One of the best sound designs ever invented was the 'you just lost' melody created for The Price is Right.
That is not a non sequitur.
LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
341–350 of 439 posts
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has the highest per-capita rate of imprisonment I think we’re plenty “hard on crime”. What we lack is a principled stance that Americans deserve basic dignity and access to things that make people live less violent lives. It’s no secret that poverty is the key contributor to one’s likelihood of being in prison. People who are “soft on crime”, practically speaking, are the people and politicians so committed to…
Populations across the world are not comparable in a variety of ways, including in a "best-case" base criminality rate. So you can't compare per-capital rates of imprisonment and go, "Gee, that's high in Country X compared to Country Y and Country Z". There's an old saw: A Scandinavian economist once said to Milton Friedman, ‘In Scandinavia, we have no poverty’. Milton Friedman replied, ‘That’s interesting, because i…
> So you can't compare per-capital rates of imprisonment and go, "Gee, that's high in Country X compared to Country Y and Country Z".
That's an exceedingly weak defense for a country that imprisons 4x more people per-capita than China.
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
Police actually exist to protect capital. At least in the USA.
It's easy to say these anti-capitalistic platitudes, but do you really want to live in a society where the concept of private ownership is not supported by the state? Society is not starting at zero right now, it has developed for 10.000 years with many genocidal wars. As a result, 1% of the population has achieved generational wealth due to some sort of "value creation" by their ancestors. Through trial and error an…
> It's easy to say these anti-capitalistic platitudes, but do you really want to live in a society where the concept of private ownership is not supported by the state?
>
There is a country that allows police to just take your stuff and then demands you to prove it wasn't illegal. Also such property can be used/sold/spent by police force it was stolen by. Does it sound like private ownership is supported by the state? BTW. It's called civil forfeiture and country is named USA.
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is all very silly. Flock is not a scheme to install forever-cameras. They get paid primarily by municipalities. If your muni votes to shut the cameras off, they will shut the cameras off. If it votes to take the cameras down, nobody is going to stop public works from doing that. The problem is that the First Law Of Message Board dictates that the most interesting narrative wins, and the narrative where Flock has…
I thought what was going on was they would keep them up after the local contract as they could still get value from them as part of the national network.
I don't doubt that they will, if all your muni cares about is "not paying anymore", they'll take advantage of the easement or whatever. Kind of the same way DirecTV was happy for you to leave the dish installed.
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#345I don't understand flock cameras in high crime areas. Every time somebody commits a heinous crime it's always like "they were arrested 72 times and were well known by the police" What's the point in helping the police catch criminals when they don't do anything after the fact!
Too few prosecutors. Police only arrests, but the real job is done by prosecutors. However, there's a global shortage of them, and cities don't hire more. I don't know whether that's a popular job nowadays. So without proper charges judge cannot do anything but release. Police cannot do anything but arrest. Prosecutors are the main line of defense (defending public from criminals).
I don't believe at all this is from a lack of funds. The only thing that lacks here is the desire to put criminals in prison.
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t see why you should expect any privacy in the middle of a public road. What are you doing there that is private? I think everyone’s threat model is severely miscalibrated if they are threatened by being recorded driving somewhere via Flock, yet use a phone or social media account. There’s way more meaningful threats to actual private matters than Flock.
People tracking your in-person movements and behaviors is way more threatening than people tracking your online behaviors You are seriously clueless if you think otherwise
The police observing your car driving down a road is not threatening, and acting as if it is is hysteria.
Furthermore, if you’re worried about that, have you considered that “they” could get even more comprehensive tracking data just by requesting it from a data-broker? There’s no divide between the online and real world if you have a phone or an online presence.
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
You really sully your position when you call it a "stupid extension of the idea of viewing = searching." Again, details matter: how is it stupid.
See the two paragraphs before? That lays out my position. The courts have repeatedly upheld far more invasive searches and encroachments of vehicles, but now confusingly consider simply observing the outside of your vehicle to constitute an excessive search. The Baltimore decision is stupid because it contradicts 50 years of case law over what constitutes a search and what degree of privacy you expect to have on a pr…
No need for snark; I'm genuinely interested in your position. From my re-read and re-read, you've provided a conclusory statement without actually explaining the details.
Is your definition of "stupid" anything that contradicts 50 years of case law? That seems.... tautologically limp.
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like his only recourse was to sue the county as a private citizen for failing to enforce their laws? Or something like that. Going vigilante, as much as I like it in this case, is still illegal.
My thing with this story is that no part of it has anything to do with him being a county commissioner; it's just added to the narrative because it makes it sound like he should have been authorized to do this.
I share the same thing. In fact, being a commissioner he was probably explicitly warned against taking any action into his own hands.
A commissioner can easily mess things up and get sued trying do work on their own. Say they try to “repair a playground” by replacing a missing bolt. Well, were they qualified to do that? Do they have insurance? Was the action approved by a properly filed motion? Etc etc etc
I learned this is why it costs my town egregious sums to do simple maintenance work; the only companies willing to put up with all the red tape of working with the government have to charge a premium.
The part about him being a commissioner smells like a simple publicity stunt.
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
Populations across the world are not comparable in a variety of ways, including in a "best-case" base criminality rate. So you can't compare per-capital rates of imprisonment and go, "Gee, that's high in Country X compared to Country Y and Country Z". There's an old saw: A Scandinavian economist once said to Milton Friedman, ‘In Scandinavia, we have no poverty’. Milton Friedman replied, ‘That’s interesting, because i…
> So you can't compare per-capital rates of imprisonment and go, "Gee, that's high in Country X compared to Country Y and Country Z". That's an exceedingly weak defense for a country that imprisons 4x more people per-capita than China.
It isn't.
China's murder rate is about 0.5 murders per 100,000 people per year, while South Africa's is 44 per 100,000 people per year (assuming both countries report honest statistics). That's an 88x difference between two large countries. [0]
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably a victim of a crime would provide the footage without a court order. A court order would be more applicable if it caught something unrelated to the actual property the camera was on.
This sort of footage is only useful after you have an arrest and need to build a case for prosecution. It's rarely useful to actually effect an arrest. Getting the chain of footage you need - even with enthusiastic cooperation - takes days if not weeks to complete. Most folks are not great at providing this, and most consumer security cameras kinda suck. You're dealing with cops and residents who are not the most tec…
Your big problem in Chicagoland is Illinois LEADS, which is the statewide hotlist Chicago uses. It was never intended for real-time enforcement, and it doesn't work; Flock curbs large numbers of innocent cars simply because LEADS isn't updated after "stolen" cars (which often aren't stolen, but rather borrowed by friends and family members) are recovered.