I was in my handy-dandy nearby Walgreen’s today, to pick up a couple of prescriptions at the pharmacy. This was the first time I had used a new app on my iPhone, that lets me simply scan my bottle or package and order refills. How cool is that? It’s not as fast as simply going in and doing it in person, the app sends you a note back letting you know when you can pick it up, and for my order it was more than 24 hours later, but it does allow you to order things in advance of your actual drive, if you want. All in all, a neat feature, and a real convenience.
I got to the counter, and was told they only had part of the prescription ready. The clerk seemed a bit uneasy as he explained why.
JimmieJoe / KC6YRU 
What the Flock?
April 19, 2026
Jim Reeves commentary, geek, News Flock Camera, Flock License Plate Reader, privacy, surveillance state, technology, traffic cameras, visalia, visalia police department, VPD Leave a comment
“I always feel like somebody’s watching me
And I have no privacy (oh, oh)
I always feel like somebody’s watching me
Who’s playing tricks on me?” Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell
London is a city well known for extensive video monitoring by CCTV systems. London Metro Police have eyes across the city. Jurisdictions in the United States are following suit, bit by bit. Starting last year (2025), Visalia jumped on that bandwagon, too, with (at this writing) thirteen Flock cameras. Not to the extent of London, but every place has to start somewhere, right?
I was a bit surprised when I checked out the https://deflock.org/ map for the Visalia area. I was expecting to see 13 cameras under the control of the Visalia Police Department. I didn’t expect to see seven of them covering the College of the Sequoias, four at the Packwood Creek Shopping Center, and four at the Willow Creek Shopping Center. (I don’t think those are for VPD. I’m sure they’re under the control of the property owners. Especially since all the cameras there are pointing inwards to the properties, and not out towards the street.)
The City of Visalia page on the Flock website is https://transparency.flocksafety.com/visalia-ca-pd. It gives some interesting information on Visalia’s system. At the time of this post, 13 cameras had logged 344,972 “vehicles detected” in the past 30 days.
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