Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

investigatetv.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 296 posts

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#191

Post by Mountain_Skies »

orangeberrytea wrote: post #183
Matl wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware of cities 'ditching Flock' only to immediately replace them with Axon, which is the same thing.

[dead]

Does Axon retain the data it is collecting? If so, even if they have no plans to use it like Flock does, those plans can change, sometimes even without the company's blessing. They sound like the lesser evil right now, but the core issue that goes well beyond Flock, Axon, and similar companies is that if data is collected and retained, someone will find leverage to use it for their own purposes.

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#193

Post by glaslong »

whimsicalism wrote: post #153
kstrauser wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s literally exactly what Flock does. I can’t find sympathy for the company on this.

Maybe I’m a radical but I am okay with the government having capabilities that are different from what a youtuber is allowed to do.

A frequent argument made in Flock's favor is that if you are in public there isn't an expectation of privacy. That Flock can see where you go just like any other driver. Particularly since Flock is a private entity not the government. This is the Other Driver behaving antisocially towards one driver EXACTLY as Flock does to all drivers.

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#194

Post by Hizonner »

whimsicalism wrote: post #153
kstrauser wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s literally exactly what Flock does. I can’t find sympathy for the company on this.

Maybe I’m a radical but I am okay with the government having capabilities that are different from what a youtuber is allowed to do.

Yes, they should be different. In almost all cases, they should be less.

But what I really wanted to mention is that flock is not the government, and flock's services are not exclusively available to governments.

Same goes for their competitors.

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#195

Post by onesociety2022 »

delichon wrote: post #70

If someone were following around and filming someone who was posting anti-Flock fliers, I would also feel that crosses into harassment after a certain amount of time. A TV news crew filmed me when I was a freshman setting up my old travel trailer in a new university trailer park. I hated it, but it didn't last long. If they had continued following and filming indefinitely despite my protests, I would have wanted some…

Why do you think you can get legal protection just because the filming lasts longer? AFAIK you can film anyone however long you want as long as you do it exclusively on public property where there's no expectation of privacy and you don't harass them in anyway (maintain a safe distance). Isn't that what happens to celebrities & politicians? AOC doesn't get to complain that the press is following her with cameras everywhere she goes all day long.

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#196

Post by whimsicalism »

glaslong wrote: post #193
whimsicalism wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m a radical but I am okay with the government having capabilities that are different from what a youtuber is allowed to do.

A frequent argument made in Flock's favor is that if you are in public there isn't an expectation of privacy. That Flock can see where you go just like any other driver. Particularly since Flock is a private entity not the government. This is the Other Driver behaving antisocially towards one driver EXACTLY as Flock does to all drivers.

I agree that that is not a good argument. I am perfectly fine with the government having access to things, for instance taxation or armed enforcers + bodycams, that are illegal for the youtuber.

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#197

Post by porkshoe »

arionhardison wrote: post #128
millerm wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was literally not aware of this. I don't know if I'm going to be coming back to this site anymore. I've got some thinking to do. I am so ridiculously anti-Flock that I am not willing to discuss it, because it would be a pointless conversation.

I understand what you mean but I do not think the answer is to disengage. They will not stop. HN is an amazing place with brilliant people. I have been wrong so many times here and I own it; the amazing thing is the grace I have been shown, the support and all of the ways the community here has made me a better, more knowledgable person.

HN is not an amazing place with brilliant people.

It's an echo chamber full of self-important piles of dogshit.

The real world is amazing... but this is a place for self-centered douche canoes like yourself to masturbate to your own imagined greatness. It's a place for assholes. It's a place for people whose fathers fucked up badly.

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#198

Post by ricketycricket »

chii wrote: post #143
Someone1234 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's worse for the technician in this case, because he really was being followed --- that's not unlawful but it's unnerving. Isn't that exactly what Flock are doing to tens of thousands of people a day? So why the double-standard. I actually agree it is unnerving, I just don't agree that one should be held to a different standard than the other.

> one should be held to a different standard than the other. harassing a worker is not the way to fix the problem. The worker has no agency to affect the changes desired by the harasser. It's an issue with the gov't, and needs civic procedures to change. This behaviour is the same as harassing hospitality staff for bad prices. Harassers would be considered borderline committing terrorism if they go further.

It legally wasn't harassment. If it was, he would have not been let go. That word means a real thing and this was not it.

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#199

Post by whimsicalism »

Hizonner wrote: post #194
whimsicalism wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I’m a radical but I am okay with the government having capabilities that are different from what a youtuber is allowed to do.

Yes, they should be different. In almost all cases, they should be less. But what I really wanted to mention is that flock is not the government , and flock's services are not exclusively available to governments . Same goes for their competitors.

The government represents the public will of the people and has democratic legitimacy. The notion that it should be more constrained than private actors seems absurd. I'm okay with taxation, pulling people over for speeding, automated speeding enforcement, fining parents who don't send their kids to school, garnishing wages, etc. that would be unacceptable from a private actor who is not imbued with the public's will.

Re: Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera installation

#200

Post by taywrobel »

tptacek wrote: post #185
DrewADesign wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when you’re on the clock, you’re an agent of that company. And when you’re installing an indiscriminate mass-surveillance camera, calling the police on someone that’s video recording you is kind of bananas. Perhaps you don’t find that to be an interesting event, but a lot of people who are rightfully angry at the non-consensual deployment of a mass surveillance network disagree.

It's not bananas. It happens all the time. The police show up, check things out, and inform the caller that the person recording has a right to do so. In this case, it's even less bananas, because the people recording him were literally following him around, which is not what generally happens in these "audit" scenarios where someone parks themselves on the street outside a restaurant or bank. There's pretty clearly…

Except that the reason that the YouTube “1A Auditors” get the attention that they do is that frequently it’s not a simple “check things out, and inform the caller that the person recording has the right to do so”, but the interactions often escalate to threats of unlawful arrest as police default to the side of the caller.

Calling the police, especially in America, can 100% be a coercive use of force. That’s why people threaten to call the cops/DHS/ICE all the time during arguments, and why things like SWATing are as big of a problem as they are. When the behavior of many policy officers is escalate first, ask questions second if at all, it does become a genuine threat.

Post reply on HN