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Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

washingtonpost.com

101–110 of 156 posts

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#101
post #84
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In today's private free-market Stasi, you'd be lucky if a group of 12 people has two or three who are not informants.

Your hyperbole really undercuts your (reasonable) argument.

It's still reasonable, because he isn't talking about traditional spies. The majority of the population seems to be plugged into Facebook, Google, and other companies that are essentially surveillance organizations. By interacting with people who have no concern for their own privacy, you will end up being surveilled as well. If you are a contact in their phone or email that will be harvested, if you go to their house and they have smart devices you will likely be recorded (audio and or video), if you go anywhere with them there will be location data, if they take and post any pictures or videos with you that's another source of data. He is correct that the majority of the population are now "informants", although they are informing for companies like Facebook rathter than directly for the government

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#102
post #34
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Mass surveillance. Police brutality. Weapons confiscation. Seems to be a pattern. Both sides of the political spectrum are enabling different portions of this pattern.

One of those things is not like the others.

What's not like the others? I see a list of common activities of government overreach.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#103
post #98
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With previous generations of home security systems, the recordings were stored in an on-premises hard drive. Ring doesn't give you that option, all video is stored on their cloud, "for the customer's convenience" of course. The result of that is the random citizens won't have much leverage to say no, because the police can likely figure out a way to get the video from Ring directly.

> because the police can likely figure out a way to get the video from Ring directly That's quite the legal or technical assumption.

There was an article just a few days ago about the CEO of a genetic testing company handing over information to the FBI.

It doesn't seem a reach at all for the FBI or state or local police to ask for or subpoena stored footage.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#104
post #98
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With previous generations of home security systems, the recordings were stored in an on-premises hard drive. Ring doesn't give you that option, all video is stored on their cloud, "for the customer's convenience" of course. The result of that is the random citizens won't have much leverage to say no, because the police can likely figure out a way to get the video from Ring directly.

> because the police can likely figure out a way to get the video from Ring directly That's quite the legal or technical assumption.

Search warrants are 100% routine and Amazon must comply with hundreds? of them daily.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#105
post #99
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not like police have 24/7 involuntary access to everyone's video. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this one since I started on the internet in '97. It's never true.

I'm as paranoid about IoT devices being abused as anyone, but can you point out more than 1 or 2 examples of "It's never true?"

Police and the US government regularly abuse "legitimate" surveillance as well ass utilize illegal surveillance. There are a huge amount of examples. I have 0 faith that police cannot and will not abuse this

https://thinkprogress.org/new-york-police-nypd-will-deploy-f...

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/01/578369420/report-alleges-poli...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/26/police...

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dark-side-fbi-dea-illega...

https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/issues/government-sur...

https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/privacy-and-su...

https://www.aclu.org/other/more-about-fbi-spying

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#106
post #100
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you were a random witness? You didn't sign up for that either. You have certain civic obligations which are enforced by law. I assume in these types of cases, you could be held in contempt if you wouldn't respond voluntarily. It's unfortunate for the person involved and the incentives in the system are such that no one is trying to make efficient use of their time. But that's pretty much the way it is. It's n…

Maybe we shouldn't construct a society where your obligations to your employer are at odds with you helping society find justice for a murder victim. This is a great example of how atomized our society has become.

I'm honestly not sure what that means.

Many large companies tend to be pretty flexible with respect to things like jury duty. But, to say that even a small business needs to keep paying full salary for someone who is out for weeks or longer (and even if they have to hire a temporary replacement) is probably not realistic.

Per diems for things like jury duty should arguably be higher. But there's no world in which, say, a Silicon Valley software developer is going to be paid their regular daily salary with benefits.

As I wrote elsewhere, it would be nice if everyone involved were more respectful of the time being put in by unpaid or nominally paid participants. But that's no one's priority.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#107
Police don't need this to fight crime. Crime is at historical lows. Civilization has gotten by just fine without pervasive surveillance for centuries.

In a way this is worse than what China is building since it's distributed.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#108
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After providing the footage, if they tried to get me to take 3 unpaid weeks off work, I would tell them to kick rocks. If they want me to help them with their case at the expense of my job they need to compensate me for lost income.

In which case, you would probably be found in contempt of court and fined or arrested if a judge wanted to push the point.

Fine with me, they can compensate me for my time or contact my attorney. In reality, knowing how scummy the local criminal "justice" system is, I would never have reported or handed over the video anyway knowing they'd try to pull some nonsense like making me miss a month of work unpaid. When my mother was robbed she waited an hour in the rain and the police (Seattle PD) didn't even send a unit out to make a report. I'm not going out of my way to help when they won't do the same. I'm sure all the HN statists will downvote and tell me what an awful person I am for not supporting law enforcement, and what if it was my family member that was murdered, etc. but maybe if the police want help from their community they should actually support their community rather than just harassing homeless people, arresting non-violent drug offenders, and fining poor people

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#109
post #106
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we shouldn't construct a society where your obligations to your employer are at odds with you helping society find justice for a murder victim. This is a great example of how atomized our society has become.

I'm honestly not sure what that means. Many large companies tend to be pretty flexible with respect to things like jury duty. But, to say that even a small business needs to keep paying full salary for someone who is out for weeks or longer (and even if they have to hire a temporary replacement) is probably not realistic. Per diems for things like jury duty should arguably be higher. But there's no world in which, sa…

In Germany the state pays your lost salary when you are required to be in court as a witness.

We don't have the American jury system so times in court tend to be way shorter. But non the less. If society here needs my support it is giving back something as well.

Not that in the one case were I was entitled to compensation I ever asked for it. Because I feel it was my civic duty. But then - I am in the lucky position to be able to afford this sentiment.

Re: Ring has partnered with 400 police forces

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can. He should be able to invoice the DA for his time. The taxpayers (society) foots the bill.

As someone who just served Jury Duty in the USA. I can tell you the 'bill' for my services was barely minimum wage.

Jury Duty is not the same as being served a subpoena for the prosecution.
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