All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by stickfigure » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 4:36 AM UTC

fckgw wrote: post #214

rconti wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flock seems to be pretty unpopular, internet-wide, in bipartisan tech/very online worlds; feels like 90% to me. Where things start coming into balance a bit more is among the Nextdoor paranoia crowd.

Flock is popular with 1) local police departments and 2) local city councils who don't want to upset the police It's pretty unpopular with mainly everyone else.

If you spend time in neighborhood groups like nextdoor and local facebook groups, you find plenty of support for Flock. I'd even go so far as to say a majority.

This doesn't have the scientific rigor of a random sample, but it's enough to convince me that the anti-Flock voices on HN are not representative of the public at large. And might not even be representative of HN.

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

#242

Post by burnt-resistor » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 4:38 AM UTC

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #177

FireBeyond wrote: post #138

One of my bigger concerns with this story, given the Flock CEO's public statements, and this Administration's attitude towards such things is how easy it might be to attempt to spin, or pursue, this as "domestic terrorism" rather than "vandalism".

Half the country already considers that label a joke.

The those in power that are the system are what matter. It doesn't matter most people believe or want because the corrupt, self-serving system and regime does whatever the hell it wants without a care. And because so many are passive and silent, they give consent to it.

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

#243

Post by burnt-resistor » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

doublerabbit wrote: post #78

I'm not saying you should, but cheap laser pens can do fair damage to a camera CMOS sensor. I discovered that with my Sony Ericsson k700i with a laser pointer when trying to take a picture of the laser.

That's probably way more effective, efficient, and destructive than aggressively fouling the solar panel. Hopefully, picture quality isn't something they monitor because it would be kind of difficult. And, it would be best to unlock a Flock camera to verify that damage is possible using a specific laser pointer, distance, and time period. Then, someone might think about doing it behind concealment and/or far away enough to be below the threshold of identifiable pixel resolution.

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

#244

Post by jmyeet » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 5:30 AM UTC

JuniperMesos wrote: post #237

jmyeet wrote: post #153

If I'm ever on the jury of somebody charged with this, the prosecution has an incredibly high burden to convince me the poles and the cameras on them didn't die of natural causes. Maybe if police weren't using Flock cameras to stalk their ex-wives [1][2]. There's an interesting angle to the Flock issue I heard recently. Some predominantly black communities prefer Flock cameras because they're over-policed, black men…

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1350 is a neo-Nazi dog whistle.

Think about it this way, let's say that black men committed more crimes per capita than men overall. That means one of two things:

1. There is an intrinsic reason. That's just racism. Black people are no different to any other people. What you're suggesting is that they're inherently violent, basically; or

2. There is an extrinsic reason. Put another way, there's a confounding variable. This part is true. The confounding variable is poverty. The link between poverty and crime has been known about for thousands of years.

It's ridiculous and unfounded to claim black people are "under-policied". They're 20% more likely to be stopped for a "routine" traffic stop ("driving while black" is a thing for a reason) [1]. This evidence is solid enough for this that when it's dark this number drops when the police can no longer see the driver in the car. The empirical evidence for over-policing is overwhelming (eg [2]). They tend to get longer sentences for the same crime and are found guilty more often, particularly when there's a racial disparity in the jury, which there often is.

[1]: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/bl...

[2]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10242413/

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

#245

Post by dang » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 6:23 AM UTC

pinkyboy wrote: post #140

AlotOfReading wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any hard numbers from your community on how many cases had flock as crucial to resolving the case? When my community banned them, the police were only able to offer a single vehicle theft case as positive evidence, but the data was being sent to police stations and locally unpopular federal agencies clear across the country. We could have spent the municipal budget on giving the victims a new car with far…

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We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#246

Post by f6v » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 7:33 AM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #219

f6v wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't let the women you care about get involved with cops. I don't see any difference between what you just said and "13-85".

Being a cop is a choice. Being black is not.

But it's a fallacy to say all are wife beaters, like the parent said.

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

#247

Post by ndsipa_pomu » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 8:35 AM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #224

thomastjeffery wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be their intended use (from a police department's perspective), but it's certainly not their intended function. Flock collects these images, and uses them to train statistical models, and sells those models to police departments as a one-click crime solving solution. That means that their primary function is to passively aggregate driver behavior into an automated judgement system, where the entire judicial…

You may be right but that's too conspiracy-theory for me. Most things are as they appear. Either way, I don't support it.

To me, it appears that Flock cameras are a mass surveillance tool and that fits in fairly well with the US becoming more fascist (e.g. ICE agents murdering civilians). It also seems very on-brand for police departments to lie and obfuscate.

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

#248

Post by semiquaver » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 8:58 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #238

semiquaver wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s a matter of public record. Thousands of executed contracts between flock safety and its customers are public. Here’s one which makes clear that flock retains ownership and is actually entering into a hybrid hardware lease and concurrent services agreement. https://53024.org/documents

Who pays when a leased car is destroyed? The point is the city is on the hook for damaged hardware.

Of course. Did I suggest otherwise? I merely made a (to me) amusing observation about the modern, somewhat confusing nature of so-called “ownership.”

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

#249

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 9:03 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #238

semiquaver wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s a matter of public record. Thousands of executed contracts between flock safety and its customers are public. Here’s one which makes clear that flock retains ownership and is actually entering into a hybrid hardware lease and concurrent services agreement. https://53024.org/documents

Who pays when a leased car is destroyed? The point is the city is on the hook for damaged hardware.

[deleted]

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

#250

Post by frm88 » Wed, Aug 05, 2026, 10:21 AM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #241

fckgw wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flock is popular with 1) local police departments and 2) local city councils who don't want to upset the police It's pretty unpopular with mainly everyone else.

If you spend time in neighborhood groups like nextdoor and local facebook groups, you find plenty of support for Flock. I'd even go so far as to say a majority. This doesn't have the scientific rigor of a random sample, but it's enough to convince me that the anti-Flock voices on HN are not representative of the public at large. And might not even be representative of HN.

John Oliver made his last episode of Last Week Tonight about surverillance with particular focus on Flock and its many abuses. Last I checked it had 1.5m views on Youtube.

Breaking Points had an episode on Flock yesterday featuring a member of the management calling anti-Flock people domestic terrorists. When I watched it on YT it had 80K views.

EDIT: here's a list of 30+ cities that cancelled their contracts with Flock because of above reasons: https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wav...