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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

#531

Post by Manuel_D »

text0404 wrote: post #526
Manuel_D wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the observations in the Chatrie case weren't made in public. This was private information that only Google had access to, and law enforcement went and demanded that Google hand over that private information. By contrast, a person can stand on a street corner with their phone and record everything a Flock camera records.

The SC's holding was that the government's acquisition of location data from a third party was itself a fourth amendment search because the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy wrt location data. So you're kind of agreeing with me here: the data is either private and subject to a warrant, or it is in public where individuals do have a reasonable expectation of privacy wrt aggregated location information…

> The SC's holding was that the government's acquisition of location data from a third party was itself a fourth amendment search because the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy wrt location data.

Specifically, the GPS coordinates logged by their cellphones.

> So you're kind of agreeing with me here: the data is either private and subject to a warrant, or it is in public where individuals do have a reasonable expectation of privacy wrt aggregated location information.

You're missing the point: Flock camera's don't record where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

> And again, a person standing on a street corner is constitutionally distinct from LE following and tracking individuals movement over time.

Wrong: as long as law enforcement are only tracking your movements in public, they don't need a warrant or probable cause.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#532

Post by UncleMeat »

Manuel_D wrote: post #488
text0404 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government does need a warrant to surveil me, though, and multiple court cases have found that using an intermediate third party doesn't absolve the government from adhering to the fourth amendment.

The government needs a warrant to search you, your home, your vehicle, your email, etc. The government does not need a warrant to record you in public spaces. You're correct that the government can't use a third party to circumvent privacy laws. But privacy laws never prohibited what Flock does. The government could directly set up its own cameras in public, and nothing about that violated the Fourth Amendment.

> The government does not need a warrant to record you in public spaces.

This is not true. The question is whether you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." If you do, then the government needs a warrant. This is why the government can't tap a payphone without a warrant even though it is in public.

It is true that a single police officer can post up somewhere and scan license plates without a warrant. The difference here is scale. The question of whether scale affects a "reasonable expectation of privacy" has never been addressed by the supreme court, though it has been raised before and discussed in concurring opinions.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#533

Post by Manuel_D »

text0404 wrote: post #527
Manuel_D wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, how many times are you just going to parrot the same replies over and over? No, the putting public facing camera video into a database does not make it a search. The case you cited, Chatrie vs. United States, involved the government demanding that Google hand over private cellphone location data on everyone inside of a geofence boundary. The court decided that forcing Google to hand over geolocation data was a…

> Jesus, how many times are you just going to parrot the same replies over and over The same amount that you do, dude. You're in every single one of these threads, and despite being proven wrong over and over again you keep being "confused" about how people are against this technology. Even in this thread, you keep responding with the same points based on your equivocation of an individual taking a picture in public…

I had already addressed your same points an hours earlier:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629159

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629142

And yet you still start yet another thread insisting that a database makes public facing video cameras a privacy violation.

When have I been "proven wrong over and over again"? The court cases you've cited are all about governments demanding private cell phone location information. You're trying to take decisions that amount to, "the police need a warrant to demand private cellphone location data from telecoms" and make the enormous leap to your imaginary decision, "the police cannot record people in public and search those recordings".

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#534

Post by Manuel_D »

text0404 wrote: post #530
Manuel_D wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh huh, and? When did the supreme court decide that ALPR data becomes a search the moment it gets logged to a database?

They haven't yet because a case hasn't made its way to the SC. But Chatrie and Carpenter deal with this exact subject matter and both establish that aggregating and searching past data is a (fourth amendment) search.

No, for the fifth time, Chatrie and Carpenter dealt with private cell phone location information. This is not the exact same subject matter at all.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#535

Post by gothbytes »

Manuel_D wrote: post #492
gothbytes wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, then the Flock data should just be public and accessible to everyone since there's no expectation of privacy in public. If not, why not?

There's nothing stopping you from setting up a webcam pointed out your window. If you want to set up your own public-facing ALPR cameras, there's nothing stopping you.

Can I put cameras up on every street corner and on every traffic light? Doesn't answer my question anyways. I'm asking if the government via a third party can have this ability, would you have any objection to the entirety of the public from having this data and camera access? I'm assuming not since the people who advocate for this technology see nothing wrong with it.

If you do have a problem with public access to these cameras and tracking software, then it would be hypocritical.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#536

Post by Manuel_D »

UncleMeat wrote: post #532
Manuel_D wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government needs a warrant to search you, your home, your vehicle, your email, etc. The government does not need a warrant to record you in public spaces. You're correct that the government can't use a third party to circumvent privacy laws. But privacy laws never prohibited what Flock does. The government could directly set up its own cameras in public, and nothing about that violated the Fourth Amendment.

> The government does not need a warrant to record you in public spaces. This is not true. The question is whether you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." If you do, then the government needs a warrant. This is why the government can't tap a payphone without a warrant even though it is in public. It is true that a single police officer can post up somewhere and scan license plates without a warrant. The diffe…

> This is not true. The question is whether you have a "reasonable expectation of privacy." If you do, then the government needs a warrant. This is why the government can't tap a payphone without a warrant even though it is in public.

"Reasonable expectation of privacy" covers things like restrooms. Not highways, streets, parking lots, etc. This isn't relevant for Flock.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#537

Post by Manuel_D »

gothbytes wrote: post #535
Manuel_D wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing stopping you from setting up a webcam pointed out your window. If you want to set up your own public-facing ALPR cameras, there's nothing stopping you.

Can I put cameras up on every street corner and on every traffic light? Doesn't answer my question anyways. I'm asking if the government via a third party can have this ability, would you have any objection to the entirety of the public from having this data and camera access? I'm assuming not since the people who advocate for this technology see nothing wrong with it. If you do have a problem with public access to t…

If you owned property, or otherwise got permission from the property owners to put cameras there, then yes.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#538

Post by text0404 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #533
text0404 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jesus, how many times are you just going to parrot the same replies over and over The same amount that you do, dude. You're in every single one of these threads, and despite being proven wrong over and over again you keep being "confused" about how people are against this technology. Even in this thread, you keep responding with the same points based on your equivocation of an individual taking a picture in public…

I had already addressed your same points an hours earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49629142 And yet you still start yet another thread insisting that a database makes public facing video cameras a privacy violation. When have I been "proven wrong over and over again"? The court cases you've cited are all about governments demanding private cell phone location…

Just because the specific ALPR technology was not being litigated doesn't mean that the law doesn't apply to similar technologies. At issue here is the government being able to monitor and track people in public, not that photographs are ok because individuals can take them at will.

> A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere. To the contrary, “what [one] seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.” Katz, 389 U. S., at 351–352. A majority of this Court has already recognized that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements. Jones, 565 U. S., at 430 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 415 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Prior to the digital age, law enforcement might have pursued a suspect for a brief stretch, but doing so “for any extended period of time was difficult and costly and therefore rarely undertaken.” Id., at 429 (opinion of Alito, J.). For that reason, “society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period.” Id., at 430.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-402

Edit for your edit: you haven't refuted anything man, you keep trotting out the same arguments in those linked threads:

- The data includes "private movements" which is why it's unconstitutional (the SC said aggregation of public data can impel privacy concerns)

- An individual or LE can take a photograph of you or your house, therefore collecting photographs from geolocated cameras and tracking you over time is not constitutionally distinct (but it is)

- The specific technology at the center of these cases are not ALPRs, therefore the rulings have no bearing on Flock (despite the fact that courts are not litigating the specific technology, but rather the constitutional principles of their use)

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#539

Post by MisterTea »

HEmanZ wrote: post #515
MisterTea wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you think installing flock cameras isn’t an attempt to deal with it? It's not dealing with it because its lazy passive action where citizens shrug responsibility off to a 3rd party who only cares about making money and not the people on the other end. Nothing actually happens because cameras won't deter anything and only increase the ability for the government to abuse people. Dealing with it means learning from…

You’re right, I shouldn’t expect laws and enforcement. Let me also hire a personal army while I’m at. What a load of bullshit victim blaming.

> You’re right, I shouldn’t expect laws and enforcement.

And from the original description it certainly sounds like you are living in an area where there is no enforcement. That is clearly a failure of you local municipality of which you are a part of. Now with that in mind, again, tell me how flock cameras are going to fix a seemingly non-functional government and police department?

> What a load of bullshit victim blaming.

If your local government isn't doing anything then you need to step up and protect yourself in its absence. Sorry if reality sucks.

Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit

#540

Post by text0404 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #534
text0404 wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't yet because a case hasn't made its way to the SC. But Chatrie and Carpenter deal with this exact subject matter and both establish that aggregating and searching past data is a (fourth amendment) search.

No, for the fifth time, Chatrie and Carpenter dealt with private cell phone location information. This is not the exact same subject matter at all.

The specific technology being used to conduct the searches does not matter.

Persistent technological tracking of a person's public movements can constitute a search. The fact that each individual movement occurs in public does not automatically eliminate fourth amendment protection, nor does it matter that its a third party that does the collecting (Google, Flock, whoever). What matters is that LE is conducting fourth amendment searches using that data.

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