Discussion

Stop Flock

arcanemachiner: I would never advocate criminal behavior, but I don't understand how these these things aren't destroyed en masse by, like... everyone.

seattle_spring: Every time they're discussed, I think of that scene of Homer bashing a weather station in the 70s[1][1] https://youtu.be/zexJJb9Lbas

JoshTriplett: Many of them have been.

jimmar: I followed the shooting at Brown University last year very closely. Brown's leadership was heavily criticized for having camera blind spots and not being able to track the shooter's exact movements through campus. I can understand why people with stewardship over the safety of their students/customers/constituents would make decisions to err on the side of tracking. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand it.

renewiltord: Yeah, I don’t advocate criminal behavior either but I don’t understand how these troublesome priests aren’t rid of by, like…everyone.

himata4113: This is just reiterating same points deflock does including mentioning deflock and images from deflock?Deflock: https://deflock.org/Also: https://haveibeenflocked.com/

amazingamazing: I’m curious if there were some consortium of all private businesses with their own surveillance cams deciding to aggregate their footage could it be stopped?

mcmcmc: [delayed]

bmitch3020: I don't want to stop Flock the company. I want to stop Flock the business model, along with all the other mass surveillance, and the data brokers. If the business models can't be made illegal, it should at least come with liabilities so high that no sane business would want to hold data that is essentially toxic waste.Without that, we are quickly spiraling into the dystopia where privacy is gone, and when the wrong person gets access to the data, entire populations are threatened.

sfblah: With most of these things, people are against state power until they are victimized. It’s a common pattern.

diogenes_atx: To the list of references provided by this post in the section "Further Reading," I would add the following book:Sarah Brayne (2020) Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing, Oxford University Presshttps://www.amazon.com/Predict-Surveil-Discretion-Future-Pol...An academic study about the use of surveillance technology at the Los Angeles Police Department, the book documents the LAPD's use of data brokerage firms (e.g., Palantir) that collect and aggregate information from public records and private sources, as well as automatic license plate readers like Flock, and Suspicious Activity Reports generated by police and civilians, which include reports of mundane activities such as using binoculars, drawing diagrams, or taking pictures or "video footage with no apparent aesthetic value." All this data ultimately gets parked in Fusion Center facilities, built in the aftermath of 9/11, where federal, state and local law enforcement agencies collaborate to collect, aggregate, analyze and share information. As the author observes, "The use of data in law enforcement is not new. For almost a century, police have been gathering data, e.g., records of citations, collisions, warrants, incarcerations, sex offender and gang registries, etc. What is new and important about the current age of big data is the role in public policing of private capitalist firms who provide database systems with huge volumes of information about people, not just those in the criminal justice system."

Computer0: Yes I think this site is not unique, I personally have at least 2 websites I have not shared anywhere with at least all of this information, that I am developing for my local community or just for myself. Its a subject worth discussing but I am also skeptical of the value of this link. I think maybe what is most worth considering is, "does this have value over deflock?" is it more accessible? Less overwhelming? I am not sure but I think that conversation would not be a great use of time in this particular space.

chris_wot: Michel Foucault's Panopticon is alive and well I see.

kyrra: The criticism around that event, I believe, involved Brown University disablinf cameras trying to protect potential illegal immigrants being targeted by ice. It wasn't the lack of cameras. It was a purposeful disabling of said cameras that already existed.

khuston: I’m all for mass surveillance of roadways, but I want to see results. Every day I see and hear people breaking laws with their vehicles in ways that make life worse for others around them.

SonOfKyuss: I could be convinced to support public cameras if access to the footage was tightly controlled and only used for solving serious crimes, but government officials and flock themselves have repeatedly shown that they can’t be trusted to use them in a responsible manner. It’s too powerful of a tool to put in the hands of untrustworthy individuals

mcmcmc: Yep. Automate the whole thing and be done with traffic cops abusing their power to meet quotas or harass minorities. It would likely make car insurance cheaper too since people would drive more safely, and the cost of investigations and arbitration drops down with readily available video evidence.

sodality2: This is a very common pattern; my university pushed through a ZeroEyes AI camera/open carry weapon detection contract within 2 weeks of a shooting at a nearby school, even though it’s trivial to bypass by hiding it; it’s most probably just (gruesome as it is to think about) a bad press insurance so if anything happened, they can say they had “state of the art AI detection” and they did all they could. No one wants to be the one caught not doing “all they could” against the media cacophony in the immediate aftermath.

stevemk14ebr: You want to stop the source, which is that the government and other agencies can purchase surveillance data that would otherwise be disallowed by the 4th amendment. We need to end this 'laundering' of information through third parties, and enforce the constitution by its intent.

__MatrixMan__: I worry about this. It's easy enough to go around putting bags over flock cameras, but it would be harder to justify targeting ones that just maybe are doing double duty.

King-Aaron: > I don't want to stop Flock the company. I want to stop Flock the business model, along with all the other mass surveillance, and the data brokers.Then you want to stop the company.Which is reasonable.

ceejayoz: Flock isn’t the only company.

scarmig: Although I oppose the surveillance state, it's important to understand the motivations and incentives involved in the move toward Flock (and its eventual successors); until those are resolved, governments are going to be implementing Flock style programs with relatively tepid opposition.Police departments are seriously understaffed in many major cities, and officers are much less efficient than they used to be. This has led to the decline of the beat cop, who provided a kind of ambient authority that helped create, both a sense and reality, of public order. People really want the sense (even more than the reality!) of public order; without that, they will jump to faddish solutions that promise it, regardless of the data for or against it.The best counter to Flock is to provide alternatives to it, not just reject it while keeping the status quo going. We need a new, vitalized police culture, that shares mutual trust and engagement with the community.

MegagramEnjoyer: This is a dangerous attitude.We don't need mass surveillance for traffic control. It can be done by the police if they really wanted to do it. Truth is, they don't care enough about road safety. This is about surveillance of citizens for control. First step is just infrastructure setup - next step is using it to prosecute those who dare to challenge the rise of fascism.Be an advocate for your own rights to privacy. Don't simply accept it as normalcy.

dopidopHN2: Home depot and lowes have contract with Flock, as an example.In New Orleans, a private rogue network of surveillance camera has been erected in reaction to a too constraining live facial recognition ban.I think it would be much harder to stop.

RHSeeger: Not just the government. It shouldn't be possible for any random stalker to find someone's daily movements.

mike_d: The "Take Action" section is missing the most obvious solution. Everyone just goes and takes down a camera. We as a society do not consent to this use of public space and simply have a national "Take out the trash day."There is no way Flock could practically ramp up production or manpower to replace the entire fleet before failing to meet contractual requirements with their customers that keep money flowing in.

jedberg: We need a law that says if you hold any data about a person, they must be notified when anyone accesses it, including law enforcement.I used to work in criminal investigations. I understand how this might make investigation of real crime more difficult. But so does the fact that you need a warrant to enter someone's home, and yet we manage to investigate crime anyway.Your data should be an extension of your home, even if it's held by another company. It should require a warrant and notification. You could even make the notification be 24 hours after the fact. But it should be required.

tptacek: The entities holding the information here are literally police departments. The information itself is evidence, used in active criminal investigations. It's good to want things, though.

jedberg: I know, that's why I said "including law enforcement" :)

rexpop: OP is not a king.

renewiltord: I didn’t say anyone was a king. I was just talking about troublesome priests.