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The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

theguardian.com

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Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#31

Post by Jaxkr »

beloch wrote: post #27

Flock was pitched as the triumph of technology over criminality. It's surveillance network was supposed to end crime. However, when people witness extreme criminality thriving unpunished at the top levels of U.S. politics, the lie becomes evident. Flock isn't about ending crime. It's a tool of control to be used by criminals. Who watches the watchers? Everyone .

This is a perspective I hadn’t heard or considered before.

Often times common crime (petty/violent) is viewed as a totally different area as white-collar crime or corruption. But they’re related.

As someone who’s had bikes stolen and car broken into, I sympathize with the desire for surveillance (especially in San Francisco). But Flock has no safeguards against cops using it to stalk ex-wives or misusing a partial match.

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#32

Post by theendisney »

I think it should depend on what residents living in the street want with several tiers. Public cam, paywall, law enforcement 24/7 or for a specific case, encrypted court order only, fake cams.

Each with different aproval requirements. A public cam would require 100%. Fake cams req only one vote. etc

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#33

Post by bluefirebrand »

Jaxkr wrote: post #31
beloch wrote: post #27

Flock was pitched as the triumph of technology over criminality. It's surveillance network was supposed to end crime. However, when people witness extreme criminality thriving unpunished at the top levels of U.S. politics, the lie becomes evident. Flock isn't about ending crime. It's a tool of control to be used by criminals. Who watches the watchers? Everyone .

This is a perspective I hadn’t heard or considered before. Often times common crime (petty/violent) is viewed as a totally different area as white-collar crime or corruption. But they’re related. As someone who’s had bikes stolen and car broken into, I sympathize with the desire for surveillance (especially in San Francisco). But Flock has no safeguards against cops using it to stalk ex-wives or misusing a partial ma…

I think it would be kind of different if people were having cars broken into less often or bikes returned after being stolen

But it's clear that increased surveillance hasn't been leading to stolen property being recovered.

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#34

Post by matheusmoreira »

beloch wrote: post #27

Flock was pitched as the triumph of technology over criminality. It's surveillance network was supposed to end crime. However, when people witness extreme criminality thriving unpunished at the top levels of U.S. politics, the lie becomes evident. Flock isn't about ending crime. It's a tool of control to be used by criminals. Who watches the watchers? Everyone .

It's a nice idea. Everything is backwards right now. It should to be the other way around: random citizens should be essentially anonymous while all members of the government are surveilled 24/7. Surveillance should scale with power.

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#35

Post by lordnacho »

I think I may have a minority view about surveillance. At least I need someone to explain something to me.

Is the backlash really about privacy, or is the real problem a complete lack of trust in government?

Because if I thought someone would actually use the cameras to enforce the law, that's not actually such a bad outcome. You aren't supposed to speed, you aren't supposed to let your dog poop without cleaning up after it, and there's a bunch of other offences as well.

Why would I not support a hypothetical police that enforced these rules? Guy takes his dog for a walk, doesn't pick up, boom, cameras plus AI finds the person and issues a fine. Enforcing a social norm, cheaply. There seems to be evidence that it works with speeding: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250402181306.h...

The kind of story that I've actually come across is that someone with access to the public database abuses it. They peek into their ex girlfriend's records, that kind of thing. Obviously nobody thinks that's ok, and I can understand if the main pushback people have is that none of the first thing will happen and lots of the second thing will happen. But that doesn't seem to address the principle itself.

So what exactly is the argument for why we shouldn't have cameras catching people who break the law? Presumably we would have no issue with a cop seeing someone breaking the law, and enforcing. The issue comes up when we replace the policeman with a system that is always on and way cheaper to run than a cop.

EDIT

Just to be clear, I understand it if people don't trust the government. What I'm looking for is an argument other than that. Thus far every response has been along the lines of "you can't trust the government to use this fairly/correctly".

That's known, everybody can see that argument.

I want to know if there's a reason beyond that why widespread surveillance shouldn't be a thing.

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#36

Post by Vinnl »

lordnacho wrote: post #35

I think I may have a minority view about surveillance. At least I need someone to explain something to me. Is the backlash really about privacy, or is the real problem a complete lack of trust in government? Because if I thought someone would actually use the cameras to enforce the law, that's not actually such a bad outcome. You aren't supposed to speed, you aren't supposed to let your dog poop without cleaning up a…

Laws are not perfectly moral, and future laws might be even less so. Same goes for governments - their power should not outweigh the governed's.

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#37

Post by AvAn12 »

lordnacho wrote: post #35

I think I may have a minority view about surveillance. At least I need someone to explain something to me. Is the backlash really about privacy, or is the real problem a complete lack of trust in government? Because if I thought someone would actually use the cameras to enforce the law, that's not actually such a bad outcome. You aren't supposed to speed, you aren't supposed to let your dog poop without cleaning up a…

1. If someone is running to a cop because someone didn’t pick up after their dog, that is a sad state of affairs.

2. If we are so interested in enforcing laws, what about all of the white collar crime, crypto scams, insider trading, and grifting off of the public sector? Clearly doing more harm to society than some dog poop. Where are the $8bn market cap companies that go around enforcing securities laws?

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#38

Post by nitwit005 »

lordnacho wrote: post #35

I think I may have a minority view about surveillance. At least I need someone to explain something to me. Is the backlash really about privacy, or is the real problem a complete lack of trust in government? Because if I thought someone would actually use the cameras to enforce the law, that's not actually such a bad outcome. You aren't supposed to speed, you aren't supposed to let your dog poop without cleaning up a…

Real world results are poor. I've gotten a ticket for not coming to a "full and complete stop" at an empty intersection at 2AM. I drove up to the corner extremely slowly instead. A $500 fine.

That tends to be people's experience with this sort of thing. Laws the police generally wouldn't bother enforcing are maximally enforced, because it generates revenue.

They got rid of that camera eventually because it was "too easy for people to get out of tickets", meaning they were getting tossed when people challenged them.

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#39

Post by kurtoid »

Akronymus wrote: post #28
Loughla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be too cynical but >No Federal agency may purchase, deploy, operate, access, or contract for any automated surveillance system that identifies, tracks, or records individuals [. . .] Emphasis mine. Am I wrong or does this 1. not outlaw the purchase of the data, just the systems themselves, 2. not outlaw the use of the data unless it was obtained by the federal government through a system they have purchased, a…

AFAICT, municipalities get paid to put up the cameras, which isn't federal, so flock can then use those cameras to freely gather data and sell it to police

> municipalities get paid to put up the cameras I've read lots of FOIAd flock contracts, and I have yet to see any municipality get paid by flock - they pay flock per-camera. Is that just a hunch, or are there cases of towns getting money from flock?

Re: The growing vigilante movement to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

#40

Post by Avicebron »

felixgallo wrote: post #16
mannanj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the governed unless the governed have no issues that that lead to speach/action What about if the speech is censored, shadow-banned, limited etc in some other ways? Where the governed does not know their speech was limited in reach, censored etc? (which btw is a real approach social media companies are taking today).

the right to free speech has nothing to do with what social media companies do. Social media companies are not compelled by anything, in law or otherwise, to amplify your particular post.

Is there any historical precedent for a defacto public square?

We can't relegate (unwillingly even) every bit of our lives to the private sector and suddenly say rights shouldn't exist.

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