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Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

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Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#441

Post by finnthehuman »

slibhb wrote: post #393
tavavex wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is an argument that the best way not to abuse something is to not have access to it. If you enshrine a ban of total surveillance on a deep and universal level in a country, it'll be a lot more difficult for a future bad actor state to reinstate it. We need the most extreme legal hurdles that can exist. More importantly, if the technology isn't actually physically installed, it becomes even more of an uphill ba…

The modern legally bound nation state has done much better at guaranteeing rights and protecting freedoms than any other configurations despite the fact that it's constained largely by "pinky promises" (i.e. laws, courts, etc).

A lot of those exist because of fairly strong “don’t get close to this” rules or culture. There are certainly areas where our democracies had good properties that slowly erroded too.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#442

Post by Manuel_D »

jordanb wrote: post #264
furyg3 wrote: 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…

The other thing that's going on is that Flock is essentially an always-on "dragnet." A "dragnet" is when you set up police checkpoints everywhere and essentially put entire cities under watch to find a fugitive. This happened in Boston after the bombings. "Dragnets" are illegal except in extreme circumstances (like a bombing). Flock is a "dragnet on demand." You have a digital dragnet in place not just in one city bu…

The difference is that your example involves physically stopping and searching people. This is not the case with Flock, which records images in public.

The government does not and never did require any warrant or justification to record people in public spaces. Not just the government, but normal people too: you can whip out four phone and start recording people in public any time you want.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#443

Post by californical »

slibhb wrote: post #380
californical wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait til we have an administration in the White House (I’m guessing not this one?) which directly threatens your freedoms in such a way that they can easily use cameras to prosecute those who they disagree with. 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…

This post is a good example of why I find the anti-surveillance people so tiresome > Just wait til we have an administration in the White House (I’m guessing not this one?) which directly threatens your freedoms in such a way that they can easily use cameras to prosecute those who they disagree with. "You must not be gay/trans/black/hispanic/female or you'd agree with me" is not a good argument. We're living in a bra…

(1) not the point I was making, I’m not any of those categories. But I am worried about the treatment of those people, as well as giving the government tools to someday come after people with guns, people who vote incorrectly, meeting up with a friend who happens to have a strong political view, etc.

(2) It can be both - we can ban the government from having direct access to mass surveillance and data privacy laws which makes retaining and using data on individuals much more restrictive.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#444

Post by thomastjeffery »

leonidasrup wrote: post #170
harporoeder wrote: post #83

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…

" The third-party doctrine is a United States legal doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties, such as banks and phone companies, generally have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in that information. This precedent, established in Supreme Court cases in the 1970s, allows the U.S. government to obtain information from third parties without a legal warrant and without otherw…

I'm not voluntarily sharing my license plate number. I'm legally required to display it.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#445

Post by Manuel_D »

mrtesthah wrote: post #394
bix6 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Surreal in the way that your constitutional rights are being casually violated?

The Constitution does not prohibit government (or anyone for that matter) from recording people in public spaces. ALPRs have been in widespread use since the 90s, I am continuously puzzled where people get the idea that this is new technology.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#446

Post by Manuel_D »

jordanb wrote: post #440
DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It is not and to claim otherwise is hyperbole. The key difference is police stopping and/or questioning people en masse without reasonable suspicion is in fact illegal unless under extreme circumstances. Simply noting everyone’s license plate is wholly legal, and more importantly for this conversation, is drastically less intrusive and qualitatively different from a so-called dragnet. You don’t get to just confla…

Dragnets have been constrained on both fourth and fifth amendment grounds. It's not merely the inconvenience of being stopped and questioned that makes a dragnet illegal, it is also an illegal search.

But Flock isn't searching anybody. You keep calling it a dragnet, or an illegal search, but the courts have repeatedly held that recording images in public needs no warrant or probable case.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#447

Post by kspacewalk2 »

jordanb wrote: post #264
furyg3 wrote: 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…

The other thing that's going on is that Flock is essentially an always-on "dragnet." A "dragnet" is when you set up police checkpoints everywhere and essentially put entire cities under watch to find a fugitive. This happened in Boston after the bombings. "Dragnets" are illegal except in extreme circumstances (like a bombing). Flock is a "dragnet on demand." You have a digital dragnet in place not just in one city bu…

Flock is a retroactive dragnet on demand. Whenever you want to, you can go back in time and put a digital dragnet in an area of your choosing in order to identify someone you now know you want to find.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#448

Post by Manuel_D »

john_strinlai wrote: post #361
slibhb wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great -- so fix those problems with legislation.

its not a legislation issue

Except it is? If the traffic light timings are controlled by law then they can't be manipulated in that way.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#449

Post by Manuel_D »

some_random wrote: post #382
cm2012 wrote: 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.

Drivers have a right not to have their car searched without probable cause. But being photographed in public is not a search.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#450

Post by eastbound »

tavavex wrote: post #387
ghm2199 wrote: post #263

Perhaps its time that YC mentioned explicitly that if they are going to fund a company which holds specific PII data(i would include precise location history to start with) they would have to guarantee: 1. An erase-me feature if they gained over say some X unique/active users. 2. Disclose to their best legal abilities on warrants served in the countries that allow such disclosure. Allow for strong whistle blower prot…

Why would they do that? Venture capital isn't there to serve people like us or to protect any kind of common interest. There is only one thing they know - money.

To protect their future reputation. There's a civil rejection brewing about YC, and it will affect both Flock and Sam Altman.
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