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US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

cnet.com

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Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#141

Post by baggachipz »

alex43578 wrote: post #133
baggachipz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not shocked to know that, but there are Flock cameras all over the town. None of the other ones have this advertisement on them. This neighborhood is not gated. However, Flock decided to do announce its presence only here.

Why is this such a surprise? It’s just like those “ADT Monitoring” signs in someone’s yard, scaled to the community.

Because as far as I've seen until now, Flock cameras were stealthily installed and unannounced by the local government. When somebody contracts a company like ADT, they pay money and put that sign up voluntarily.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#142

Post by ceejayoz »

selectodude wrote: post #74
estebank wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I used to donate to the ACLU before they went crazy. When was that? Because in 1977 they defended Nazi's free speech to demonstrate in a town that had jewish people as half its population so it tried to block them, and I don't recall them doing anything nearly that controversial since. https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/the-skokie-case-how-i-...

Yeah that’s when they actually defended free speech. They now take sides on what speech should be allowed. That’s crazy.

> They now take sides on what speech should be allowed.

Alternative framing: Given limited resources and lots of things to care about, they pick the specific cases that best improve the freedoms they're interested in protecting.

In the case of the Second Amendment, they decided to let the NRA handle it, as that seems to be working just fine.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#143

Post by knowaveragejoe »

Zigurd wrote: post #19
gosub100 wrote: post #17

Someone in my hometown was arrested for vandalizing them. The media chose to say "city owned security camera". It's amazing how they will rush to defend private enterprise.

Legacy local news is highly dependent on the police for content and access. No surprise.

More likely: the local news reporter doesn't know the difference, or didn't think there was a difference.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#144

Post by anthonypasq »

yabutlivnWoods wrote: post #120
anthonypasq wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think politicians have seriously underestimated how much people don't like crime, and most people would take constant surveillance if it could actually improve feelings of safety in urban environments.

Often what we criminalize is stupid. Giving away food to homeless is a crime in many places. Bad capitalism. Feelings of insecurity are manufactured relative to the danger posed: https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die...

[flagged]

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#145

Post by anthonypasq »

eitally wrote: post #116
anthonypasq wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think politicians have seriously underestimated how much people don't like crime, and most people would take constant surveillance if it could actually improve feelings of safety in urban environments.

I think it's also true that many people are wildly out of touch when they think about how "safe" their local municipality is. The Bay Area is objectively safe, for example, yet I constantly run into neighbors in affluent neighborhoods who are afraid of venturing various places, letting their kids play outside or bike to school, or just generally exploring around. I was at a BayFC match last weekend, for example, and…

[flagged]

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#146

Post by jonas21 »

diogenes_atx wrote: post #109

It seems like this article buried the best lede of the story on paragraph ten, which explains Flock's new business of surveillance drones launched in response to 911 calls (and also presumably triggered by other alerts configured by police and private businesses). > Flock has recently expanded into other technologies... Most concerning are the latest Flock drones equipped with high-powered cameras. Flock's "Drone as…

This is much less concerning to me than mass surveillance. If someone calls 911 and you need to send a first responder, why not send a drone to get there faster while a person is on their way?

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#148

Post by banannaise »

SoftTalker wrote: post #127
oooyay wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of these camera systems also usually come with a kangaroo civil court of sorts. Last time I looked at red light camera distribution in Texas it was also fairly obvious that they were only installing them in poorer areas. These systems were largely disliked bipartisanly because of those factors.

They install them where the data show that people are running red lights.

Any dataset involving police actions will show high concentrations in poor areas because that's where police patrol the most and where they're most likely to crack down on behaviors that might be allowed to slide elsewhere (in part due to the racial demographics of those areas).

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#149

Post by triceratops »

nxm wrote: post #99
selectodude wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that’s when they actually defended free speech. They now take sides on what speech should be allowed. That’s crazy.

[flagged]

It's always been an activist organization. Even defending Nazis' free speech is activism. You just don't like their current activities.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#150

Post by chaps »

toephu2 wrote: post #128
BoggleOhYeah wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any evidence that the reduction is actually due to the cameras?

Don't people tend to behave if they know the are being watched?

yes, people tend to act differently. not the people they're trying to afect, just random people just minding their business. but it is not an effective deterrent to things like "violent crime".

• Meta-analyses (studies that average the results of multiple studies) in the UK show that video surveillance has no statistically significant impact on crime.

• Preliminary studies on video surveillance systems in the US show little to no positive impact on crime.

https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/images/asset_upload...

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