A Cop Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras Across 1,558 Cities. His Reason: 'LMAO' • Hacker News Board

Re: A Cop Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras Across 1,558 Cities. His Reason: 'LMAO'

#81

Post by cogman10 » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 9:03 PM UTC

nmeagent wrote: post #80

nonethewiser wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason field is not to gate the search feature. It's for accountability. This officer should be reprimanded.

This officer and every other officer who flippantly uses such a system in this way should be relegated to a life of third-shift security work guarding some random warehouse.

IMO, they aren't qualified for even that. This is the sort of thing that proves them to be untrustworthy and thus should only work in low trust positions where they can't ruin someone's lives or business.

Re: A Cop Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras Across 1,558 Cities. His Reason: 'LMAO'

#82

Post by maerF0x0 » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #76

maerF0x0 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What freedom is being impinged? AFAIK we have no fundamental right to not being recorded in public, presuming it's not indecent. And I'd reiterate what i said elsewhere: I believe people respond to incentives. What we need are more laws governing the law makers and law enforcers. It maybe trivial to shoplift, but the laws (when enforced) make it irrational to.

> What freedom is being impinged? Freedoms guaranteed by the 1st amendment: Freedom of the press - by harassing or criminalizing journalists who seek to expose gov or politicians who do wrong. Freedom of assembly - license plate readers have been used to mass collect plates from people attending political rallies for mainstream candidates. Freedom of speech and petition - tracking and harassing people for political s…

That's not mass surveillance though. That's cops breaking existing laws with or without flock.

Re: A Cop Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras Across 1,558 Cities. His Reason: 'LMAO'

#83

Post by kennywinker » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 7:23 AM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #82

kennywinker wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What freedom is being impinged? Freedoms guaranteed by the 1st amendment: Freedom of the press - by harassing or criminalizing journalists who seek to expose gov or politicians who do wrong. Freedom of assembly - license plate readers have been used to mass collect plates from people attending political rallies for mainstream candidates. Freedom of speech and petition - tracking and harassing people for political s…

That's not mass surveillance though. That's cops breaking existing laws with or without flock.

It’s only mass surveillance when cops search the mass surveillance database?

Re: A Cop Searched 19,000 Flock Cameras Across 1,558 Cities. His Reason: 'LMAO'

#84

Post by rtkwe » Thu, Sep 17, 2026, 2:07 PM UTC

sheikhnbake wrote: post #64

rtkwe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll just keep a random old case number on a notepad to put in.

That's a fair point. The only other validation gate I can think of within our current system would be a valid warrant number. A system where the warrant automatically limits the search by time and geo-fence could be interesting.

I don't think warrants are currently cataloged and formatted in a way that can easily be retrieved and parsed by Flock to validate that a given warrant covers the requested data.