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Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

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Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#51
post #39

Can I set up my own camera on the side of the road (in a public place) to scan people's faces and license plates, link them up to one of the many data brokers (or leaks) and use a big display to show the drivers' pictures and something like "Hey Rick Larsen, it's the 24th time we've seen you this week. We'll let our clients know there's no one home at 2930 Wetmore Avenue, Everett most weekdays between 8 and 4!", and…

You can probably do that, so long as you're doing it on property you own.

Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#52

The fact police can go in and just look at camera footage without warrant proves your point precisely, officers have used it to stalk family members, etc.

This type of thing is definitely real. A friend of mine went on a date with an NYPD cop back in the 90s. She refused a second date, and the stalking began. It wasn't 'tech stalking', like today, but the cop started asking interrogating questions to her landlord and co-workers; she started getting weird/false parking tickets, etc. The only way she made it stop was that her cousin was a veteran with NYPD, and well, he had a little chat with the young, stalking cop. But who knows where it all would've ended up if her cousin wasn't also a cop???

Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

That is not this, however. This is the city hooking into a private, nationwide surveillance network.

You didn't think these cities actually own these Flock cameras, did you?

Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

In America, yes.

Obviously in other places, no.

Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#55
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That is not this, however. This is the city hooking into a private, nationwide surveillance network. You didn't think these cities actually own these Flock cameras, did you?

They pay to have them installed and maintained, they're not different in that sense from subscribing to Office 365 licensing, it's a subscription product.

They key difference is not whether they own their cameras but the automatic data sharing with other agencies and their cameras. Arguably law enforcement does this casually on request anyways but the drastically reduced friction of an automatic system enables easy abuse.

An officer may hesitate to ask a neighboring agency for data on their girlfriend, and would likely be very hesitant to file actual paperwork to request it. But a search in Flock's interface is probably all of the same legal peril in a venue which doesn't feel as intimidating or risky to do and doesn't see the same level of human review or scrutiny.

Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#56

>>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?

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 ju…

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.

Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#57

>>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?

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".

Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#58
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 effor…

> 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.

You say that but just last week there was a post here about how LPR claimed that the same car was in two locations in a timeframe that would have required the car to have been traveling non-stop at 160mph for 20 minutes through suburban streets, and even then authorities and proponents were defending it as plausible, or that the LPR was right, but there might just have been timing issues, or, or, or.

Re: Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if lots of murders happened in bathrooms?

The hopefully we'll be able to at least narrow down the list of suspects to the people who entered the bathroom around the time they the murder took place. Surveillance often doesn't directly capture crime on camera, but is rather used to identify who traveled to and from the crime scene around the time of the incident

You understand why that's worse, right?
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