By Selina Xia Zamacois<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Huntsville, Texas – After publishing a recent article about the use of the Flock Safety surveillance systems in the Huntsville area, some residents quickly jumped to the conclusion that Flock cameras were being secretly installed all over Walker County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, are we living in a massive police surveillance state?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer is no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those solar powered poles with odd looking metal boxes attached are traffic surveillance devices, but don\u2019t let the word surveillance send you into a panic. They record vehicle movements, but only to help TxDOT engineers. The devices gather data for planning, safety studies, and long\u2011term traffic trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These devices are radar\u2011based traffic data collectors. Using low\u2011power Doppler radar, they measure vehicle counts, travel times, speed, and vehicle size classifications. In short, they\u2019re modern traffic counters, not covert police cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the setup reminds you of something out of George Orwell\u2019s novel 1984, you\u2019re not alone. It may feel like \u201cBig Brother\u201d is watching, but in this case, \u201cBig Brother\u201d is mostly interested in knowing when and where future highway expansions might be needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t worry about TxDOT playing \u201cBig Brother\u201d, they aren\u2019t sending anyone to George Orwell\u2019s torturous \u201cRoom 101\u201d at the fictional \u201cMinistry of Love\u201d. However, you should slow down for that black Tahoe parked near the devices. Those black Tahoes aren\u2019t traffic counters. While they won\u2019t send you to Orwell\u2019s \u201cRoom 101\u201d, they can send you an invitation to visit one of Walker County\u2019s Justice of the Peace courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Selina Xia Zamacois Huntsville, Texas – After publishing a recent article about the use of the Flock Safety surveillance systems in the Huntsville area, some residents quickly jumped to the conclusion that Flock cameras were being secretly installed all over Walker County. So, are we living in a massive police surveillance state? The answer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1172,"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions\/1172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hvhappens.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}