Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

valleynewslive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 278 posts

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#141

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #62
ryandvm wrote: post #23

Curious about the official YCombinator stance on this extremely unpopular YCombinator-backed startup (unpopular here at HN anyway).

if you want to tackle the POV of the true believers at Y Combinator*: look, flock can't be that effective if all it takes is a guy with a ladder to defeat it, right? same thing with pervasive facial detection, you can wear a mask. you don't have to go into all this philosophical stuff to see how the promises will not be fulfilled. *Garry Tan has been characterized as a True Believer, in that he sincerely believes Flo…

Palantir and Terminator enter the chat.

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#142

Post by amanaplanacanal »

jgbuddy wrote: post #12

Find flock cameras near you here! https://maps.deflock.org/

Heads up though: not every camera on that map is Flock. In my town, only a couple of Flock cameras are in place, on private property (Lowes is a big user). All the others are owned by my local police department.

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#143

Post by ibejoeb »

jeremyberemy wrote: post #8

> Police use the technology to investigate crimes such as hit-and-runs and to locate missing persons. > No suspects have been identified. Yeah, that tracks. > Camera data is owned by the police department and permanently deleted after 30 days. I assume this means that the police department deletes one local copy?

That whole paragraph is like a paid placement.

> Flock Safety cameras are automated license plate readers

Like Ring is a door chime.

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#144

Post by charcircuit »

marky1991 wrote: post #45
charcircuit wrote: post #27

[flagged]

What do you mean by 'removed from society'? Do you really mean you think someone should get a life sentence for stealing some cameras? Do you mean they should be executed? Something else? And then you say 'to set an example'. By that, do you mean 'they should be punished in excess of the harm they caused, to deter others from doing the same'? If so, by its very nature, that's obviously unjust and immoral. Your reacti…

I mean that a person or group of people who intentionally plan and execute a campaign of crimes in order to become the new rule of law should not be tolerated. Frankly, I do not care what happens to them, but it should send a clear signal that others are unable to enforce their own rule no longer.

The idea that different random groups can enforce their own rules of law leads to anarchy and must be quenched.

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#145

Post by arjie »

The anti-camera things are also somewhat effective at getting rid of London's ULEZ cameras. Quite admirable that this coalition of quite disparate interests was able to form around opposition to the specific device used to manage different objectives.

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#146

Post by moate »

stackghost wrote: post #128
GolfPopper wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police used Flock's license plate network to stalk women in at least 50 cases https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/police-used-flocks-lice...

Police officers are also statistically more likely to abuse their spouses. Don't let the women you care about get involved with cops.

Since people seem to be disagreeing with a fact:

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862/

https://academic.oup.com/policing/article-abstract/6/4/418/1...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13591...

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#147

Post by NDlurker »

charcircuit wrote: post #129
NDlurker wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is disgusting and goes against the spirit of freedom this country is supposed to be the embodiment of.

In order to protect the freedom of the many we need to be able to effectively remove the few who are causing trouble.

Yes, let's send camera vandals to a prison archipelago. Great idea.

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#148

Post by gruez »

reactordev wrote: post #122
gruez wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit misleading given that it's a subset. 404media cites "at least 60".

https://www.kcrg.com/2025/12/24/cedar-rapids-police-cameras-... https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/colorado-news/dougl... https://www.wabe.org/cobb-county-youtuber-documents-flock-ca... https://www.wflx.com/2026/01/09/flock-safety-exposed-live-po... https://www.thegazette.com/news/vendor-error-exposed-some-ce... https://www.404media.co/flock-leaked-cops-license-plate-sear... https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-te…

>The list is pretty endless.

Did you check your own sources? The first three articles you linked cites the same youtuber as in the gp. I'm not going to check any more.

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#149

Post by sellmesoap »

Cyclone_ wrote: post #61
calculatte wrote: post #7

So one of the public-private backdoors to erode citizen's rights is being undermined. Such a shame.

[flagged]

The concern is that these cameras can track all your movements in a vehicle (you can make a graph of license plate locations and times), continuously record audio, collect information from other sensors, and that is an affront to the right to privacy. For some reason despite all this surveillance the drugs still flow on the streets. A very Orwellian situation.

Re: All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen

#150

Post by Terr_ »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #59
skybrian wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that what you'd expect from a camera service provider? I'd certainly want any videos taken by my own cameras to be owned by me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...

I don't see how that relates to any of this. If I record a video of a crowd in public, under US law I have copyright to that video. The crowd isn't creating the record, I am.

The issue of which group (Flock/police/city) has the real copyright versus an expensive license is interesting to contemplate, but that list doesn't include monkey-agency either.

Post reply on HN