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Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

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421–430 of 575 posts

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#421

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.

I still am opposed to anything capable of mass surveillance because of how easily it is abused. But living in Seattle, my car has been broken into 4 times this summer alone (with nothing taken, because we leave nothing there), thiefs dug up the side of my house to steel copper wires, on my block someone dumped gasoline all over a tree and lit it on fire just because, people went around the neighborhood smashing front flower pots, many of the local businesses have had their windows smashed by robbers twice this year. Last year someone broke into my garage using a lock pick and stole a bunch of tools and my car license plate (and the cops actually caught him because he was driving in the hov lane with my reported-stolen license plate on lol).

My wife is at the point where she would probably like a flock camera on our street. I’m at the point where I wouldn’t mind a patrol car circling the area, like a damn police state. What else would you suggest people support when they are harassed by crime this much?

(Edit to expand): instead of just complaining I’ll meta-point. People will vote for things like flock cameras when society is unsafe, or they feel unsafe. Right now, in the USA, lots of places are visibly unsafe and people deal with actual threats from bad actors much more often than they deal with police overreach. If you want people to vote against mass surveillance then you need to support policy that makes mass surveillance unnecessary, and you need to do it now instead of “in a future communist utopia there will be no crime” kind of policy (I use this because it’s what I see a lot of in Seattle). Weak on crime is anti-urban, weak on crime is pro police state.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#423
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's literally tagging territory. They literally call it tagging.

"They" call tags tags, and graffiti, graffiti.

Not really, graffiti artists often think that taggers are annoying (they are low effort and frequently tag over murals). Those who see it as art try to distinguish graffiti from vandalism.

Artists often start as taggers so it’s not exactly a clean separation. It’s a similar relationship as the one between “real” hackers and skids.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#424
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…

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Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#425
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…

> even on a contrarian forum like this one you wouldn't see much opposition to the cameras.

You think the commenters on HN would sacrifice liberty in return for safety? I get the opposite impression.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#426
post #46

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…

> 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

At least in the US, they can't. This is already the law.

But what so many people don't understand is that the government does not and never did require a warrant or some other permission to film people in public. Flock isn't allowing the government to bypass limits placed them by the Constitution. Privacy laws, for the most part, protect what people do in private.

One thing the Flock debate had revealed is how many people simply assume everything they don't like is unconstitutional.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#427
post #372

Fundamentally this is silly because Flock only tracks cars and not individual people. It doesn't do facial recognition surveillance. Society decided a long time ago that driving is a privilege that can be regulated in a variety of ways.

There is a societal consensus that driving is a privilege which can be restricted or revoked, not that you give up your rights by driving. In fact the opposite is true, the courts have found that drivers have fourth amendment rights for instance.

I agree that Flock and other license plate readers should be regulated. Law enforcement should be logged and have rules for how and when they can access these records. What I would strongly disagree with is the idea that flock and license plate readers are unconstitutional and should be banned.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#428
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> even on a contrarian forum like this one you wouldn't see much opposition to the cameras. You think the commenters on HN would sacrifice liberty in return for safety? I get the opposite impression.

I get that impression, because opposition to surveillance cameras here is very often accompanied by a statement along the lines of "and society doesn't even see any benefit from it".

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#429
post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surreal in what way? Edit: thanks for the downvotes? Genuinely curious on GPs experience.

In what way is going through a military/police checkpoint while driving ordinary?

I don’t live in Texas but I thought they ran checkpoints like that near the border already? I was told to avoid the most southern zones when I drove cross country years ago.
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