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

Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

seattletimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 470 posts

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#121

Post by zahlman »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #20
focusgroup0 wrote: post #7

[flagged]

on the books immigration law has been broken for decades. do you expect people across the border wait a decade to get their turn for an immigration interview only to be turned down, when they can just cross the border? When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law breakers.

> do you expect people across the border wait a decade to get their turn for an immigration interview only to be turned down

The backlog isn't a consequence of the law.

Is there a country that doesn't expect people to go through some kind of qualification process in order to immigrate legally? Here's what it looks like in Canada (where I live), for example: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... It's actually quite complex, and depends on additional provincial legislation. And then there's citizenship on top of that: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

> when they can just cross the border?

The entire point is that they legally in fact may not do so, and have only been doing so because of the lack of enforcement GP cites.

> When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law breakers.

We don't have nearly the same scale of problem in Canada. That probably has much more to do with only sharing an unsecured land border with a rich country.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#122

Post by jajuuka »

cipehr wrote: post #40
cipehr wrote: post #24

A little annoyed, this seems like is has nothing to do with the ICE arrests ... > The city suspended its Flock system because city officials could not guarantee they wouldn’t be forced to release data collected by those devices someday, she said. Key part is " someday ". Seems like the article is implying that flock may have shared this data with ICE which led to the arrests... but there is no proof supporting this..…

I can't stand this type of "journalism"/sensationalism. > Redmond’s Police Department was not among those listed in the report, and has never allowed external agencies to access their Flock data without requesting and receiving permission from the police chief first, according to an Oct. 24 statement by Lowe. So because the arrests were near a Flock Camera the "journalist" is connecting the two? Even with the stateme…

This wouldn't be the first time Flock was used by ICE and would not be the first time Flock allowed ICE backdoor access against the wishes of the local government or police department in Washington. https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2025/10/21/leaving-t...

So making the connection isn't a leap and seems like a pretty pragmatic action taken to reduce ICE's ability to surveil communities.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#123

Post by Eisenstein »

cipehr wrote: post #52
Eisenstein wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to revise our understanding of expectation of privacy. The 'you have no expectation of privacy when you are outside' bit was formed before we had everything recording us and before face recognition could track us. At the very least I think any kind of face recognition should require probable cause.

Its an interesting question indeed. You're saying there might be some expectation of privacy even in public? The line here is a little different. I could point a camera out my window and record every license plate that drives by my house, and that would be allowed because its recording public activities, and the data I collect would be private—its mine from my camera. The question here is if a public/government agenc…

If your neighbors were across the street and had their blinds open could you point your camera at their window and take pictures?

License plates were designed to be read and visible and they show that the vehicle is registered, but what about inside the vehicle? Do we have privacy in there?

What exactly does 'in public' mean? And why shouldn't someone have privacy from being recorded and their movements tracked even if they are in public?

None of these things are a given. The rights we have are because we decided they were important. There is no reason we can't revisit the question as situations change.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#124

Post by jajuuka »

gwbas1c wrote: post #85
notepad0x90 wrote: post #36

[flagged]

> No matter what, the whole ICE acting like the SS thing will only result in more illegal migration in the long term, like a lot more. I don't follow. Illegal immigration into the US is down right now. So, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

I don't think the drugs analog works. What this activity by ICE does though is put a chilling effect on "legal" immigration and tourism. Which will over time hurt supply chains, tourist destinations and jobs overall.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#125

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

SilverElfin wrote: post #107
pton_xd wrote: post #12

What did they think would happen? Installing surveillance systems to monitor people is acceptable, as long as they're only used against the majority? I don't understand the logic here.

[flagged]

Seattle is in such a tough spot. I lived there from 2001 to 2010 and left and then went back in 2018 or so and it looked like the homeless population had doubled, or tripled in the time since. And then I went back again after COVID and it was just sad. The entire downtown area is just homeless camps. There used to be a big beautiful Macy's department store on 4th Ave that's just all boarded up now. You can't browse around outside Westlake Center without being bombarded and accosted by aggressive panhandlers. Even the iconic Pike Place Market was overrun with druggies.

The entire city is so poorly run they just have no answers, and nobody can do anything about it. Pick something. Build more housing, do a basic income. Something, anything. But they can't. And their politics just let it keep getting worse and worse.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#126

Post by [deleted] »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #45
notepad0x90 wrote: post #36

[flagged]

> Voters don't want a streamlined and efficient immigration system that lawfully allows a lot of migrants There was a really interesting open ended survey some years ago, in the leadup to the trump/clinton election but I can't find it now sorry. When republicans voters were asked to describe their preferred immigration policies, they outline a stance significantly more permissive and flexible, and less burdensome, th…

[deleted]

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#127

Post by giantg2 »

jajuuka wrote: post #119
pton_xd wrote: post #12

What did they think would happen? Installing surveillance systems to monitor people is acceptable, as long as they're only used against the majority? I don't understand the logic here.

I think this is a case of, tools used to fight one type of crime are being used to fight another type of crime that disrupting the community. Kind of an unforeseen consequences situation.

"Kind of an unforeseen consequences situation."

This type of use and expansion of scope was totally foreseeable by anyone paying attention to history. It always starts as some targeted thing, then it becomes the path of least resistance for similar subsequent things as the barrier to entry is extremely low.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#128

Post by notepad0x90 »

fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #66
notepad0x90 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the books immigration law has been broken for decades. do you expect people across the border wait a decade to get their turn for an immigration interview only to be turned down, when they can just cross the border? When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law breakers.

Hundreds of thousands to millions of people have come to the US legally each year for the last thirty years.[0] How is that impractical? In fact the share of immigrants in the US has increased significantly (by 3 times) in the last 50 years, and is above the level of the EU, and is at the highest level in the last 100 years in the US.[1][2] Even if legal immigration was set to zero, that shouldn't give people the rig…

The biggest illegal immigration source is the southern border. Yes, lots of people have immigrated, but they're a tiny fraction of those who wanted to immigrate. H-1B is a good example, it counts as immigration but it is really not, it is residency contingent on specific employment contracts. Those people with H-1B have no way to gain permanent residency without their employer sponsoring them, which would let them leave the company so employers don't tend to do that a lot.

The comparison with EU is not meaningful, especially since it isn't even a country. The population growth of the US and the world as a hole has also risen by more than that factor, even in the past two decades or so it has more than doubled.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#129

Post by notepad0x90 »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #34
notepad0x90 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on the books immigration law has been broken for decades. do you expect people across the border wait a decade to get their turn for an immigration interview only to be turned down, when they can just cross the border? When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law breakers.

>when they can just cross the border This is also a choice for the people in charge of the border. Enforcing a border is a solved problem for a rich, large-population nation.

employers hiring illegal migrants is also an option for them. those employers are not being targeted by ICE. It's the DEA arresting drug users but being buddies with drug lords all over again.

Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests

#130

Post by potato3732842 »

pton_xd wrote: post #12

What did they think would happen? Installing surveillance systems to monitor people is acceptable, as long as they're only used against the majority? I don't understand the logic here.

They had never picked up a history book so they didn't realize that the systems they envisioned being used to stop the jackboot upon people they don't like would eventually be used to stomp people they do.
Post reply on HN