Flock per camera per day for a brazillion dollars. Sheriff compliance or not, that's still in their power.

[cucumber3732842]

They'll never do it because Flock has the money and lawyers to fight it and friends in high places. Textbook "high risk of setting precedent you don't like" situation. They don't want to lose the ability to do the same to hundreds of dollars per violation per day routine (something that's constitutionally kind of sketchy to begin with) to normal people.

[tptacek]

They'll never do what? Flock has taken cameras down all over the place. They're a company we don't trust, but they're not Bond villains.

[lokar]

And then get a order to take the camera to satisfy the debt

[tptacek]

This is all very silly. Flock is not a scheme to install forever-cameras. They get paid primarily by municipalities. If your muni votes to shut the cameras off, they will shut the cameras off. If it votes to take the cameras down, nobody is going to stop public works from doing that.

The problem is that the First Law Of Message Board dictates that the most interesting narrative wins, and the narrative where Flock has deviously come up with a surveillance "forever chemical" to attach to every municipal road is much more interesting than "this is a service and if you stop paying for it it goes away".

[dragonwriter]

> So what else are you suppose to do? I think it's reasonable to decide that if no one is enforcing the new local law, that it may be the commissioners purview and authority to enforce after exhausting all his options.

County commissioners are generally legislative officers. While the legislative body is smaller, this really no different than a member of Congress deciding that the they don’t like the way DOJ is enforcing federal law and deciding that gives them arbitrary power to take whatever action they feel is appropriate to manifest the intent of the law.

[tptacek]

Again: if it's one commissioner, he doesn't have any options. The only power a county commissioner has that you don't is voting on motions.