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LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

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411–420 of 439 posts

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#411

I stayed in downtown LA recently and looked like the set from the walking dead. Literally blocks of people wandering in traffic. I guess you could argue you definitely don't need flock cameras to see the problem, but also I don't know how anyone would not do everything possible to stop it.

Jay walking is the big crime here?

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#412
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want local cameras that require physical connections to offload data. Camera access panels can be locked with a wireless system that publishes the access timestamp and details to the city’s website. Each access must correspond with signed warrant. If my family gets kidnapped, I want a department to be able to check a camera. I’ll wait for the judge’s signature. But that’s night & day from today’s reality. I simply…

Do you have a phone, modern car, or social media account? If so, I have some bad news for you…

Longest comment ever incoming!

Cindy Cohn, EFF legend, on Hard Fork podcast:

“I think a lot of it, too, is that I don't think that there is a sense among just users of these platforms that privacy is a winnable fight anymore. I hear so much nihilism and fatalism about this when I talk to people, and they, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, asking them about their privacy practices, and they're kind of like, well, that ship has sailed. Like, the government has all my data anyway. What is the point of trying to fight? I'm sure you get this, too.

Starting point is 00:57:11

[Yes. What is your response to the privacy nihilists?] I think there's a couple of things. One is that this idea that because your information is already out there, it's all over. Like, if you talk to people in intelligence or in cops, they will tell you that old information has a, it's a very short shelf life, right? So your information isn't all out there because you're continuing to live your life. And so, yes, it would have been great if 10 years ago we'd passed a comprehensive privacy law that included law enforcement as well as the commercial

Starting point is 00:57:46

entities. That's the first best time. The second best time is today. Because if we can begin to cut the knees out from under this massive data collection, the information will get less and less important and their ability to spy on us will get smaller and smaller. So it's never, I mean, if it were game over, they'd stop spying on us, right? Like, they're not like, oh, we're going to unplug the spying machine because we've got everything we need, folks. Like, that would be a different world than the one we're living in. So one of the things is, like, it's never game over. It's not game over. I mean, it's ultimately game over when you're not live anymore maybe, but as long as you're living, your data is valuable to the, to the government

Starting point is 00:58:31

and to the companies, and the minute we stop this business model, the better. The second thing I would argue is it's easy to say it's all over and there's nothing I can do if they're not sweeping up your grandma in an immigration raid. But I think it's a, it's a bit of a denial or entitled position to think that you could not care and nothing because what's what's going on there and the nihilism is I don't have to I don't care about this. It feels like too big a fight and nothing will really happen to me or anyone I love if I don't care about this. And I think we're living in a time where that's not a safe assumption anymore. We have to fight for our privacy.”

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#413

I 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!

These high crime areas are predominantly in blue counties/states, and liberal judges are typically soft on crime.

> soft on crime

I cannot take these words seriously since Trump tweeted that the Pope is weak on crime, and it’s the most retarded thing I’ve ever heard.

The US is not a serious country any more.

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#414
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity: doesn't the US have any laws against private surveillance of public spaces? As a European I find this quite irritating (not saying we do not have problems as well with more and more cams installed and risks related to an increasing number of e.g. parking lot cams)

I'm not a lawyer and I think this varies state by state, but I think that in general anyone is allowed to record in public spaces. I think the general idea is that if you could (legally) go stand in that public space (sidewalks, roads, parks) and watch something happen then you're allowed to record what you see. This is probably good - I think it's the basis of being able to record misbehavior (by private citizens an…

In Germany we have the concept of informational self-determination for a long time, so that I am not able to follow those scaling laws easily. The problem is not the single image or video (which can be legal), but the extension over space and time. This creates a situation where you can create information profiles. I as a subject have the right to control this information (actually the same goes for the pure online stuff).

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#415
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do know. I do not want to live in a society that is under 24/7 surveillance. Of course, if the cops can watch everything you do all the time, there will be less crime. But that is not a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Cool, I choose to live in a highly policed neighborhood with well funded police. Essentially a gated community. You can enjoy your "freedom", but based on the real estate prices, I think more people have my preference.

Why not live in China? It’s even safer!

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#416
post #125

The best part is that flock owns the cameras and the poles so even when the contract expires the cameras keep running and recording data that flock can sell to e.g. CHP, LASD, FBI, Palantir; and LAPD can just call them and access the data the flock scam was engineered to be resilient to political pressure by giving departments and jursidictions this fake exit ability while the data continues to be harvested, it is a…

Is there any realistic road to having them outlawed nationwide? Eg, ignoring probabilities here, could a wildly successful grassroots program where it became an issue as politically salient as immigration or abortion eventually lead to legislation banning them?

> an issue as politically salient as immigration

This is more likely to lead to making them ubiquitous; people will demand a camera network linked to a database of valid faces of US nationals.

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> There’s no divide between the online and real world

The divide is that someone can't murder you by knowing your online activity

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think the interview goes in good depth in all the details of the scenario it doesn't sound like you listened.. Publicity for what? The publicity comes from a elected government official getting charged with felonys for stealing when he didn't steal anything. The playground analogy doesn't really hold up here I don't see the connection between the two.

Except he did steal the cameras. He only returned them when confronted by law enforcement.

You don't get to rob a bank and then say "oopsie! my mistake, here's the bag of cash" when the police come knocking.

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#419
post #356
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that upsets me. They really could help solve crimes without sacrificing privacy.

How? Whatever the system is now is clearly not preserving privacy

Closed loop systems that require explicit consent to share outside the organization. Flock is like 50x worse than NSA stuff like PRISM that everyone freaked out about.

The Feds have full access to search everything, are no doubt exempt from any transparency on the platform, and ICE is already using it to abuse and intimidate political enemies.

It’s a nationwide surveillance system posing as a local police tool.

Re: LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

#420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This norm around privacy was kinda set before the concept of mass surveillance became a thing, though. Maybe we should revisit it and rethink what privacy means. People shouldn't expect privacy in public, sure. They should expect they may be overheard or witnessed. But that's not really equivalent to mass surveillance and long-term recording "You should not expect privacy in public" does not imply "you should expect…

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.

I miss the old style small government conservatives that understood the threat that mass surveillance is.
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