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Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

ohio.news

11–20 of 61 posts

Re: Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

#11
post #2

It's surprising to me this is news. Governments buy and install this equipment and it flags license plates and anyone thought that wouldn't be used for things like immigration control? I'm not saying it's right, just that it's shocking people wouldn't realize that.

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there are at least weekly threads on hn about why people dont want to live in a mass-surveillance state with an astronomical potential for abuse (and plenty of evidence of abuse already: see the flock employees watching kids gymnastics recently)

pretending that it is only "pro illegal immigration" people that are against what happened here is misguided at best, or purposefully manipulative and bad faith

Re: Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

#12
post #3

It's likely on the backend that this is "completely lawful" and was used for "lawful purposes" as deemed by the current US administration. There's probably even subpoenas on the backend. Flock is required to comply with "lawful" requests and seems happy to do so. This is largely the same for all major cloud camera operators. See also: Verkada and their facial recognition. These things are installed all over the place…

In the case of Illinois, this is not lawful, I'm not sure about the laws in Ohio, but if a village in Illinois buys a Flock camera and that data is accessible to ICE, than they have violated Illinois law. So they either need Flock to provide assurances that ICE cannot use the data, otherwise they have to remove the cameras entirely.

That probably just means it's illegal for local governments to use cloud based cameras in Illinois

Re: Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

#13
post #2

It's surprising to me this is news. Governments buy and install this equipment and it flags license plates and anyone thought that wouldn't be used for things like immigration control? I'm not saying it's right, just that it's shocking people wouldn't realize that.

> it's shocking people wouldn't realize that

It's really not. These systems are bought and paid for predominantly by local governments. Most of whom don't spend any resources on immigration enforcement. Some of which have policies prohibiting such co-operation.

Re: Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Spying on people is a violation of plenty of amendments. Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor not a felony. Stop treating the law as a binary illegal or not. It just leads to brain dead interpretations of the law. There is plenty of “illegal” things people do every day and yet we don’t install public dragnet cameras to stop it. Illegal immigration hasn’t shown any real harm to people that regular citizens don’t also…

Viz: any public comment session on any proposal to add speed cameras to any American city.

Re: Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

#17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Illinois, this is not lawful, I'm not sure about the laws in Ohio, but if a village in Illinois buys a Flock camera and that data is accessible to ICE, than they have violated Illinois law. So they either need Flock to provide assurances that ICE cannot use the data, otherwise they have to remove the cameras entirely.

That probably just means it's illegal for local governments to use cloud based cameras in Illinois

> probably just means it's illegal for local governments to use cloud based cameras in Illinois

Probably not. A state can regulate how its own resources are used. It can't block a federal warrant.

Re: Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Spying on people is a violation of plenty of amendments. Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor not a felony. Stop treating the law as a binary illegal or not. It just leads to brain dead interpretations of the law. There is plenty of “illegal” things people do every day and yet we don’t install public dragnet cameras to stop it. Illegal immigration hasn’t shown any real harm to people that regular citizens don’t also…

[flagged]

Re: Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

#19
post #5

[flagged]

Yeah that's how news organizations have to frame things

No, its not.

Randomly inserting “allegedly” where it doesn't belong isn't a requirement for news organizations, its sloppiness. Inserting it appropriately may be a requirement or at least a reasonable effort to avoid overstepping the facts (and avoid liability for things like defamation where overstepping would harm reputations), but this is not that. The source they are attributing the claim to did not say that the data was allegedly used, they said that the data was IN FACT used. Either of these headlines would be reasonable and accurate given the facts in the body:

“Authorities say Flock cameras' data used for immigration enforcement”

or

“Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement”

The actual headline is, OTOH, just plain wrong.

Re: Authorities say Flock cameras' data allegedly used for immigration enforcement

#20
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spying on people is a violation of plenty of amendments. Illegal immigration is a misdemeanor not a felony. Stop treating the law as a binary illegal or not. It just leads to brain dead interpretations of the law. There is plenty of “illegal” things people do every day and yet we don’t install public dragnet cameras to stop it. Illegal immigration hasn’t shown any real harm to people that regular citizens don’t also…

[flagged]

>A “misdemeanor”? I don’t really care what you define it as,

the user 'righthand' didnt define it that way...

its how the government defined it in 8 U.S.C. § 1325

>Also non-citizens don’t have any particular rights beyond the Geneva Convention.

this is also wrong. the constitutions protections generally extend to all people in the US

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