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raxxorraxor
tiahura
Freedom to take pictures of public spaces?
KyleTheDev
Freedom to use a network of cameras to take pictures of random people and track their behaviors and location without their consent?
gattr
Remember that scene from "Men in Black" where K watches surveillance video feed of his ex? In the movie it was meant to be wistful and cute, I guess. Now that such systems are getting closer to reality, you realize the potential for abuse in enormous.
Ancapistani
More like his widow than his ex - he was unable to ever contact her, which is what made it cute rather than creepy.
usrnm
Someone stalking you is not cute even if they don't try to talk to you
kelipso
All about perspective! Plenty of romance stories that start out with stalking. (Though I guess from a social normative conversation pov, you would want to keep up the kayfabe).
dspillett
Please explain that to the ad-tech industry…
Cancel that, they do try to talk to me every damn chance they get!
FireBeyond
I mean at least in that situation, K was forbidden from ever making contact with his ex, with far greater consequences.
boring_twenties
This shouldn't be hard to understand. Don't talk to the police, without your attorney present, under any circumstances whatsoever.
Dating the police is just such an astoundingly egregious violation of this principle that I can only wonder what, if anything, those people are thinking.
Anyway, the key takeaway seems to don't date anyone who dates the police. Firstly, because it directly puts your own safety at risk, as this article exemplifies. Secondly, because it demonstrates terrible judgment; it seems reasonable to assume they are likely to make other terrible decisions in the future.
ultrarunner
> Dating the police is just such an astoundingly egregious violation of this principle
There are still quite a few people who think the police are the friendly government-provided customer service agents of life, although I've watched this viewpoint decline markedly over the last twenty years at least.
Locally, a woman went on a hiking date with a Phoenix cop and wound up dead [0]. Notably, the woman was from New England, while the cop was local and absolutely should have known better how dangerous conditions would be. The police, of course, investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong.
[0] https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/hiker-recalls-seeing-woman...
kakacik
A female high on meth gets disoriented and dies from heat exposure in the mountains. As per article she willingly separated from the guy whom she sent to the top of the peak "to continue to get pic for social media". He probably should have know better and just go down with her and call it a day, or not getting high on meth in dangerous environment in the first place but thats about it.
Unless you have a better article on that, that really ain't evidence of anything.
close04
A trained police officer leaves his obviously high (police can always tell even on first contact and from far away, right?) and exhausted hiking partner to return alone, with no water, in blazing heat, on an unfamiliar trail, to eventually die alone.
Peak police.
Hikikomori
Meth and amphetamine are very different drugs, but a bootlicker wouldn't know the difference. She could also have been spiked and left to die by the cop, can't really know without a proper investigation, which the police never subject themselves to.
mlrtime
IDK, In my town that is what they are, they come when called, they are respectful, they live in the town they service.
I only see problems with police [generally speaking] in two scenarios.
1) Very large cities like NYC where police don't [cannot afford] to live in the area they work in.
2) Very small citie where the mayor, judge and sherrif are all related.
mock-possum
That sounds great for you, but the point is: what if they were not inclined to do those things?
What if they didn’t come when called? What if they weren’t respectful? What if they weren’t a part of your community?
What recourse do you have against cops?
warumdarum
[flagged]
qmr
If I pivot to law enforcement does my wife have to stop talking to me?
She's a permanent resident and has already been given the do not talk to the police speech and role play practice from me.
lukan
"Don't talk to the police, without your attorney present, under any circumstances whatsoever."
Oh but I did. Multiple times, without a lawyer ever, how shocking:
"Hey, my bicycle was stolen, I need to file it so I get insurance payout"
"Hey, this demonstration and the roadblock of yours for guarding it, will it be around for much longer?"
"Hey, nice weather, isn't it?"
(Misdirecting small talk, while they were searching for drugs on the road to a festival, but then didn't really check me)
"Yes I know I have to have a light with a bicycle, but the battery went out and it was a emergency now to go anyway"
(Did not had to pay a fine)
And countless other examples like this.
Also more serious ones.
"Yes, it was those neonazis who beat up my friend"
So .. I never cared much for this online advice, but then again I also don't live in the US. Maybe there they shoot and arrest anyone approaching them on general principle?
Well in my world, that was actually shaped a lot by anarchistic anti establishment people, I found that one can talk to cops as inhuman cops, then they will act like one, or you talk to them as humans and might be surprised that they reply as humans.
That doesn't mean, that there ain't lots of assholes on a power trip in uniforms, but the "never talk to them advice" assumes they all are. And this is just wrong and act as a self fullfilling prophecy.
FatherOfCurses
The key statement here is "I don't live in the US"
I grew up outside of the US and immigrated here in 1995. US police are on a completely different level.
throwawayqqq11
In all your cases, you wanted something from LE. The advice to stay shut is mainly for the other way around.
lukan
Internet experts, also here on HN, tried to convince me otherwise.
Also no, in the drug search example I just wanted to be left alone (and not have them find the small bag of weed). So I answered, but talked about harmless things.
ceejayoz
> I also don't live in the US
“Don’t talk to the cops” is not global advice. In some countries it harms your defense in court. In others it gets you beaten.
Most times you hear it it’s an American talking to Americans.
lukan
"some countries it harms your defense in court. "
In all countries it harms your defence if you confess something wrong. But itnis not a general rule that it always hurts.
xigoi
> “Don’t talk to the cops” is not global advice.
I’ve seen the advice several times on HN (a global site) and it never claimed to be USA-only.
kstenerud
Wow. I've heard some pretty egregious victim blaming before, but this really takes the cake.
goda90
Best hope you don't catch the eye of an officer even. Things can go poorly without a relationship, or even without a direct rejection.
tptacek
This is an extremely online belief. Oak Park, IL, the inner-ring suburb of Chicago where I live, is almost certainly one of the 10 most progressive and left-leaning municipalities in the country. Oak Parkers (not me) have the opposite concern: we're below our threshold number of sworn officers, and desperate to add more. The median Oak Parker has very positive views of the police (and also all the standard progressive concerns about abuses.)
Lots of political beliefs are like this! There are plenty of things people believe very strongly, and get near universal reinforcement on in their communities, that don't survive contact with actual living grass. The median American has an extraordinarily high opinion of Amazon, for instance, something you'd never know unless you sought out polling (or, you know, took a walk down a residential block and looked at the stoops.)
M95D
Don't talk to the police - advice given to university students by a lawyer and then by a cop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
If this isn't trustworthy, I don't know what is.
qmr
Isn't his follow up "be extremely careful when talking to the police"? He gave a follow up lecture some years later.
xigoi
If all cops are evil, why would you take advice from a cop?
duld
To clarify, you're stating that "Don't talk to the police" is an "extremely online belief"? Or were you referencing the dating portion of the comment?
tptacek
Correct: "never talk to the police" is a very online belief. I watch people talk to police all the time. People go out of their way to do it.
I don't even know what to do with the "never date police officers" thing. Most police officers are married. It's a shift-work job, so they have high divorce rates, but they just remarry.
rexpop
Everything you believe about the police you gleaned from children's cartoons as a toddler.
tptacek
Sick burn.
Eufrat
Oak Park. Home to Frank Lloyd Wright’s original studio/home and multiple works designed by him? Birthplace and hometown of Ernest Hemingway?
A municipality comparable to Berkeley, California or New Rochelle, New York?
What?
I agree with you that a blanket statement of not talking to the police is ridiculous, but arguing that Oak Park is a good representation outside of affluent America is not to be taken seriously.
tptacek
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Berkeley is more affluent than Oak Park, and (by a little bit) so is New Rochelle.
alexpotato
Scott Adams' had a great line:
"Whenever people have the opportunity to commit fraud and there is no monitoring, you can assume they are committing fraud."
btrettel
Are you loosely paraphrasing here? The closest thing I could find by Scott Adams was "Whenever you have a lot of money in play, combined with the ability to hide misbehavior behind complexity, you should expect widespread fraud to happen."
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10213582-whenever-you-have-...
(I didn't check the book, though.)
ZeroGravitas
I sometimes think of this from the other direction.
Don't put people in situations of great temptation, like access to company cash with no oversight. They'll often fall for the temptation and ruin their lives in the process.
It's a slightly different framing from the "evil people will take advantage and get away with it" but they both lead to putting some kind of process in place to prevent abuse.
AndrewOMartin
This is like when store-bought locks are able to be picked by a novice, or broken with a hammer, or bypassed with a magnet. The phrase used is "it keeps good people honest", rather than "it keeps absolutely all bad guys out".
roysting
The irony here being that we are so beyond healthy that the vast majority of people are well beyond even realizing or recognizing that the very need for locks everywhere is self-evident of an unhealthy society.
Imagining a condition where you had to lock away your valuables in your own home out of concern for them being taken by people in your own home probably makes it a bit more apparent to some people who can mentally model alternatives.
If you were ever to go to places where the rich are in what are effectively little oasis, kind of like “green zones” where they hide away from the chaos and misery they cause the wider society, no one locks their doors even though the homes are all full of stuff that is worth more than the average person will ever even earn in their whole lifetime and they walk around with jewelry and clothing multiple times more expensive than the average house price. They literally, by various mechanisms and methods “keep absolute all bad guys out”, effectively, without locks on every door.
What we’ve long lost was systematic secure systems architecture and we replaced it with extremely costly, expensive and risky brute force, hard coded illusion of saver of the kind you refer to that is ironically not even necessary in most cases either. Locks don’t keep good people out at all, good people aren’t emoted and wouldn’t enter a place that isn’t locked without permission in the first place; hence my above point of locks being a good indicator of the health of a society and the failure of a government, i.e., the cluster and quality of the people left in control of things.
arjie
Ultimately, there’s a sort of homeostasis in people’s tolerance for crime. If you need video evidence for prosecution, those who want it prosecuted will produce video cameras. If you make warrants impossible to produce in a timely manner, the camera search will be warrant exempted.
Attempts to damage state power to ensure crime isn’t prosecuted will be likely met with methods that are immune to them.
Given the constraints we operate under, the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero. So being informed that either is non-zero is not of use to decision making in my opinion.
pinkmuffinere
> the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero
I feel this is an _extremely_ good point, the kind that seems obvious only once you hear it. But i feel there’s an implication that could be made explicit here — we should be looking at the distribution of both apparatus-enabled-crimes and unsolved-crimes when we’re discussing this sort of thing. And if those metrics aren’t tabulated for easy access, they probably should be.
arjie
> And if those metrics aren’t tabulated for easy access, they probably should be.
I couldn't agree more. They're two different error rates for our society and measuring them accurately would help us go to where we should be on the curve.
pinkmuffinere
Somebody should make a website visualizing the data we do have, perhaps with uncertainty bounds, and a recursive breakdown locale-by-locale… Nose goes!!
Edit: wow I bet this is a project that would be _way_ too difficult to vibe code with AI, with well documented data sources and what not. Sure would be a shame if somebody proved me wrong.
TZubiri
I think there's a bias in public discussion towards idealism, because most discussions will start by the argument that we need to reduce X, or we need to reduce Y. If there is a conflict and there needs to be a trade off, very few discussions and points will be about the tradeoff, but there will be a whole bunch of discussions about just plain reducing X or reducing Y.
AnthonyMouse
> If you need video evidence for prosecution, those who want it prosecuted will produce video cameras. If you make warrants impossible to produce in a timely manner, the camera search will be warrant exempted.
That's the legislator's fallacy. "Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do this."
Suppose you address the problem in other ways, e.g. improve the economy and reduce poverty so there is less crime, or reform the laws so that we're not providing violent gangs with funding sources by criminalizing the consensual behavior of adults.
Warrantless surveillance is not the only option and it's a bad one.
> Attempts to damage state power to ensure crime isn’t prosecuted will be likely met with methods that are immune to them.
This has the same shape as "attempts to enforce the law will be likely met with methods that are immune to it".
Government agencies are going to buck attempts to hold them accountable for abuse. The goal is to make their attempts ineffective, not to throw up our hands because doing it right isn't easy.
Or let's turn your reasoning against itself: We have a law against the police misusing surveillance, so then all the cameras should be destroyed as the backlash against the police violating the law, right? Either your argument is sound and we should get on with destroying all the cameras because the police are breaking the law and we'll just have to use other means to deal with other people breaking other laws, or people are actually willing to tolerate a significant amount of lawbreaking, and then we should get on with destroying all the cameras because they're dangerous and the claim that we can't because people won't tolerate the law going unenforced is empirically deficient.
xigoi
> Suppose you address the problem in other ways, e.g. improve the economy and reduce poverty so there is less crime
The idea that reducing poverty will entirely eliminate crime is laughable.
alexpotato
To use a corporate example:
People act like the only options are:
- make it so hard to log in that no one can use a system
- just give everyone root access
You can build systems of approval that are fast, obvious who should be approving and are auditable.
evilduck
You can also build systems that require secondary approvals without needing approval escalation up the chain. Creeping on women is a lot less likely if you need a peer or even a subordinate to review what you're doing.
calgoo
They will just find some other creepy friend that will sign off without looking, in exchange for them getting the same treatment. It needs to go to a different system, with different priorities, but even then we know of corrupt judges rubber stamping warrants.
Why dont we have a AI verify that each search is tied to a real case, and if its not block their access and they now have to go before a judge to explain why they should be unblocked and what they where doing. If they are going to use AI against us, then we should use AI to make sure they dont commit any crimes.
bigbadfeline
> Given the constraints we operate under, the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero.
That statement doesn't make any sense. What's the ideal number? +Infinity? "Not zero" includes that too. There has to be a way to place a ceiling on the number, asking for a non-zero "ideal" doesn't do that, on the contrary, it hides the all important question of what will keep the numbers low enough.
Using this case an example, if the offender wasn't abusing the system hundreds of times in the span of 1.5 years, he would've never been caught. So, we don't even know the real, "non-zero", number of such cases. That's a big problem.
gavinsyancey
The point the poster is trying to make by "the ideal number ... is not zero" is:
There is a trade-off where a more complete and accessible surveillance apparatus could allow crimes to be solved but invites the system to be abused by police. So when we think about how much of a surveillance system we as a society want to allow, it is probably somewhere between "nothing" and "everything". Therefore,
- It is worth allowing some crimes to go unsolved in order to prevent abuse of the surveillance state. ("The ideal amount of unsolved crime is not zero")
- It might be worth allowing enough surveillance that it will inevitably be abused to some degree in order to help solve crime. ("The ideal amount of abuse of surveillance is not zero")
Thus instead of centering discussions around "thing bad", it's probably more productive to talk about how we can get as much as possible of the upside while reigning in a use, and considering where we want the tradeoff to be.
Given the power dynamics at play I'm not convinced I agree -- Flock is closely associated with Peter Thiel who is explicitly anti-democracy, and police are notorious for covering up crimes committed by fellow police. But I suppose it is worth considering that safe ethical surveillance (if it existed) could have some value, while keeping in mind that what we are getting is very far from that.
kelnos
An unsolved crime is much less serious than a crime committed using state apparatus, though.
lazyasciiart
And if you need confessions, confessions will be made.
arjie
Precisely! Illustrates the problem perfectly.
nkrisc
> He characterizes the behavior as rare. He simultaneously identifies it as the most common form of abuse. The tension between those two statements is the problem Flock has left unaddressed.
I don’t see how there’s any tension between these statements. The overall occurrence of abuse can be rare while the most common form of the abuse that does occur is of officers tracking people they know.
rose-knuckle17
The tension is that the abuse is far more likely than any value these cameras bring.
And what is commonly rare in a country of 342 million? Prairie Grove, Illinois has 1930 people and he did this to at least 3 people according to the report. .15% of the population. If you extrapolate that out to the national population, its roughly 520k people. Or, the entire population of Sacramento, Ca, being victimized by law enforcement with a surveillance power they should never have been allowed to have.
undefined
mc32
In a community of 20 people you have one person who commits robbery, that's 5% of the pop being a robbers. One _could_ extrapolate that but we'd fall victim to the law of small numbers.
orthecreedence
Either way, I support a world where exactly 0/1 Flock corporations exist.
glitcher
Rare in comparison to what, the total number of searches across the platform?
But even that is the wrong focus. One could make the same case for rejecting police body cams because incidents of police abuse are rare, relatively speaking.
The real issue is that the platform isn't completely locked down by default with strict access control grants, monitoring, auditing, etc. Shoot I have way less access at my work to data and systems which do not have that level of sensitivity and have to go through multiple approval steps to be granted anything new.
But I guess those things don't help the sales pitches. To be fair policing the police isn't flock's job and doesn't make them money. Laws and regulations are the only real vehicles of change.
FireBeyond
Yeah, in fact they're very nudge nudge wink wink.
Sell to a LE agency in a state that doesn't allow data sharing in certain ways? Flock certainly won't disable it. They'll even still train you in how to use it.
Garrett is very much a believer in Minority Report.
makeitdouble
You're right both can be logically true. Now the tension doesn't reside in the logic, but in the intent of the statements.
First statement minimizes the problem's impact, second argues it's still worth tackling.
undefined
Avshalom
>>Flock and law enforcement regularly cite documented cases where LPR helped solve violent crimes, recover stolen vehicles, and locate missing persons. Those outcomes are real.
My opposition wouldn't change regardless but are those outcomes real?
Manuel_D
In Seattle at least, the majority of homicide cases are solved with the assistance of surveillance cameras (though what % of said cameras are specifically Flock, I'm not sure): https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2026/03/05/new-analysis-rtcc-...
asveikau
Cops can politely ask owners of private cameras for access for things like murder investigation. If the polite answer is no (most people will say yes), they can go to court for a subpoena. This has happened for a long time. This is how it should work. If the cops are too lazy or chicken to ask a judge while investigating a murder, they don't deserve the footage.
ACCount37
This is very doable when what you're dealing with is a Major Crime That Gets Full Institutional and Individual Attention.
What about a bike theft, a jacked car or a stolen parcel though?
There is a price to having information easily available to the law enforcement. There is a price to not having this information easily available to the law enforcement too.
glaslong
This was exactly the case on a King County jury I was on. Lots of camera footage, most from security cams of individual businesses, some from red light cameras.
The event predated Flock rollout though, so no idea if the distribution of camera sources has shifted.
Regardless though, in the end the phone location data meant a lot more than any of the camera data, which just confirmed the path from phone sources.
undefined
Manuel_D
Right and what if lots of crime happens in a place where there are not many businesses? Hardly an implausible scenario given that crime is bad for business.
The city can set up its own camera for its own use. Is that really that wild of a proposal?
lazyasciiart
The wording he used was that it helped make arrests in 53% of cases. Nothing about whether those cases were solved, or whether the arrests were correct, or whether he's counting times where the cameras see police making an arrest and count it as 'helping'.
Avshalom
That's not what that says though.
>technology and professional analysts with helping detectives make arrests in 53%
"technology and analysts" "help" "make arrests" not surveillance, not convictions and only the implication that they wouldn't have made the arrest otherwise.
Like look at the example: somebody calls in an OD and a guy sees that the dude ODing matches (the clothing of) a suspect in some other crime and so they arrest him.
Once again an arrest is not a conviction but also what part of that needed/used pervasive surveillance?
ALSO a conviction is not the same thing as truth.
ALSO ALSO by basic subtraction the panopticon wasn't even helpful 47% of the time.
lazyasciiart
Even better, they saw a guy who was nearby the dude ODing.
Computer0
Historically Seattle's surveillance has been fulfilled via Axon.
mingus88
I have no doubt that provided a vast camera network covering every ingress and egress into a city, and every major intersection, plus a database of when and where a license plate was last seen, cops can find their suspect
It used to be that news articles would claim that the police used “CCTV from local businesses” to catch a crook. Even back then I knew this was cover for Ring, Flock and who knows what else. they just didn’t want the bad press.
At this point you don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to understand that parallel construction happens all the time. They have more tools that we know about, and they want to keep it that way.
Everyone should throw some money to 404 media. They are independent and doing the best work right now to keep these things in the public eye.
Avshalom
That's the thing though, I do doubt that. Surveillance that you don't need a warrant to put in front of a jury is a perfect thing to use for the ostensibly-legal construction in parallel construction.
rolph
guess what prolific career criminals do with crime cars?
they look for a car that is very similar if not exact make and model of thier stolen vehicle, then they "clone" the victims license plate with a sheet of embossment copper and a stylus, apply paint at thier shop and affix the imposter to the crime vehicle. that buggers the whole LPR thing.
they can replicate dozens of plates in a day and offer the service for contras.
Avshalom
That seems like a lot of effort when you can just take the license plate off and if you're really worried print off a convincing temporary license and tape in the back window.
rolph
its effort well worth it, and really is not a lot of effort. if you stole the plate, the theft is evident, when there are duplicates then it becomes difficult to know which one to suspect, and that also presupposes knowledge of the duplication.
you would have to realize, it is not feasible for a car to be in location 1 thenbe in location 2 many miles away in a few minutes.
the odd thing about criminals is thier effort to perpetuate crime is often far greater than getting a job, but is somehow the preferable option.
Gigachad
Not really because it flags an anomaly where the same plate is found in two places that are impossibly far to reach in the time span. Then police can just pull over that plate when they see it with a 50/50 chance it's the stolen car.
The more cameras in the network the faster and more likely a duplicated plate will be spotted.
next_xibalba
Sure. But if we have enough surveillance cameras, we can just trace the full path of the car from the moment of theft to now. I'm reminded of Gorgon Stare [1]. Stolen cars suck. But how about murders? I'm sure all of the people who've had loved ones murdered in, say, South Chicago, might have a more positive opinion of such a system. Especially since it wouldn't have to rely on witnesses who are cowed by the threat of reprisal and anti-snitch culture.
wil421
Yes. Prior to flock, my city trialed LPRs attached to the local power company’s poles. In the first month, they recovered more stolen cars than any prior years total recoveries. I’ve got mixed feelings about Flock, LPRs, and what it allows people and governments to do.
I’m 100% sold on the results.
MadnessASAP
Nobody is questioning the value of unconstrained mass surveillance on solving crimes.
Unfortunately it also enables a good deal of more heinous crimes against the people its supposed to protect, by the people who are supposed to be protecting them.
Gigachad
The problem imo is the usage and laws rather than the technology. Security cameras used for public good is good. But it needs to be heavily limited to preventing crime, with strict access logs and penalties for misuse.
conception
Imagine if the police had the names and faces of every marcher in every protest. They too would be (are) 100% sold on the results.
xigoi
Why would you go to a protest if you don’t want people to know that you are there?
undefined
cm2012
Flock doesnt scan faces, only cars.
FireBeyond
Part of that is cops also doing their jobs in the first place versus "not giving a shit". Like when shown an eBay page of the person who sold my stolen phone. Nearly a hundred iPhones, all "activation locked", "no charger", same for Mac laptops, "no chargers, no accessories, may be locked".
Cops: "Well he probably didn't steal them himself."
Me: "Even so, knowingly selling stolen property is a crime too, no?"
Cops: "..."
superultra
So, ends justifies the means. Got it.
I guess I’m old enough to remember when 99.9% of us on hacker news were…well, hackers. We valued privacy and freedom over surveillance and “results.”
I miss those days.
Planktonne
HN has always been associated with tech entrepreneurship rather than 'hacker' in the way that it's commonly used.
I'm not sure there was ever a time when 99.9% of the userbase, or even a much smaller percentage, actually valued privacy and freedom rather than seeing them as obstacles to value extraction.
gottorf
> We valued privacy and freedom over surveillance and “results.”
The relative value of one over the other depends on the absolute value of either. In a Mad Max scenario, very few would value the principles of privacy and freedom over the immediate need to reestablish basic order.
Take auto theft as an example. Depending on how old you are, the recent spike in auto theft is either "nothing compared to the 80s" or "entirely unacceptable in civilized society"; in select cities, the rate almost tripled in five years[0] (an incredible jump), though remaining well below the historical peak.
However, case clearance rates are at an all time low, which I'm sure furthers frustration for the victims. That is, you're statistically less likely to be a victim of auto theft today than during the historical peak, but if you are, you're statistically more likely to be SOL.
You're probably approaching this from a civil libertarian point of view, but the Constitution is not a suicide pact[1]. Members of society who collectively uphold the law also have a vested interested in the maintenance of the conditions that would further perpetuate upholding the law, i.e. law and order.
[0]: https://counciloncj.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/motor-veh...
[1]: Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949)
FireBeyond
Flock's position, statistically, is that if during the course of an investigation into a crime, a detective queries Flock, and the crime is later solved, that Flock "helped solve a crime", regardless of the merit or value of the query. "Saw a vehicle, look it up, "nope, unrelated", but still "helped solve".
Avshalom
Right, that's more or less my suspicion.
BrenBarn
So stalking your ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend is actually a public service as long as you solve some crimes along the way!
apothegm
The AI slop in that quote sure is real.
willis936
Check your town's website for correspondence with your state's chapter of the ACLU in regards to Flock cameras. If your police chief (not an elected official) is installing them then contact your local ACLU chapter about it. These are 4th amendment violations.
Manuel_D
To the contrary, little of what Flock does would be restricted by the 4th amendment. The cameras are in public, and neither the government nor individual citizens need authorization to film people in public.
Many Flock cameras are also privately owned, too.
reactordev
All flock cameras are privately owned, by flock. They install them at a charge per the jurisdiction that orders them and pays the subscription costs… those subscription fees allow Mr Local Law Abuser to lookup any license plate it has read, when, where, with a picture of the vehicle.
You’d be surprised how many there are.
__MatrixMan__
So when I put a bag over the camera, it's up to flock to remove it? I haven't stuck around to find out who shows up. Sometimes it takes a week or so, other times it's next day.
Manuel_D
The point is, some of flock's customers are private businesses. E.g. the Home Depot by me uses them. No amount of pressure by voters can take those cameras down.
hilariously
https://www.wired.com/story/carpenter-v-united-states-suprem... https://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-jones There has been plenty of past rulings that indicate long term collection of data is not something that the fourth amendment had baked in.
Manuel_D
The case you linked isn't about the government filming people in public, though. Carpenter vs. US was a case about the government demanding private information about users' locations from cell service providers. By comparison, the 9th circuit concluded that the plain view doctrine means electronic license plate readers are legal :https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/05/04/1...
An officer doesn't need a warrant to sit at a cross section and write down license plate numbers. A device doing the same thing is also legal.
devindotcom
it's not about filming in public. it's about systematic data collection by law enforcement, using private infrastructure present by its nature in public. that's why the Carpenter decision is relevant.
Manuel_D
The Carpenter decision was about the US government compelling mobile data providers to hand over private use information. It's really not relevant to flock. That's why the 9th Circuit decided that automated license plate readers don't need a warrant. A cop and stand at an intersection and write down license plate numbers without a warrant. A device can do the same.
mingus88
The year is 2026 and the 4th amendment only means what the currently sitting justices say that it means, and the executive branch was literally given a pass to violate any law on the books that they want.
Manuel_D
The 9th circuit upheld that the police do not need warrants to operate and access data from license plate readers. The 9th Circuit isn't exactly a conservative stronghold.
qmr
Wrong. See Carpenter v US.
Manuel_D
That's not applicable to Flock, though. That case pertained to the government requesting that mobile service providers give historical location data on users.
downrightmike
The government may not purchase services for acts it is not allowed to do itself: Pinkerton Act.
Manuel_D
But the government is allowed to track people's license plates. There's nothing against the law for a police officer to stand at an intersection writing down all passing car's license plates with a pen and paper. Flock is the same thing, just much more cost efficient.
assimpleaspossi
Yes. Let's restrict police and take away every possible tool they can use to solve and fight crime. Not all criminals are bad criminals. They don't use Flock to spy on their ex-girlfriends but every cop in America has done it.
At least according to the internet which knows everything.
willis936
Don't misrepresent what others say. The 4th amendment should not be violated. I can only interpret your response as "the 4th amendment should be violated".
assimpleaspossi
Then you would be wrong. I'm pointing out the internet's liberal obsession with anti-police and, seemingly, pro-criminal activity. The internet likes to find fault with the police while dismissing or ignoring criminal activity. It's a horror I cannot understand. It's pure insanity.
Planktonne
> take away every possible tool they can use to solve and fight crime
Flock is a new tool, with a string of related abuses already and an unconvincing record of successes. Removing it is in no way tantamount to taking away every possible tool.
jillesvangurp
Warrants are needed, and much more transparency. These platforms should be monitored and policed aggressively to keep everybody honest. There's a precedent for this with for example body cam footage means it's now much easier to audit police conduct.
Surveillance technology potentially enables a lot of abuse if used without checks and balances. But the same technology also enables monitoring for abuse. Use of surveillance technology should be actively monitored and supervised. There should be auditable logs, footage, etc. with very long retention periods and active spot checks. In case of conflicts/abuse, there should be ample evidence.
Gud
These platforms shouldn't exist to begin with... "land of the free" LOL!
throwaway74628
Nit: the police chief was also stalking and harassing at least one man
xigoi
But crimes against men don’t matter because by being a man, he is responsible for all crimes committed by men. /s
assimpleaspossi
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INTPenis
It should go without saying that all humans are flawed, regardless of their training, their uniform, their position in society.
The local pedohunters group dumpen.se in Sweden actually caught a cop trying to meet a fictional 14 year old, and the cop used his access to public CCTV to check the meeting point before going there.
throwaway85825
When flock data was FOIAd the state just exempted the data from FOIA.
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No, it shows that we have a destructive, trust undermining security industry that sells abusive surveillance software that by spirit of the law would be clearly illegal in any country that pretends to be a free and open society and has a constitution in the direction.