License Plate Surveillance, Courtesy of Your Homeowners Association (theintercept.com) 126
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: At a city council meeting in June 2021, Mayor Thomas Kilgore, of Lakeway, Texas, made an announcement that confused his community. "I believe it is my duty to inform you that a surveillance system has been installed in the city of Lakeway," he told the perplexed crowd. Kilgore was referring to a system consisting of eight license plate readers, installed by the private company Flock Safety, that was tracking cars on both private and public roads. Despite being in place for six months, no one had told residents that they were being watched. Kilgore himself had just recently learned of the cameras. "We find ourselves with a surveillance system," he said, "with no information and no policies, procedures, or protections." The deal to install the cameras had not been approved by the city government's executive branch. Instead, the Rough Hollow Homeowners Association, a nongovernment entity, and the Lakeway police chief had signed off on the deal in January 2021, giving police access to residents' footage. By the time of the June city council meeting, the surveillance system had notified the police department over a dozen times. "We thought we were just being a partner with the city," Bill Hayes, the chief operating officer of Legend Communities, which oversees the Rough Hollow Homeowners Association, said at the meeting. "We didn't go out there thinking we were being Big Brother."
Lakeway is just one example of a community that has faced Flock's surveillance without many homeowners' knowledge or approval. Neighbors in Atlanta, Georgia, remained in the dark for a year after cameras were put up. In Lake County, Florida, nearly 100 cameras went up "overnight like mushrooms," according to one county commissioner -- without a single permit. In a statement, Flock Safety brushed off the Lake County incident as an "an honest misunderstanding," but the increasing surveillance of community members' movements across the country is no accident. It's a deliberate marketing strategy. Flock Safety, which began as a startup in 2017 in Atlanta and is now valued at approximately $3.5 billion, has targeted homeowners associations, or HOAs, in partnership with police departments, to become one of the largest surveillance vendors in the nation. There are key strategic reasons that make homeowners associations the ideal customer. HOAs have large budgets -- they collect over $100 billion a year from homeowners -- and it's an opportunity for law enforcement to gain access into gated, private areas, normally out of their reach.
Lakeway is just one example of a community that has faced Flock's surveillance without many homeowners' knowledge or approval. Neighbors in Atlanta, Georgia, remained in the dark for a year after cameras were put up. In Lake County, Florida, nearly 100 cameras went up "overnight like mushrooms," according to one county commissioner -- without a single permit. In a statement, Flock Safety brushed off the Lake County incident as an "an honest misunderstanding," but the increasing surveillance of community members' movements across the country is no accident. It's a deliberate marketing strategy. Flock Safety, which began as a startup in 2017 in Atlanta and is now valued at approximately $3.5 billion, has targeted homeowners associations, or HOAs, in partnership with police departments, to become one of the largest surveillance vendors in the nation. There are key strategic reasons that make homeowners associations the ideal customer. HOAs have large budgets -- they collect over $100 billion a year from homeowners -- and it's an opportunity for law enforcement to gain access into gated, private areas, normally out of their reach.
EU has it right, as usual. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:EU has it right, as usual. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:EU has it right, as usual. (Score:5, Insightful)
Blatant lie / paranoid delusion.
HOAs demand that police departments stretch themselves thin enforcing nonsense ordinances, entrapping teenagers who "look out of place" (guess that means), and responding to the calls of wealthy schizophrenics who think the black 7-year-old on their lawn is chasing butterflies "in a suspicious manner" (real story, btw).
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Re: EU has it right, as usual. (Score:2)
Even if you're one of those morons who thinks homeless people should be imprisoned for 15 years for the crime of sleeping on a park bench, or an 8 year old should be shot in the back for stealing a candy bar, surely you can understand that these draconian cameras are a bad t
Re: EU has it right, as usual. (Score:2)
Re: EU has it right, as usual. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Even if you're one of those morons who thinks homeless people should be imprisoned for 15 years for the crime of sleeping on a park bench, or an 8 year old should be shot in the back for stealing a candy bar, surely you can understand that these draconian cameras are a bad thing that doesn't actually solve the "problem" you're complaining about.
Right. Because that's totally what real people think. This is a Reddit-tier shitpost.
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I absolutely guarantee there was more to the stories than that. Probably a whole lot more.
Re:EU has it right, as usual. (Score:4, Insightful)
As someone who lives in a large US city, I know firsthand that laws are unenforced unless someone attacked a police officer, or it was someone wealthy who was wronged. Otherwise, it becomes a number in a police report and forgotten about. In fact, virtually every business in the area of town has had a break-in (usually someone shooting bird shot at a window with a sawed off 12 gauge, then kicking it to get in.)
Just in the past month alone, I had a storage unit broken into, two cars broken into, and at least one kick-in attempt, which was stopped when my dog started barking (most of the meth-heads don't care about a homeowner with a gun because of duty-to-retreat laws and the fact that burglars can sue if injured by homeowners, but they really don't want to face the business end of a rottie.)
I'm of the mind, if license plate scanning can help find thieves, go for it.
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and at least one kick-in attempt, which was stopped when my dog started barking (most of the meth-heads don't care about a homeowner with a gun because of duty-to-retreat laws and the fact that burglars can sue if injured by homeowners, but they really don't want to face the business end of a rottie.)
Assuming that was the door to your home you're referring to, there's nowhere in the USA that would not allow you to use deadly force if someone kicked their way into your house. There's no duty to retreat while within your own home. Where would you retreat to?
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Re:EU has it right, as usual. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the USA, most crime laws are not enforced anymore, so people have to take their safety into their own hands.
Laws are selectively enforced in the USA, which is how police states operate.
Just try shooting out one of those private cameras and see what happens.
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You aren't some hero risking his life to fight a tyrannical despot, you're a fucking vandal trying to prevent people from protecting themselves from scum like yourself.
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Get trolled much?
But feeding them is a trick that never works.
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In the USA, most crime laws are not enforced anymore, so people have to take their safety into their own hands.
Yeah, I must've totally imagined all the perp walks I've seen in front of Walmart. Or it could just be because I live in Florida, where we've managed to screw up almost everything else but law enforcement is surprisingly still a thing.
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Yes, the George Soros Hobgobblin of Right Wingnut Angst. There's nothing, NOTHING, bad that happen but that he is behind it.
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Right. It's a right-wing conspiracy lie that Soros is bankrolling progressive DAs. https://abcnews4.com/news/nati... [abcnews4.com]
Shouldn't we restrict governmental surveillance? (Score:1, Troll)
Shouldn't we restrict governmental surveillance instead? The whole point is to keep government from overreach. Your HMO can do way less damage.
Re:Shouldn't we restrict governmental surveillance (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not both?
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Re:Shouldn't we restrict governmental surveillance (Score:4, Insightful)
You haven't run into a bad HOA, I see. I hope that remains the case.
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Re: Shouldn't we restrict governmental surveillanc (Score:2)
That's really what this is about - at least partly (Score:5, Insightful)
The law does put limits on government surveillance. But as there is no legal limit on private corporate surveillance, they get a pass. And there is no law preventing law enforcement purchasing information from third parties - so the lack of limits on private surveillance means that there is no practical limit on Government surveillance either.
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Exactly. That camera was put up with the same rights that you put up a Ring camera or a surveillance system on your property. The HOA puts up a camera on their managed
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Way less damage that gives your privacy to a corporation that sell it to the government? Did you read the summary at least?
Re:Shouldn't we restrict governmental surveillance (Score:5, Insightful)
HOAs effectively are a de facto level of government. Not sure about HMOs. They tax, they perform government-like services, they have government-like procedures. In a technical legal sense they are private entities formed through covenants which are contracts of adhesion tied to property sales. In a real sense, most of them are a financial scheme to allow the property developer to continue extracting additional profits from homebuyers for years or decades after a purchase. Ultimately, they seem like a net negative to me and as if they need a lot more laws restricting them.
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I live in an HOA and I like the modest and entirely reasonable restrictions.
You can't park derelict cars in your front yard. You have to get approval if you want to paint your house pink with lime-green stripes. You can't plaster your yard with obnoxious political signs. You can't own a pit bull that runs out and threatens everyone who walks by your house.
And there are laws that restrict HOA's, a long list of regulations in the state property code.
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For now. General history shows that you might have a reasonable board now, but it just takes someone resigning and some busybody control freak taking over the board and making life a miserable hell just because your front door is the wrong shade of white.
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The main reason that abusive or corrupt or nonfunctional boards come about is the total apathy of the members of the association. Nobody cares or pays any attention to the running of the HOA and eventually some nutjobs will slip onto the board. Or the property management company will determine that not even the board cares, and then they run things however they want. When it gets bad enough for people to notice, it can be real hard to dislodge the creepy people.
That's why I joined the board of directors at
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I'll note that you did not mention that you were the HOA President in your original post about how reasonable you find your HOA. That seems like an important disclosure.
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There are plenty of things in this world I don't disclose unless I feel like it. Meanwhile you are welcome to dispute any of my points.
I've lived in a couple of HOA communities. The property developers were long gone. By law the financials of an HOA are required to be publicly available in the state where I live, and probably everywhere.
Show evidence that "most of them are a financial scheme to allow the property developer to continue extracting additional profits".
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There are plenty of things in this world I don't disclose unless I feel like it. Meanwhile you are welcome to dispute any of my points.
I do understand people's desire to maintain a level of discretion and anonymity. Still, it seems like a bit of an important disclosure that you're part of the HOA board, even if you don't say that you're the President. When discussing the affect of the HOA on your life, it does seem important to know that you effectively _are_ the HOA. Beyond that, after talking about how you "...live in an HOA and ... like the modest and entirely reasonable restrictions.", it changes the meaning quite a bit when you later
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Tiresome rant. "you effectively _are_ the HOA", hilarious!
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For those who remember the old Hair Club for Men ads: You're not only an HOA client, you're also the President!
You can dismiss that all you want, but what's hilarious is you acting like it's irrelevant.
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"most of them are a financial scheme to allow the property developer to continue extracting additional profits from homebuyers for years or decades after a purchase", obviously untrue and you haven't posted a thing to support it.
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I posted one clear example, which happened to be the very first one I checked, and the subject of this article. I also mentioned the property developer I knew who was pretty clear on the fact that he used control of the HOA to direct business to himself. It also answers the question of why most developers create an HOA for their development. Otherwise, what is your non-financial explanation for why they go to the expense and work of creating the HOA in the first place?
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You've got one bogus example. The members of the HOA could easily vote out the existing board at the HOA you cited, and that board is subject to state regulations.
The reason developers instantiate HOA's is because people want them. The restrictions are reasonable and desirable for the reasons I enumerated in my first post on this topic.
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You've got one bogus example. The members of the HOA could easily vote out the existing board at the HOA you cited, and that board is subject to state regulations.
If you actually read what I previously wrote, you may note that that possibility, where it exists, does not actually contradict what I was saying.
The reason developers instantiate HOA's is because people want them. The restrictions are reasonable and desirable for the reasons I enumerated in my first post on this topic.
Some people do want them (which generally seems a bit creepy to me), but many people simply live with them as a fact of life that they can't get around. As for the restrictions being "reasonable and desirable" you have not actually addressed the fact that you clearly indicated that the restrictions of your HOA were _not_ "reasonable and desirable" to you until you
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The president of an HOA can't unilaterally change the deed restrictions in an HOA, and board can't either. They can only be modified by a significant majority of the membership. Clearly you don't have a clue about any of this.
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The president of an HOA can't unilaterally change the deed restrictions in an HOA, and board can't either.
Where did I claim that they could?
Clearly you don't have a clue about any of this.
Clearly you're having some parallel imaginary conversation with someone who isn't me.
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THe HOA can take you home if you put your garbage cans out too far to the left or right....
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Where I live you get a warning letter if you leave your garbage can on the street all the time. I'm totally fine with that.
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It doesn't work that way at all. Unless you're one of those fucknuts that decides "I don't have to abide by the rules I agreed to" and does something like leaving your garbage cans in the road all the time even when it's long past trash day.
Nobody ever lost their house to the HOA just because they put their trash cans a little too far to the right. It's almost always a case of someone completely ignoring the HOA regulations, refusing to correct obvious violations, refusing to pay fines, stopping their dues
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Most EU countries' rules severely restrict non-governmental surveillance, even of so-called "public spaces." This is a good thing. Yes, even if criminals get away sometimes. The "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" is a good marketing slogan, at best.
Doesn't mean some of us don't want to string yet another abusive HOA run by a bunch of fucking Kens and Karens up by their tits and balls.
Sick and tired of that kind of overreach. All parties involved knew damn well a procedure was in place for notifying residents and establishing policy and procedure. They chose to ignore the shit out of it.
HOA reform needs to happen. Put a fucking leash on that shit already. This ain't about maintaining your hedges and fencelines anymore. The nerve of these arrogant
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Many HOAs have rules that are being ignored, most by ignorance of the homeowners. Some of the rules in the local CC&Rs here:
* Meeting minutes of the board meetings must be mailed to all homeowners and they have ten days to protest any business conducted at the board meeting.
* If three or more homeowners request a special meeting, all the homeowners are notified of the special meeting and the topic being discussed, with the meeting required to be held within 14 days.
* Board members serve for a two-year
Re:EU has it right, as usual. (Score:4, Insightful)
There are NO good HOAs. They are all evil despots
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While EU rules are good, they could be better. For example, there is a "legitimate interest" get-out for capturing number places in managed car parks, for the purpose of issuing invoices to people who are not supposed to park there.
In the case of a HoA they could probably at least make the case that they are relying on legitimate interest to collect the data, for the purpose of preventing people who are not allowed to park there using their facilities.
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"Most EU countries' rules severely restrict non-governmental surveillance"
Every citizen can photograph any license plate in public.
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"Every citizen can photograph any license plate in public."
That is very different than a corporation capturing millions of license plates and storing that information indefinitely with no limits on how that data is used.
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How about millions of people capturing each one license plate?
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photo (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems like fair game for someone to take a photo of what they see going on in a public space.
It seems less clear to me that a system that can effectively be in multiple places at once, can be there at all times, and can merge data from several deeds is similarly reasonable.
Prohibit selling/sharing of surveillance data (Score:2)
Re:Prohibit selling/sharing of surveillance data (Score:5, Interesting)
I am fine with an entity like say the HOA collecting this data.
I'm not. HOA tend to start off benign but quickly turn evil. There are to many videos on bad HOA on youtube for me to think anything good comes of them. What happens if some petty HOA dictator decides to start using the cameras against someone they don't' like
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Re:Prohibit selling/sharing of surveillance data (Score:4)
That implies that there is no expectation of privacy. A lot of these communities are land developments where the the developer essentially _is_ the HOA. Many of them are gated and the developers sold the homes to the residents with an explicit promise of privacy. Hard to argue that there was no expectation of privacy where you sold to people at a premium with privacy as an explicit promise.
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I've never seen instances where "the developer essentially _is_ the HOA" except when the houses are initially being built. Show evidence.
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Hmm, gee, how about the intrusive HOA in this story? If you go to the website of the developer of Rough Hollow there is a page listing the principals of the company. You will note that the founder is Haythem Dawlett. It's a bit hard to find, because, for some reason, they don't list the HOA board members on the HOA association website, but at this page [texas-home...ations.com] you will see a familiar name listed as the President and Director of the HOA. There are two other directors listed there, who are also the vice-president and
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Here's a list of the actual builders;
https://roughhollowlakeway.com... [roughhollowlakeway.com]
And the 'resort community' is still under development. Very commonplace for the developer to organize the HOA until the community is built out, then they exit.
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Here's a list of the actual builders;
https://roughhollowlakeway.com... [roughhollo...way.com...] [roughhollowlakeway.com]
I'm not sure what the point of giving the list of builders is. What does this have to do with anything either of us has been saying?
And the 'resort community' is still under development. Very commonplace for the developer to organize the HOA until the community is built out, then they exit.
This is significantly different from what I said how? For Rough Hollow, it's been 15 years and could be decades more. This is entirely consistent with what I said.
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I had a look at their bylaws, the board of directors is elected by the membership just like any other HOA and they are subject to the Texas property code.
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Once again, what does that have to do with anything? The developers control the HOA to the point where they effectively _are_ the HOA. You appear to just be trying to move the goalposts. Maybe you get a lot of flak for being the President of an HOA and that leads you to reflexively try to defend them. You certainly do seem to be bending over backwards to do so.
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Personal attack noted. You lost the argument and now you're whining.
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How is that a personal attack? It _is_ a reflection on your personal situation and how it may affect your opinions. It's not a personal attack though. I'm also not sure how I could remotely be considered to have "lost the argument. So far all the evidence and logic supports the idea that HOAs are mostly created for the financial benefit of the developer.
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You've got absolutely nothing.
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You've got absolutely nothing.
Oh... Ok then, if _you_ say so, I guess I must have nothing...
Or... and bear with me here... the childish rhetorical technique you're employing where you make no actual argument but just declare victory, is simply meaningless.
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Ditto that. Even if the HOA starts out respectable, all it takes is few nutjobs to take it over some time in the future and then it turns into Beelzebub.
HOAs are evil (Score:5, Informative)
They don't all start out evil from the get-go; but pretty much all of them get there eventually.
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In my experience they are reasonable until a lawyer gets on the board. From there it gets rigged and one or two people can have a private fiefdom with their personal rules.
I've seen it twice, lived it once. Both times in Arizona, northern Scottsdale to be exact.
Glad I got out of that (and Arizona, Flagstaff was a nice area though, I'm sure the rich have bought it all up as they did in Sedona).
There is no problem a baseball bat can't fix. (Score:2)
Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Surprise. An HOA does something terribly stupid without consideration for the actual homeowners? Lmao, that is ALL an HOA does. There is no such thing as an acceptably run HOA.
"Oh, my HOA is actually pretty good!"
No, they aren't. They're parasitic and useless, you just haven't noticed yet.
Your best bet is to completely ignore them. They have no real power.
Re:Surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Your best bet is to completely ignore them.
Your best bet is to live in a neighborhood without an HOA.
My neighborhood has no HOA, and my neighbor's pink swingset is proof of that.
They have no real power.
HOAs have the power to fine you and the power to put a lien on your home if you don't pay the fine.
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They can try and do that. But I guarantee if they tried that with me, then there would cease to be an HOA - or at least anyone to actually run it. And, if the home is payed off, they can't put a real lien on it anyway.
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After 3 decades, my retired folks had new neighbors move in who legally burn "stuff" on the property frequently. This forces the parents' windows to be closed and the air conditioning turned on. They are now frequently forced indoors, kept from enjoying their backyard during the already-short nice weather. No one tends those fires, no one's enjoying the fires and this is usually not property debris, but brought-in wood and miscellany. Th
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HOAs for parks and pools (community shared amenities) are fine. As long as their rules only apply to those amenities. As soon as they cross over into trying to say what I can and cannot do on *my* property, especially if its otherwise 100% legal, they can fuck off. Shared property, shared rules. My property, my rules. Accepting anything else is a disservice to yourself.
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Refer back to my post that THOSE are health, safety, and legal issues at the city level. The HOA has nothing to do with those kinds of things.
HOAs tend to be even dumber with what they think they CAN do:
-demand everyone has a certain theme of mailbox
-not allow certain types of fences
-not allow above ground pools, but does allow inground
-tell people what decorations can be in own yard
This is the type of HOA you can completely ignore.
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Neither of your issues should be solved by an HOA. Both of your issues translate to health and safety issues which 100% should be handled by the government and police. Unattended fires can cause massive damage to more than just the homes. The smoke could be carcinogenic if they're burning random stuff. Etc, etc. The light could cause blindness, distract drivers, or any number of other problems. These are not HOA issues. They are health and safety issues.
HOAs are not law-making bodies. They aren't rule-makin
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If they own the condo outright, the owners can rent it out if they want. HOA can't stop them. City laws absolutely can be crafted for that. HOAs just consist of lazy and/or rich people.
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Well, signing that contract was your first mistake. If signing it was a pretense before you were allowed to buy, then, again, it's your own fault. Should have kept looking. If you signed it after your bought, you're just stupid. You basically put your home as collateral for following their rules. Which they can make up at any time. What kind of idiot would agree to that? That's like signing a contract with the cops saying if you break one road rule, they'll take your car, when they can make up rules at any
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I would mod this back up if I hadn't already commented, because you are 100% correct. These are bigger city legal issues and would definitely be covered by ordinances.
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"Fires" might be allowed, but probably not large, unattended fires, unless properly "contained". The fire dept may still take issue with it, unless it's like a volunteer fire dept or something. Secondly, just because fires are allowed doesn't mean what is being put in the fire is allowed. So, if its causing issues more than just what I would refer to as campfire smoke, which can still be bad in high concentrations for the elderly and such, I would look into if they're just burning normal stuff or not. Or go
Splendid name (Score:2)
I guess it's tad better than "Sheep Guard"...
I've always said (Score:2)
HOAs are EVIL.
HOA response? : Hold my beer!
Get the Flock out of here! (Score:3)
Condos? (Score:2)
We don't have those here that I have seen (well, any place I know where someone lives). Assuming a gated community, or like condos where there's property, aside from open disclosure, it should be their right.
Now - just like red-light cameras - I highly doubt they'll use them correctly (prevent crime, promote safety), but that's the rub and that's where the rules and outrage needs to be. Before one of our cities biggest condo associations added basic cameras to areas prone to dumping and destruction, it wa
Anyone can install their own license plate reader (Score:2)
https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/... [raspberrypi.com]
I've thought about installing one in my yard to record the cars going by. It would be pretty easy but I would have to run power to it or have a battery with a solar panel. What I would really like is an inexpensive device that detects and identifies speeders.
Looking out is looking in too (Score:2)
I wonder how many times a resident has used the license plate data in a divorce proceeding? People need to remember that their cameras are watching them too.
Unclear on the concept (Score:2)
"We only thought we were providing the government ubiquitous surveillance." What the fuck does he think "being Big Brother" means?
HOAs are worse than cops (Score:2)
If you live in a single-family development with an HOA that has a private surveillance network, your privacy is already gone... in that the HOA itself already has you under surveillance and people who actually know you are much more likely to abuse surveillance than the cops.
The cops don't care if you're having an affair, are building a fence 2 inches higher than allowed by HOA rules, and they're unlikely to monitor your daily movements out of boredom. HOAs are universally run by insane old retired men and