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Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

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Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#21

Post by scrapcode »

I am absolutely biased, but there is a lot of attempt to shift or at least share the blame here and not a lot of accountability. Flock themselves mis-translated the plate, plain and simple, and should not be being used in production for alerting authorities on very serious matters.

We are already very aware that the police overreact and make plenty of mistakes. The obvious here being that even if this was the exact plate criminals can very easily, and do, swap plates - so you shouldn't just aggressively be knocking down vehicles because of the standard screwed in license plate that is displayed on the back. When was the last time you checked your license plate and made sure it was still yours? Would you even know it is yours? It has happened to me.

Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#22

Post by smcg »

f154hfds wrote: post #4

> Garrett: At the highest level, nothing would make me happier than if we had state-by-state regulation on this type of technology. That to me is so crystal clear, because the lack of regulation on this type of technology just shows that our elected officials need to move faster than they have historically. Agreed. We've had a lot of this - tech companies begging for tech regulation. Without the regulation it seems w…

please google "regulatory capture"

Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#23

Post by scrapcode »

sterlind wrote: post #17

seems like: - cop messed up, added an incomplete license plate number (34DTM) into the NCIC database. - Flock cameras found his fancy car, a $155k Range Rover, which had a license plate like 34DTM10, and flagged it. - cops didn't bother checking the police report before they went in and surrounded him. thoughts: - as much as I dislike Flock, it seems like it wasn't at fault here. this was a scene straight of Brazil,…

> as much as I dislike Flock, it seems like it wasn't at fault here.

34DTM != 34DTM10

Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#24

Post by jimt1234 »

I watched a series on Netflix recently: "Homicide Squad: New Orleans". The series was basically an infomercial for video surveillance cameras and license plate readers. It felt like all the detectives did was watch video and monitor LPR data all day. Every single homicide was solved like this - video surveillance and LPR data.

I'm not sure how accurate that show is, but the use of video surveillance and LPR data to solve crimes certainly seemed plausible. And it made me realize, unfortunately, these Flock cameras aren't going anywhere. People want crimes to get solved, especially homicides.

https://www.netflix.com/title/82158926

Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#25

Post by bob001 »

nekusar wrote: post #5
ryandvm wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. It hurts my brain to think about the Venn diagram of privacy advocates and YC sycophants that hang out on Hacker News.

YCombinator and HN would run a "Slit your mommas throat as a service" if they though there were hockey stick growth profit. Flock, and anybody who funds them are the real domestic terrorists. Anybody who destroys these devices are patriots in my book. And if I ever serve for jury duty over a case like that, they didn't do it.

> YCombinator and HN would run a "Slit your mommas throat as a service" if they though there were hockey stick growth profit.

While saying they're making the world a better place in the process. At least Wall Street sharks tend to be honest about their motivations and lack of giving a shit about you.

Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#27

Post by sib »

lovich wrote: post #15
dylan604 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if I ever serve for jury duty over a case like that, they didn't do it. Now you're bending facts. You can decide they are not guilty of a crime, but you can't make them have not done it.

He’s referencing jury nullification. Juries actually can “make them have not done it”, although that’s been used for good and ill purposes.

"Not guilty" does not mean "did not do it" - it means "the state didn't prove that they did it beyond a reasonable doubt."

Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#28

Post by morkalork »

overgard wrote: post #11

This is such an evil company; they should be regulated out of existence.

This shouldn't be a controversial opinion. The company exists to launder responsibility between government and corporation in order to facilitate mass surveillance. Another more accurate name for them could be "Constitutional Loophole Corp."

Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#29

Post by xoa »

There's a lot going on in this story and interview, but I'd like to narrow in on one aspect I consider pretty core, and that I'm pretty disappointed Joel didn't push back on:

>Garrett:[...] To individuals that are promoting breaking the law, I just find that confusing. We’re a company that, by and large, by design from our founding, was that people shouldn’t break the law. I don’t know why that’s controversial, that I don’t agree with breaking the law. [...]

So do you hate gays Mr Garrett? Or "race mixing"? Because it wasn't that long ago that mixed-race sexual relations or homosexual relations were illegal in at least parts of the USA. See history about anti-miscegenation laws [0]. The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868, but it would be 99 YEARS before the SCOTUS would rule that such laws were unconstitutional. And it wouldn't be for another 36 years after that until a ruling (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003) that anti-sodomy laws [1] criminalizing "unnatural or immoral" sexual acts (and used heavily for discrimination and punishment of LGBT) were unconstitutional (and on grounds that, along with marriage equality, the current SCOTUS could certainly reverse).

Completely thoughtless appeals to "the law" demonstrate wild levels of ignorance and insular thinking, even ignoring the undoubted hypocrisy and bullshit given Flock's many little... incidents... just in the last few years (ex: "City Learns Flock Accessed Cameras in Children's Gymnastics Room as a Sales Demo" [2], "Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public" [3], "Flock and Cyble Inc. Weaponize "Cybercrime" Takedowns to Silence Critics" [4], "Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women" [5], etc etc etc). I suppose it's possible this guy is just incredibly bubbled vs also being a lying psychopath and/or being fully onboard with the boot stomping on prole faces forever, but it's awful either way.

----

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws_in_the...

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_Stat...

2: https://www.404media.co/city-learns-flock-accessed-cameras-i...

3: https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c...

4: https://footnote4a.org/news/cyble-downtime

5: https://ipvm.com/reports/police-chiefs-track

Re: Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

#30

Post by legitster »

I know we're all sharpening pitchforks for Flock - but the national license plate database has been leading to mistakes like this for decades.

Some states also compound the problem by issuing a license plate number multiple times. So long before Flock getting someone else's speed camera tickets in the mail was already a problem.

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