Is it some sort of a two-way bargain? "Give up a bit of your data to access the vast treasure trove of other people's data", or is access to national data separate from this setting?
I don't agree that nobody realizes it. I think it's more of an SEP[0] situation. It's not like people are unaware that cameras are prevalent and there's a good chance you are being recorded anytime you are in public. It's more like it is such an issue that is well beyond the control of the individual it is best to just act like it's not really there allowing them to carry on as normal.
The other thing is a lot of people don't realize that the nature of the surveillance has changed. I'm not that concerned with random security cameras recording me most of the time because they're dumb and only record so I'm only really giving up information that anyone else there in the moment can already see. With flock and other newer systems though the data is collated and collected making it a complete dragnet for anyone in the area they operate in.
It's one of the places I hope the courts or legislature updates the 4th amendment to acknowledge that computer systems allow collection of individually innocuous data points to build into an effective panopticon. A lot of the limits on the 4th don't really include a realization that technology has made a lot of things so much easier to do that the government is able to do much more with the same information because they can cross compare it with so many other datapoints that they can cheaply do it for everyone instead of being restricted by the resources and having to choose who to investigate.
Not that long ago I remember signs that would say "You're on camera". I always thought that it was illegal (in the US) to be filmed without consent, but I guess I was wrong..
As a reminder: You don't have to fight this entity by entity, town by town or vendor by vendor.
You can just ban this shit at the state level, entirely, for everyone, including banning all private operators from using them in any capacity.
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Here in New Hampshire, we do and there's none of these in the state.
A legal use of an ALPR in NH would have to:
- Be solely for law enforcement use.
- Be incapable of capturing images of the occupants of the vehicle
- And most importantly: Delete all data within 3 minutes such absolutely no records are kept and no data is transmitted to any other party UNLESS the plate matched one that was already on a wanted list of plates being searched for.
The very idea of Flock doesn't make sense. The vast majority of crimes are committed in private areas, so its affect on crime will be very small compared to the massive loss of privacy.
> In Georgia, two seniors at Alpharetta high school created a petition to remove Flock cameras from their campus. Aditya Manchanda and Henry Jones, who are ... and their petition attracted local news coverage.
> After gathering signatures... The principal referred the boys to Fulton county school board members. Their emails have so far gone unanswered, so they’re planning to show up to an upcoming board meeting to relay their concerns.
At least in my part of the U.S., local school board elections are often decided by relatively small numbers of votes. And voters seldom have strong preferences between the candidates.
If you want to get the school board's actual attention, then get out and campaign for candidates who take strong anti-surveillance positions. There's really nothing as convincing as "Chris and Pat supported that, and both of 'em lost the election".
"Flock" branding is unhelpful in your anti-surveillance campaign. Where I live they're getting rid of flock due to public sentiment -- and contracting with Axon instead.
There have always been cameras all over the place. Traffic cameras, wildfire cameras. Since the actual camera is doing the exact same thing as these other camera (filming in public) there is nothing illegal about them. To make them illegal would also require anyone pulling out there camera and saving a private video illegal. Look the public should assume they are always being watched. If they don't want that, stay in private areas. I would rather not just get downvoted for this unpopular opinion but debated - but with merit. We're not going anywhere if we just say boo hoo you suck and downvote. These cameras are legal (right now).
Flock does not merely sell or lease cameras, it operates them. In that respect, they are acting as an agent of the government, and hence could be seen as being party to fourth amendment violations (assuming one could successfully argue that such violations exist). Of course, first you need someone with standing to sue...
A better example would be if you are served with a restraining order by your ex-spouse, but then hire a private detective to follow them around in public.
The private detective isn't breaking any laws (assuming they're doing their job correctly and legally), but you are certainly violating your restraining order.
And as it should be illegal. Using a proxy for your illegal activity is generally also illegal because the law recognizes how dumb it would be if it weren't.
In many case, no, Flock is an active participant in it.
In many states, agencies can't contract with Flock to have them initiate certain data sharing (i.e. build out cameras and connectivity).
In some cases, though, if Flock "just so happens..." to have that data available, then the agency is free to contract with them, and then can have access to it - they just can't be the one to request it.
So, while yes, the agency still holds the burden, there is a lot of "nudge nudge wink wink so if we just get set up here through someone else, you could then sign a contract with us!"
We've already seen city meetings where there are cameras and no-one knows (or seems to know) who the actual agency-of-record is for a given installation.
Who's being dense? Flock is just logging data it sees in the wild. That has nothing to do with the 4th amendment. It is the cops using that data that would be any where near violating the 4th. So as stated, Flock isn't doing anything illegal. If you want it to be illegal nationally, Congress needs to get involved.
Constructive intent. These systems exists for purposes other than violating our rights in the same way that a known drug dealer has a pill press for decoration.
Things like this make me think that the comparisons you sometimes see made online between the surveillance apparatuses in United States and People's Republic of China are perhaps a bit incorrect.
Not that it doesn't exist in the United States, but if the citizenry doesn't like it, there's at least some room to force change.
Glad my local SF supervisor supports them (and was rewarded with 80% in favour of re-election). But if it becomes politically infeasible, I hope we just swap to Axon or some lesser known brand.
The correct way to ban them is with laws like my state (New Hampshire) has, which makes the entire concept behind Flock effectively banned. And bans all private entities from operating them as well.
I am in favor of surveillance in pursuit of enforcement of the laws this society has agreed upon. Some believe that we should all agree on many laws and then not enforce them. I believe that we should agree on fewer laws and then enforce them to a high (though not 100%) degree. There’s always a trade-off in error rate and the intended outcome and I think human systems adapt (sometimes slowly, sometimes fast) to various policy changes so I’m not wedded to cameras as a mechanism to better aid prosecution.
For the moment, they do, and I’m glad they are here. Should things change I will be glad they are not and so will change my mind and work to ensure they are not.
Why do you say that? What is a camera doing that live witnesses don't? We've gotten to the point where all we do is attack people's credibility. That's less possible if something is on video right?
What's a wiretap on every phone doing that a person sitting on speakerphone isn't?
Also it's silly to act like "we've gotten to the point" where people attack each other's credibility when facing criminal accusations. Come on. Denying criminality is not a new phenomenon.
I think our points are not hitting we might be speaking past each other. That's probably my fault for writing cryptically.
This hypothetical story maybe a better way to frame my point:
Bob witnesses Dave steal candy from baby.
Trial happens, Dave is popular and Bob is the only witness. Bob is smeared in the media. There is no video footage, and the jury does not believe Bob.
In a world with more cameras:
Bob is a witness and his testimony is backed up by some footage.
Any smearing by Dave backfires and everyone now hates Dave and Bob is a hero.
Entertainingly, in a case where I was a witness but the event happened two years ago, affirmatively placing the perpetrator at the scene would have helped. I could describe the entire event etc. but over two years I no longer remembered the face of the guy I drove by who’d beaten his girlfriend with a gun. Every other piece of my testimony was identical to the 911 call in the minutes that followed. Case dismissed.
So you’re not far from the truth in actual practice!
You think the point of confusion is on the concept of “video evidence?”
It’s not. But if you think it is, then you’re way way way way too many steps removed from shared understanding for me to care about or try to rectify. Good luck!
Eh, security cameras on public roadways seem like a pretty reasonable measure to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, and promote the general Welfare”. The founding fathers would clearly recognize the role of a town watchman - these days it’s just a camera on a post.
Sure, and they would also recognize the tyranny of a 24/7 town watchman on every street corner creating records of every passerby, to be handed over to the government upon simple request.
The watchmen are on every corner, and they report everything they see instantly to a central ledger that can be concurrently accessed and read by an infinite number of investigators, lookey-loos, and criminals alike, while they themselves stand at any corner of the globe.
You're being myopic. This has nothing to do with law enforcement trying to solve crimes like murder or theft. What happens when your health insurance company can see that you've stopped going to the gym? Or that you habitually go through the drive-thru lane at a fast-food joint on your way home from work? Think your premiums will go down? It's not _just_ the government that you have to worry about. Yes, the government having access to this data is problem enough. The government doesn't need to know who my friends are or who I decide to spend my nights or weekends with if I'm not breaking the law. The first amendment guarantees freedom of association. There's not an asterisk there that says "as long as the government knows who you're with".
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin
Easy reply there - get off health insurance. It sucks and costs way more than the random visits my family make - but those are somehow $2000 a month for just my wife and myself. Insurance is a scam. Don't want to play by their games? Just don't.
> No no, you’re ignoring what I said, which is the actual conversation people are having here.
I have repeatedly argued your exact points and you're constantly just wiggling around in this argument and mostly focusing on smearing me. Which funny enough was my exact example in the other thread.
> No one is complaining about Home Depot having security systems, obviously.
So if Home Depot has a camera in the store (private space) and the thief is wearing a face mask, they can't do anything. However if they have a camera OUTSIDE the store and they catch the license plate of the robber - WHERE IS YOUR LINE? This kind of thing has to be LEGAL or ILLEGAL and for a specific reason. You're not suggesting any law, any reason just "un-American".
> Just like in the other thread, if you think that’s what the conversation is about then you’re way too confused to be capable of the discussion.
Someone said surveillance is necessary in today's world because of theft and other crimes. You said it was profoundly un-american (with no backup as to why you think that). Then I disagreed directly to that because in today's world a criminal that has to deal with an eye witness can smear the other person. I gave a CLEAR example but you disregard it as me being confused. You still haven't even made a POINT about why you think it's un-American. Who is confused here?
It sounds like you'd be in favor of gutting the 4th amendment since it would help law enforcement. If not, I'd be interested in hearing you explain the difference.
So, no, not in favour of gutting the 4th amendment. But I must bow out of any further discussion. I know that repeated downvotes and flagkills cause comment rate-limiting on this site, and I'd prefer to retain my right to answer people who ask me things.
> A few schools […] have kept Flock contracts but restricted national access to the cameras’ records.
They get "national access" controls? And the default is "allow all"?
It's opt-in, but 3/4 of the departments using it opt-in.
Is it some sort of a two-way bargain? "Give up a bit of your data to access the vast treasure trove of other people's data", or is access to national data separate from this setting?
So, like torrenting?
Huh, yeah. That's a really apt comparison since many torrent sites and such are invite only unless you've shown to be a good seeder.
Criminals have means of travel and if they travel to another jurisdiction, cops tend to cast a wide net in their search to find them.
Glad to see the public taking a stand against this stuff. I don't think anyone realizes how often they're being filmed right now
I don't agree that nobody realizes it. I think it's more of an SEP[0] situation. It's not like people are unaware that cameras are prevalent and there's a good chance you are being recorded anytime you are in public. It's more like it is such an issue that is well beyond the control of the individual it is best to just act like it's not really there allowing them to carry on as normal.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else%27s_problem
The other thing is a lot of people don't realize that the nature of the surveillance has changed. I'm not that concerned with random security cameras recording me most of the time because they're dumb and only record so I'm only really giving up information that anyone else there in the moment can already see. With flock and other newer systems though the data is collated and collected making it a complete dragnet for anyone in the area they operate in.
It's one of the places I hope the courts or legislature updates the 4th amendment to acknowledge that computer systems allow collection of individually innocuous data points to build into an effective panopticon. A lot of the limits on the 4th don't really include a realization that technology has made a lot of things so much easier to do that the government is able to do much more with the same information because they can cross compare it with so many other datapoints that they can cheaply do it for everyone instead of being restricted by the resources and having to choose who to investigate.
Sorry, I meant moment by moment.
Imagine that you drive downtown to run an errand, does anybody have a way of figuring out how many cameras recorded them and who owns the data?
Not that long ago I remember signs that would say "You're on camera". I always thought that it was illegal (in the US) to be filmed without consent, but I guess I was wrong..
It’s definitely not, especially in public places with no expectation of privacy.
The signs are just to make people aware, to discourage theft/bad behavior.
While limited, there absolutely is some expectation of privacy in public. Carpenter v. US, US v. Jones.
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For the cameras of government, businesses, or government:business partnerships?
They don’t realize because it makes no practical difference in their lives.
It does make a practical difference in people's lives. It's like someone following you around town taking notes on you.
There's a reason most people don't put cameras in their bedrooms or bathrooms.
Privacy is a human right.
Its like inverse insurance. Doesnt make a difference until it does.
Is that freedom?
>>makes no practical difference in their lives
Yet.
It makes no visible difference in their lives, until it does, until they or someone they care about is falsely accused based on flawed evidence.
And NO, don't even start trying to deny it happens just because I don't do your homework and find the citations for you.
As a reminder: You don't have to fight this entity by entity, town by town or vendor by vendor.
You can just ban this shit at the state level, entirely, for everyone, including banning all private operators from using them in any capacity.
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Here in New Hampshire, we do and there's none of these in the state.
A legal use of an ALPR in NH would have to:
- Be solely for law enforcement use.
- Be incapable of capturing images of the occupants of the vehicle
- And most importantly: Delete all data within 3 minutes such absolutely no records are kept and no data is transmitted to any other party UNLESS the plate matched one that was already on a wanted list of plates being searched for.
(NH RSA 261:75b - https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/XXI/261/261-75-b.htm )
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Your state can do the same - demand it from your legislators.
The very idea of Flock doesn't make sense. The vast majority of crimes are committed in private areas, so its affect on crime will be very small compared to the massive loss of privacy.
> In Georgia, two seniors at Alpharetta high school created a petition to remove Flock cameras from their campus. Aditya Manchanda and Henry Jones, who are ... and their petition attracted local news coverage.
> After gathering signatures... The principal referred the boys to Fulton county school board members. Their emails have so far gone unanswered, so they’re planning to show up to an upcoming board meeting to relay their concerns.
The local school district: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_County_Schools
At least in my part of the U.S., local school board elections are often decided by relatively small numbers of votes. And voters seldom have strong preferences between the candidates.
If you want to get the school board's actual attention, then get out and campaign for candidates who take strong anti-surveillance positions. There's really nothing as convincing as "Chris and Pat supported that, and both of 'em lost the election".
When is someone going to bring Flock to the Supreme Court?
For what? As far as I know nothing they're doing is actually illegal, the place where this discussion belongs is Congress.
"Flock" branding is unhelpful in your anti-surveillance campaign. Where I live they're getting rid of flock due to public sentiment -- and contracting with Axon instead.
don't be dense, there's an obvious argument to be made that these violate the 4th amendment
It would be the governments using Flock cameras that are violating the 4th Amendment, not Flock itself. (IANAL - I Am Not A Lawyer)
There have always been cameras all over the place. Traffic cameras, wildfire cameras. Since the actual camera is doing the exact same thing as these other camera (filming in public) there is nothing illegal about them. To make them illegal would also require anyone pulling out there camera and saving a private video illegal. Look the public should assume they are always being watched. If they don't want that, stay in private areas. I would rather not just get downvoted for this unpopular opinion but debated - but with merit. We're not going anywhere if we just say boo hoo you suck and downvote. These cameras are legal (right now).
Flock does not merely sell or lease cameras, it operates them. In that respect, they are acting as an agent of the government, and hence could be seen as being party to fourth amendment violations (assuming one could successfully argue that such violations exist). Of course, first you need someone with standing to sue...
[flagged]
But that's the inverse of what Flock is doing.
A better example would be if you are served with a restraining order by your ex-spouse, but then hire a private detective to follow them around in public.
The private detective isn't breaking any laws (assuming they're doing their job correctly and legally), but you are certainly violating your restraining order.
The analogy is the same because the analogy is: illegal for X to do Y, so X hires party Z to do Y for them.
But it's illegal to commit a murder, no matter whether X does so or Z does.
That's exactly my point.
And as it should be illegal. Using a proxy for your illegal activity is generally also illegal because the law recognizes how dumb it would be if it weren't.
In many case, no, Flock is an active participant in it.
In many states, agencies can't contract with Flock to have them initiate certain data sharing (i.e. build out cameras and connectivity).
In some cases, though, if Flock "just so happens..." to have that data available, then the agency is free to contract with them, and then can have access to it - they just can't be the one to request it.
So, while yes, the agency still holds the burden, there is a lot of "nudge nudge wink wink so if we just get set up here through someone else, you could then sign a contract with us!"
We've already seen city meetings where there are cameras and no-one knows (or seems to know) who the actual agency-of-record is for a given installation.
Do you really want that argument to be made in front of this particular set of justices?
Who's being dense? Flock is just logging data it sees in the wild. That has nothing to do with the 4th amendment. It is the cops using that data that would be any where near violating the 4th. So as stated, Flock isn't doing anything illegal. If you want it to be illegal nationally, Congress needs to get involved.
Constructive intent. These systems exists for purposes other than violating our rights in the same way that a known drug dealer has a pill press for decoration.
Oh? Didn't patriot act cancel constitution or something?
Could point a few at the justices, at all times, and see how they feel about it.
Stopped leaving the house because of this. They got want they want.
Things like this make me think that the comparisons you sometimes see made online between the surveillance apparatuses in United States and People's Republic of China are perhaps a bit incorrect.
Not that it doesn't exist in the United States, but if the citizenry doesn't like it, there's at least some room to force change.
Glad my local SF supervisor supports them (and was rewarded with 80% in favour of re-election). But if it becomes politically infeasible, I hope we just swap to Axon or some lesser known brand.
The correct way to ban them is with laws like my state (New Hampshire) has, which makes the entire concept behind Flock effectively banned. And bans all private entities from operating them as well.
Just going after one vendor would be pointless.
You're in favor of this kind of mass surveillance?
I am in favor of surveillance in pursuit of enforcement of the laws this society has agreed upon. Some believe that we should all agree on many laws and then not enforce them. I believe that we should agree on fewer laws and then enforce them to a high (though not 100%) degree. There’s always a trade-off in error rate and the intended outcome and I think human systems adapt (sometimes slowly, sometimes fast) to various policy changes so I’m not wedded to cameras as a mechanism to better aid prosecution.
For the moment, they do, and I’m glad they are here. Should things change I will be glad they are not and so will change my mind and work to ensure they are not.
> I am in favor of surveillance in pursuit of enforcement of the laws this society has agreed upon
Profoundly un-American
Why do you say that? What is a camera doing that live witnesses don't? We've gotten to the point where all we do is attack people's credibility. That's less possible if something is on video right?
believability?
What's a wiretap on every phone doing that a person sitting on speakerphone isn't?
Also it's silly to act like "we've gotten to the point" where people attack each other's credibility when facing criminal accusations. Come on. Denying criminality is not a new phenomenon.
I think our points are not hitting we might be speaking past each other. That's probably my fault for writing cryptically.
This hypothetical story maybe a better way to frame my point:
In a world with more cameras:Entertainingly, in a case where I was a witness but the event happened two years ago, affirmatively placing the perpetrator at the scene would have helped. I could describe the entire event etc. but over two years I no longer remembered the face of the guy I drove by who’d beaten his girlfriend with a gun. Every other piece of my testimony was identical to the 911 call in the minutes that followed. Case dismissed.
So you’re not far from the truth in actual practice!
It was the rest of this story: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2025-05-17/Witness_For_...
You think the point of confusion is on the concept of “video evidence?”
It’s not. But if you think it is, then you’re way way way way too many steps removed from shared understanding for me to care about or try to rectify. Good luck!
Eh, security cameras on public roadways seem like a pretty reasonable measure to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, and promote the general Welfare”. The founding fathers would clearly recognize the role of a town watchman - these days it’s just a camera on a post.
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Sure, and they would also recognize the tyranny of a 24/7 town watchman on every street corner creating records of every passerby, to be handed over to the government upon simple request.
The watchmen are on every corner, and they report everything they see instantly to a central ledger that can be concurrently accessed and read by an infinite number of investigators, lookey-loos, and criminals alike, while they themselves stand at any corner of the globe.
Just as Thomas Jefferson intended!
Oh no, not the tyranny of effective law enforcement without relying on unreliable witnesses! However will I continue shoplifting from Home Depot?
You're being myopic. This has nothing to do with law enforcement trying to solve crimes like murder or theft. What happens when your health insurance company can see that you've stopped going to the gym? Or that you habitually go through the drive-thru lane at a fast-food joint on your way home from work? Think your premiums will go down? It's not _just_ the government that you have to worry about. Yes, the government having access to this data is problem enough. The government doesn't need to know who my friends are or who I decide to spend my nights or weekends with if I'm not breaking the law. The first amendment guarantees freedom of association. There's not an asterisk there that says "as long as the government knows who you're with".
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin
Easy reply there - get off health insurance. It sucks and costs way more than the random visits my family make - but those are somehow $2000 a month for just my wife and myself. Insurance is a scam. Don't want to play by their games? Just don't.
Next time don’t try paying lip service to our Founders’ intentions. You can’t even keep up the charade for more than a single comment.
> "Oh no, not the tyranny of effective law enforcement without relying on unreliable witnesses! However will I continue shoplifting from Home Depot?"
You didn't address what he just said, and yes the founders would absolutely back up the idea of having watchmen protect "Home Depot" existing.
No no, you’re ignoring what I said, which is the actual conversation people are having here.
No one is complaining about Home Depot having security systems, obviously.
Just like in the other thread, if you think that’s what the conversation is about then you’re way too confused to be capable of the discussion.
> No no, you’re ignoring what I said, which is the actual conversation people are having here.
I have repeatedly argued your exact points and you're constantly just wiggling around in this argument and mostly focusing on smearing me. Which funny enough was my exact example in the other thread.
> No one is complaining about Home Depot having security systems, obviously.
So if Home Depot has a camera in the store (private space) and the thief is wearing a face mask, they can't do anything. However if they have a camera OUTSIDE the store and they catch the license plate of the robber - WHERE IS YOUR LINE? This kind of thing has to be LEGAL or ILLEGAL and for a specific reason. You're not suggesting any law, any reason just "un-American".
> Just like in the other thread, if you think that’s what the conversation is about then you’re way too confused to be capable of the discussion.
Someone said surveillance is necessary in today's world because of theft and other crimes. You said it was profoundly un-american (with no backup as to why you think that). Then I disagreed directly to that because in today's world a criminal that has to deal with an eye witness can smear the other person. I gave a CLEAR example but you disregard it as me being confused. You still haven't even made a POINT about why you think it's un-American. Who is confused here?
Go do some reading on Katz vs United States and you will learn about how the line is drawn.
> Someone said surveillance is necessary in today's world because of theft and other crimes. You said it was profoundly un-american
The comment thread is about mass surveillance. It's not about the concept of security cameras, fucking obviously.
> I am in favor of surveillance in pursuit of enforcement of the laws this society has agreed upon.
These systems already are already being abused beyond enforcement of laws.
It sounds like you'd be in favor of gutting the 4th amendment since it would help law enforcement. If not, I'd be interested in hearing you explain the difference.
No, I think:
* the public/private distinction is significant
* that public roads have obligations
So, no, not in favour of gutting the 4th amendment. But I must bow out of any further discussion. I know that repeated downvotes and flagkills cause comment rate-limiting on this site, and I'd prefer to retain my right to answer people who ask me things.
We're creating the tools to ensure there is no escape from the torment nexus.
The torment of being observed by a security camera driving on the public roadway? Truly I have no license plate yet I must scream type of material.