361–370 of 566 posts
It's pretty clear to be that governments shouldn't be able to 'subcontract' their way out of the limits placed on them via the constitution. Thankfully the supreme court seems to agree here in two ways: 1) Just because a third party (Google in Chatrie case but Flock here) collects the data and the government requests it from them, doesn't mean that that isn't a 'search' which requires a warrant ("obtaining someone's…
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The funny thing is that countries commonly called “police states” aren’t, while countries not thought of as such are. Most Western countries have 2-3 times as many police officers per capita as China and Russia. Many people in China have had not a single encounter with authorities in their lifetime (other than basic administrative tasks). Meanwhile, in some EU countries, you need government approval to add a roof win…
By “police state” people generally mean one where day to day behavior, speech, and thought are tightly controlled by the government. Not so much police per capita or building codes. We can debate whether the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that rooftop windows don’t make house fires dramatically more dangerous, but I don’t think there’s much debate to be had about whether it should be a crime to own…
That describes most Western countries today.
I'm generally in favor of mass surveillance, as long as it's in public . I think it can prevent a lot of crime and I don't believe we have a right to "privacy in public". Red light cameras, for example, strike me as unalloyed good. However, I'd be interested to see if opponents of mass surveillance could draft good legislation to curb potential abuses. For example, the laws around who owns/controls data from cameras…
Current governments have used the mass surveillance to go after people for abortions and for being too foreign-seeming (even if here legally). If those don’t affect you, surely you can think of something that the next wave of government officials might be opposed to, which could use a surveillance network to take away from you.
Having laws to prevent abuses doesn’t help when the lawmakers change and can just revoke those laws, while the full infrastructure exists to do whatever they want.
> Red light cameras, for example, strike me as unalloyed good.
This actually makes me think that your post is satire, due to the heavy debate on whether these cameras actually improve safety [0]. Lots of studies that contradict each other on that. I agree we need to prevent the recklessness of drivers, and there is an argument to be made here. But it’s not at all obvious like you imply.
From [0]:
> When the Houston cameras were removed, angle accidents increased by 26 percent. However, all other types of accidents decreased by 18 percent. Approximately one-third of all Houston intersection accidents are angle accidents. This suggests that the program’s drawbacks canceled out its benefits.
> Our study showed no evidence that cameras reduce the total number of accidents. We estimate that total accidents are reduced by a statistically insignificant 3 percent after the cameras are turned off.
> Likewise, there’s no evidence that the camera program reduced the number of traffic-related injuries or the likelihood of incurring an incapacitating injury.
[0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/red-light-cameras...
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The quickest way to get dragnet surveillance banned would be for citizens to collaborate and create a massive publicly-available surveillance network.
It's legal to film publically - what's not necessarily legal is what you then do with that. There are already precedents - for example it's legal to film ICE agents in public spaces, it's not necessarily legal to use information to dox if that can be construed as harassment. Even if you crowd sourced the identification of somebody involved in a potentially criminal act, you can only share that with the police and not…
A bit concerning how some people in this thread will bend over backwards to defend mass surveillance. Not surprising given who owns the board, but still.
It's pretty clear to be that governments shouldn't be able to 'subcontract' their way out of the limits placed on them via the constitution. Thankfully the supreme court seems to agree here in two ways: 1) Just because a third party (Google in Chatrie case but Flock here) collects the data and the government requests it from them, doesn't mean that that isn't a 'search' which requires a warrant ("obtaining someone's…
Flock is YC. This is being done by investors for ads. Somr govts are cutting deals, those that aren’t are banning them. Never trust HN articles or high karma accts
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The quickest way to get dragnet surveillance banned would be for citizens to collaborate and create a massive publicly-available surveillance network.
Good luck getting permits to install your citizen flock in public areas.
I was surprised to learn that many countries have what amounts to a flock equivalent. UK for instance has a National ANPR Service w 12k fixed cameras and 90-100m plates read a day. They also store it much longer. Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...
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Recently was driving in the middle of nowhere in Texas.. And I saw a few flock cameras watching both ways in highways there too. So it is not just cities, states are implicated too.
Probably selling data to CBP/DEA. I went through a combined military and police checkpoint a bit north of Rio Hondo last August and it was surreal.
Edit: thanks for the downvotes? Genuinely curious on GPs experience.