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Deflock Casa Grande

deflockcg.com

81–90 of 115 posts

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#81

I do find it very funny how over the past couple of decades US has been talking about how awful Chinese government is wrt surveillance, but now doing exactly the same but through private industry contracts instead. I hold a semi-middle ground view to CCTVs/plate readers, and understand how it can deliver improved QoL to most citizens. But a bit weird how a core American "surveillance = big no no" belief was thrown ou…

I would guess if you really put it up to the people many wouldn't be a fan of this sort of broad warrantless surveillance (or at least want more controls or limits on it). Good luck finding a candidate that matches this and your other values in one of the two political parties you have a choice between. Also good luck effecting any political change in whatever gerrymandered district you are in. I think the US government with a more actually representative democracy would look very different.

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little searching will find you all sorts of such hits, like an officer tracking her domestic partner [0], an officer stalking someone after meeting on a TV set* [1], another officer tracking his ex partner [2], another officer tracking his mistress [3]. This is just a random sample. * Note this scenario was not with Flock, which is important: there's more than one player in this space. Kill Flock and others might r…

This is quite distressing to hear. It's not the United States I know or even grew up in. What went wrong and how can we try to fix it?

I wouldn't be surprised to find that the quality of the average cop in the US has improved since the 1960s, at least by some measures. But they are a lot more heavily armed, so mistakes and malfeasance on their part is deadlier.

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#83

This is like sending a letter to Satan asking him to please stop being a nuisance.

Yea, I am thoroughly unconvinced that protesting and asking nicely is really a way to implement political change. The people implementing these things and making these deals are sitting on their yachts and mansion balconies, sipping their martinis, and looking down at us little people with raised eyebrows, not caring in the slightest what we say. They are going to keep doing what they are doing, they're going to keep…

My suburb got rid of Flock after enough people complained at a city council meeting. I think more places in our county are following or attempting to follow in our footsteps.

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they instead push for making abuses of law enforcement access illegal? That way we can both catch criminals and missing people along with avoiding abuse.

Those things are illegal, but it still happens because it is so easy and they usually aren't caught. We only hear about the rare instances where something actually happens to the cop doing it, most of the time it is never reported. This isn't because police are inherently horrible people, it is because they are normal humans. We all know people who would abuse the ability to track anyone they want. And we also have a…

> This isn't because police are inherently horrible people, it is because they are normal humans.

Well, you also have to remember that police aren't selected at random from the population. The kind of guy (or gal) who wants to be a cop is often attracted to the power that the job brings. This sets a culture, which is self-perpetuating, affecting the kind of person who they hire, and how people think once they get in.

A few bad apples spoil the bunch - and boy oh boy, we did not get rid of those bad apples in time. It's not a perfect metaphor, of course, but we've been dealing with constant police corruption issues for at least 50 years now. I feel like we gotta try something new.

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little searching will find you all sorts of such hits, like an officer tracking her domestic partner [0], an officer stalking someone after meeting on a TV set* [1], another officer tracking his ex partner [2], another officer tracking his mistress [3]. This is just a random sample. * Note this scenario was not with Flock, which is important: there's more than one player in this space. Kill Flock and others might r…

This is quite distressing to hear. It's not the United States I know or even grew up in. What went wrong and how can we try to fix it?

It is exactly the United States you grew up in. You just were not aware.

It's not like people having good reason to be skeptical of police is a new thing.

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#86
post #25

This sort of hyper-local protest is the way to go. Nobody wants to be surveilled.

I do actually

I agree with the implication that the parent's use of the word "nobody" is incorrect. It might be hard to believe if you read some of the things I write, but I have enormous sympathy for people who want surveillance. Personal crime is a hideous affront to the comfortable society that we all deserve. Related: I even sympathize with people who want to be allowed to lethally attack any home invader, despite my being largely liberal. Such invasions are an indescribable violation of our sense of civilization and dignity, that I think many people don't appreciate.

However... the opinion of people who do not want to be surveilled is heavier than those who do, naturally. The effect of being surveilled, especially by a system that has already been demonstrated to be abused, is more dramatic than the effect of not being surveilled despite wanting it.

Surveillance is simply too double-edged in the long term (or, in this case, the short term, considering Flock's incompetence). We must resist the temptation to allow it just because it currently benefits us.

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#87
post #54

I’m familiar with cities that conduct time-bounded surges of policing in reaction to specific outbreaks of criminality. When inter-faction violence in a neighborhood escalates to the level of a murder, for example, they surge for a couple weeks. Massively increased visible patrol presence—cops on every corner—portable light towers attached to generators, to provide near-daylight-level illumination on the sidewalks an…

It's okay to enable mass surveillance to fight crime that's already decreasing?

The optimal amount of crime is not zero.

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#88
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do actually

I agree with the implication that the parent's use of the word "nobody" is incorrect. It might be hard to believe if you read some of the things I write, but I have enormous sympathy for people who want surveillance. Personal crime is a hideous affront to the comfortable society that we all deserve. Related: I even sympathize with people who want to be allowed to lethally attack any home invader, despite my being lar…

When you say "especially by a system that has already been demonstrated to be abused," what does that mean exactly? We have some of the largest and globally important cities with tens of thousands of cameras. Look at London, NYC, Singapore, Sydney, Seoul, Chicago, or Tokyo. Tens of millions of people live in those cities, and they have relied on massive camera networks for years without turning into dystopias.

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to gauge the sincerity of these beliefs, and even harder to tell if you've actually tested these beliefs against the reality of mass surveillance, especially when it's been used to arrest and stalk innocent people. https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/georgia-cops-keep-get... https://cambridgeanalytica.org/surveillance-privacy/police-f... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/the-cop-investigating-a...

Well, we need laws and oversight to stop these actions. Do you realize that people use phones to stalk innocent people? And yet you probably have a phone. Why is that?

https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/mister-gotcha-...

Re: Deflock Casa Grande

#90

I do find it very funny how over the past couple of decades US has been talking about how awful Chinese government is wrt surveillance, but now doing exactly the same but through private industry contracts instead. I hold a semi-middle ground view to CCTVs/plate readers, and understand how it can deliver improved QoL to most citizens. But a bit weird how a core American "surveillance = big no no" belief was thrown ou…

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