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Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

texastribune.org

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Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#261

Post by CWuestefeld »

weinzierl wrote: post #184
bulbar wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deadly force can be lawful in Germany as well, reading Texas law I wonder which nuances of the laws make the biggest difference (assuming there's one). Could also be that the difference comes from owning land works differently in Germany (because it's much more densely populated) and of course owning anything except small guns is completely forbidden.

Only when threatened and self-defense has to be proportionate. If someone attacks you with a knife you would not be allowed to defend yourself with a firearm if you had one. This is very different from the law in Texas, where, from what I understand, if you catch someone in the night stealing you could just kill them even if they never threatend you.

> in Texas, where, from what I understand, if you catch someone in the night stealing you could just kill them even if they never threatend you.

It's worth pointing out that night is doing some of the work in this statement. Texas is unusual, as far as I know, that darkness makes a big difference in how self-defense and danger are viewed. It kinda makes sense, because in the dark, the would-be victim is less able to fully and accurately assess the situation. So Texans need to be aware that their actions may be interpreted more harshly in the dark.

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#262

Post by SwellJoe »

tough wrote: post #167
SwellJoe wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas has among the highest crime rates in the country, 17th for violent crime, even worse for property crime. Given the wealth of Texas, having such high crime rates is even more embarrassing (crime and poverty go hand in hand, but Texas doesn't have that excuse). In short, you're talking out of your ass.

wealth and inequality (and so poverty) also go hand in hand. For a few to be very wealthy, the many may remain impoverished.

That's also true. But one of the arguments of the "law and order" types is always that more police, and more aggressive police with more power to imprison people, reduces crime.

A wealthy state like Texas has a lot of cops and a lot of prisons. And, those cops are given incredible leeway in how they do their job.

Texas is a case study in whether "law and order" Republican policies work, and the evidence indicates it doesn't. We're just killing people in capital punishment cases for the joy of killing, not because it reduces crime. We're spending half our cities funds on militarized police because we want our private prisons full, not because it keeps people safer.

Most extremely Republican states with lax gun laws and capital punishment are poor states, with less money for cops (though they still imprison people at a high rate, they often fund it with slave labor).

There are ways for states to spend money that reduces crime, but Texas chooses to spend it on violence, instead.

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#263

Post by FireBeyond »

bluecalm wrote: post #169
moralestapia wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right to privacy, is this not mega-obvious?

To have a high trust society you need to know who you are dealing with. That's why we don't cover our faces when interacting with others or walking around. Same with driving. If anything there is too much privacy - we should know who drives irresponsibly, is a danger etc. Privacy is about being in your home away from others, correspondence etc. Once you are interacting with others it's not a feature.

> That's why we don't cover our faces when interacting with others or walking around.

Unless we are agents of certain law enforcement agencies...

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#264

Post by alex43578 »

diydsp wrote: post #245
alex43578 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Right to privacy" isn't a specific right in the US. Furthermore, being in the middle of a public roadway in a registered vehicle shouldn't confer the expectation of privacy, per Katz. Probably the closest case law is Carpenter, which only covers cell data and was specifically meant to apply narrowly to that type of info.

I discussed above how Carpenter is not narrowly restricted to cell phones. The fact of being in public or on a vehicle isn't the key point. It's that electronic systems aggregating location data are 4th amendment protected. Which was established in Carpenter. The aggregation creates a comprehensive system. Aggregated location data over months creates a comprehensive chronicle of your life that's categorically differe…

So to my original point, the Flock camera does not violate any rights. Even the system aggregating the data, like Google or your cell provider, doesn’t violate any rights.

It’s only the government searching that database without a warrant that would be unconstitutional under some hypothetical future case.

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#265

Post by rationalist »

Geonode wrote: post #38
hopelessluca wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment may sound cliché, but I genuinely believe this, no material possession is worth more than a human life. A catalytic converter can be replaced, a life cannot.

The thief shouldn't value something more than his life then.

More specifically:

The thief valued the gain of the crime more than the risk of the crime.

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#266

Post by FireBeyond »

lostlogin wrote: post #26
qwerpy wrote: post #10

Strange that someone else’s question “Did it reduce catalytic converter theft?”, directly relevant to the article, got downvoted to death. Not sure if we’re meant to have discussions here or just dutifully complain about topics that are fashionable to complain about.

I wondered that too. It doesn't say, but does state: "Data from the license plate readers, known in law enforcement as LPRs, was searched 62,000 times in 2025, leading to about 1,660 cleared catalytic converter theft cases, a report from the authority said." Also, how many missing people are there? finding 10k seems quite a lot. “one of the most effective ways Flock has been able to help find, just last year, over 10…

When I worked for Flock, if Flock was searched in relation to a given case, if that case had a disposition, Flock considered themselves to have contributed to the solving of that case, regardless of what the search was or its relevance to the actual case. Searched for a car that was actually entirely unrelated but later police arrest someone in the act? Flock: "our cameras were involved in the resolution of the case".

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#267

Post by hackable_sand »

earth-tattoo wrote: post #71
huimang wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A catalytic converter can be replaced, a life cannot. So don't go around stealing catalytic converters. Same deal with states with "stand your ground laws". It's astonishingly easy to not get shot: don't invade someone's home. And on the "replacing" part- on whose dime? What if someone's only means of transportation is affected, and they lose wages or outright lose their job? Are you going to pay for it? Of course…

All lives are not equal. The value of the life of a thief whose only impact on the society is negative, cannot be compared to e.g. a doctor.

Same value. They're the same value.

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#268

Post by cosmicgadget »

fg137 wrote: post #185
cosmicgadget wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the cited document, "leading to" seems entirely made up.

Looks like correlation, not causation.

At best. What I got from it:

Our task force made x cat theft arrests

Our task force used flock y times

Flock isn't their only investigative tool, cats aren't their only focus.

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#269

Post by hackable_sand »

phil21 wrote: post #88
huimang wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A catalytic converter can be replaced, a life cannot. So don't go around stealing catalytic converters. Same deal with states with "stand your ground laws". It's astonishingly easy to not get shot: don't invade someone's home. And on the "replacing" part- on whose dime? What if someone's only means of transportation is affected, and they lose wages or outright lose their job? Are you going to pay for it? Of course…

Yeah. There were times in my life I would have put my life on the line (and that of the thief) to defend my vehicle and the tools within it. Those fed myself and my family. I would have had no reasonable means to replace my tools, and barely reasonable means to replace the damage a catalytic converter theft would have caused me. Today it's trivially easy for me to say "property can be replaced, a life cannot" since I…

Fear is not a license to kill.

Re: Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras

#270

Post by tough »

SwellJoe wrote: post #262
tough wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wealth and inequality (and so poverty) also go hand in hand. For a few to be very wealthy, the many may remain impoverished.

That's also true. But one of the arguments of the "law and order" types is always that more police, and more aggressive police with more power to imprison people, reduces crime. A wealthy state like Texas has a lot of cops and a lot of prisons. And, those cops are given incredible leeway in how they do their job. Texas is a case study in whether "law and order" Republican policies work, and the evidence indicates it…

sadly private prisons means there's money to be made on imprisoning innocent people. Making a business out of everything creates perverse incentives. Also AFAIK unsure about US, but for example in Brazil there's a shadow work force with tax break incentives from the government for prisoners to be able to earn to pay for their needs, and its more akin to modern slavery than any kind of "Correctional" theories might imply.

Similarly cops many times get incentivized to fill in quotas, and end up making up stuff to get paid more.

Also all the companies around making money around these problems, have 0 incentives to make the problems go away, quite the contrary are incentivized to make these problems visible and acute enough that their services remain warranted to be required.

Lobbying being legal, means Capital owns Democracy. Big money can buy out and make careers of any politican morally-lacking enough to sell their constituents wellbeing to some shameless Corp that will set him up for life and give him the money needed to get the votes, etc etc

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