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Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

newyorker.com

401–410 of 599 posts

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not generally an expectation of privacy in public. Things in public can be recorded without consent. Filming a car on a street and giving that video to the government is not the same as me giving private information to a third party, and then them giving it to the government such as Carpenter v United states covers. Edit: Note that this is not an endorsement, rather stating that recent supreme court cases ma…

Private citizens filming in public and police forces setting up arrays of surveillance cameras in public somehow don’t seem equivalent. I’m not a lawyer so I can’t properly articulate what the legal difference is. And if there isn’t one then the law needs change. Clearly the majority of citizens agree with me. Is it legal for US citizens to all put cameras on their cars and set up a network where we can all see where…

Yes, it's different. It's a legal doctrine called mosaic theory.

https://share.google/f10FzHcf2jPqSzTRM

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Checks. I didn’t believe it at first, because I’ve always considered YC, in spite of its flaws, to be politically astute.

In their defense, Flock didn't start off quite this way. They were initially offering a product geared to HOAs and private entities to help with simple violations and things like that. At some point they stumbled on this loophole of allowing LEO's to sidestep restrictions on collecting and storing this kind of data, and then it took off. They were well past the YC investment at that point.

(and just to be clear, at this point I think that Flock has turned into an anti-Constitutional threat to US Citizens and should be wholesale banned and put out of business).

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> users have a private relationship with Google where they elect to let Google track them and retain their information Elect to is a bit strong here. Acquiesce to , maybe, or perhaps suffer to .

You elect to buy an Android and not an Apple I suppose.

GrapheneOS for the win, here.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#405
post #389

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.

A lot of techies have lived in China and seen how that country has stronger social harmony than the West and is gradually outpacing it, so mass surveillance clearly isn't an obstacle to the general prosperity. The problem with mass surveillance rollouts in the West is that they are incomplete: the cameras might go up, but not all infractions caught on camera are actually punished. Meanwhile, in China vandals and othe…

Yes, the problems are trust and consistency of enforcement. We have neither in the US and I’m not sure how we would ever get there.

Many East Asian countries try to write their laws so that niche cases are covered, and enforcement is tighter. In the West we leave endless loopholes in overbroad laws so that (a) everyone is probably breaking some law frequently and (b) the only people who frequently face consequences are politically disfavored groups, “troublemakers”, or those who harm elites. It’s all very Soviet.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#406
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's for a good cause! This has enabled the DEA to keep all dangerous drugs out of the country and avoid any sort of drug abuse epidemics! Think of the children!

Poe's law.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#407
We need to keep our surveillance of the surveillance state broad. There’s a lot of focus on Flock right now (rightfully so), but they are merely a single player in the privatized surveillance state architecture.

Palantir, Anduril, telcos, and more are contributing to the erosion of our privacy.

It’s been 2 decades since we learned about the secret NSA room at AT&T. 13 years since the Snowden revelations. This is not new and we need to be vigilant.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quickest way to get dragnet surveillance banned would be for citizens to collaborate and create a massive publicly-available surveillance network.

Yes. Once the application of force happens outside the state's monopoly, they'll shut that shit down so fast.

I guess I'm more cynical at this point. This isn't the 1970s when a congressman freaked out that his video rental history might leak and passed a law making them private for everyone as cover. They've evolved beyond that. They'll pass a law banning it for individuals but leaving a loophole for themselves. Like how Chat Control always contains a provision so that officials messages aren't a part of the dragnet.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#409
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best deterrent to crime is to make people not want to commit crime in the first place. Education. Social cohesion. Prosperity. Safety nets.

Executed people cannot commit crimes. Educate that theft means repayment or death. The rest follows.

No property on earth is equal to that of a human life. Want to lower property crime? Decrease wealth inequality. It's amazing to me how people who make far more than the average person get so worked up over property crime. I can afford to replace anything of mine that's stolen, it's literally not that big of a deal.
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