161–170 of 382 posts
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.
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 constr…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who says the city's retention period would be smaller than Flock? Furthermore, do you realize that you're free to photograph people in public and sell those images, no permission required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by th…
The city's scope is smaller than Flock's - it's a city, not a multi-national corporation. Yes, I'm aware of what "expectation of privacy" means. I've been a photographer for ~25 years. > People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person. This isn't about…
> 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.
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 da…
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.
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The ballots are timestamped to a degree fine-grained enough to narrow down the set of potential voters to just 50 people? Which state is this? I'm not finding any search results indicating that ballots are timestamped. In fact, some of the results I've encountered specifically say that ballots aren't timestamped to ensure privacy. But happy to learn more of you can explain how ballots in your state are timestamped. I…
My point wasn't that Flock allows this, but that it allows an entire class of surveillance that was previously not available.
It's not new tech.
> 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.
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 enfo…
>>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?
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.
Cops: "Well he probably didn't steal them himself."
Me: "Even so, knowingly selling stolen property is a crime too, no?"
Cops: "..."
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The ballots are timestamped to a degree fine-grained enough to narrow down the set of potential voters to just 50 people? Which state is this? I'm not finding any search results indicating that ballots are timestamped. In fact, some of the results I've encountered specifically say that ballots aren't timestamped to ensure privacy. But happy to learn more of you can explain how ballots in your state are timestamped. I…
At no point did I say it could de-anonymize ballots. You claimed ballots provided the government with the information they needed to know who voted. I pointed that is untrue. Ballots explicitly do not. The fact you posted that tells you know have a Google level understanding of the law in the US, and the fact you posted an article about private citizens using public data as proof of the legality of government-operate…
I really appreciate the irony of you alleging a "Google level understanding" on my part, when your own argument was tried in a court of appeals and failed.
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Yes, ballots are anonymous. But how would Flock cameras somehow de-anonymize votes? I had assumed you were referring to tracking people driving to polling stations to discover who voted - not how they voted. Because how on earth would automated license plate readers somehow de-anonymize individual ballots? Please do explain what you meant by that. And do explain the "idiocy" of the rest of my comment. Do you actually…
So "The government might not know how you voted, but they know who voted!" still requires a lot of work defining what you mean by "the government".
Second, your "this is already legal!" link pointed to an article about private citizens utilizing publicly volunteered data sets with no legal authority or consequence. I have no idea what that has to do with anything. Other than it sort of proves that mass data collection is likely to generate injustices.
But yes, in the US, you do not have a presumption to privacy when out in public. It is not an assumed universal, but, especially when it comes to private use, public information and public activities are not assumed private and have little if any protections.
However, SCOTUS specifically called out in Carpenter that mass surveillance data (cell phone location in that case) can be treated as a "search" under our Fourth Amendment. When confronted with a case that would look very similar to large network of private surveillance data of otherwise public activity, the court said, "Nope." If the quality and quantity of the data is sufficiently detailed, it cannot be presumed to be "public" information, especially when the mechanism by which it is gathered does not require affirmative consent, and especially when the data is retroactively broad.
Carpenter is the opinion which the ACLU cites, repeatedly, when they attack Flock's network of cameras. Cursory reading about whether Flock constitutional will point you towards Carpenter, and the ACLU's argument that it should/will apply to Flock.
We've had exactly one real test of that argument (Schmidt v Norfolk) that has yet to be make it to SCOTUS. The district court in that case ruled Carpenter didn't apply - but it was a district court whose opinion SCOTUS overruled in Carpenter too.
The next SCOTUS test of mass surveillance data usage will likely be the pending opinion in Chatrie. SCOTUS-watchers seemed divided on where they think the court will land, so who knows. Though based on the dissents in Carpenter, and the current make-up of the court, it's hard to see a world in which the original dissenters change their mind and that ACC doesn't join with them for a 5-4 opinion the other way under some narrow condition set.
I have no idea why you think the government monitoring specific groups has anything to do with mass surveillance networks beyond that the words monitoring and surveillance have similar meanings.
You seem to just be saying things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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)