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

171–180 of 470 posts

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

#171

Post by Terr_ »

dwattttt wrote: post #93
QuantumFunnel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

"Those (the Penn family) who would give up essential Liberty (money & power), to purchase a little temporary Safety (a veto over a taxation dispute, trying to raise money from the Penn family), deserve neither Liberty (said money & power) nor Safety (the defense that said taxed money would've bought from the present French & Indian wars)"

> Those (the Penn family) who would give up essential Liberty

No, you've got it half-backwards.

He's saying the democratic legislature shouldn't forever give up the citizens' collective Liberty to tax the ultra-mega-rich (Penns) in exchange for a one-time Security payment from those rich near-nobles.

https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...

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

#172

Post by FireBeyond »

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…

Yes. Because Flock literally cannot be trusted.

As an ex-Flock employee in my county alone, Flock's "Transparency Report" only lists -half- of the agencies using Flock.

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

#173

Post by qwerpy »

sergiomattei wrote: post #151
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

> The entire downtown area is just homeless camps. This isn’t even remotely close to true. > 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. I live on Pike Street. There’s homeless, but it’s not “overrun” and for the year+half I’ve lived here I haven’t been “accosted by aggressive panhandlers”.…

In general the homeless problem downtown has gotten better but a few hotspots are still bad, notably Chinatown/International District. I used to enjoy taking visitors there until about 5 years ago when a few Asians got their heads bashed in or shot around Chinatown and Belltown. It was a politically inconvenient time to highlight who exactly was attacking Asians, and the issue was swept under the rug. Now we just stay in Bellevue, which luckily seems to be getting all the new Asian small businesses.

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

#174

Post by vkou »

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.

They are being used to perform another kind of crime. Much of ICE behaviour this past year has been highly criminal.

Redmond is under no obligation to assist them.

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

#175

Post by mulmen »

wrs wrote: post #80
seltzered_ wrote: post #50

"On Thursday, a Skagit County Superior Court judge ruled that pictures taken by Flock cameras in the cities of Sedro-Woolley and Stanwood qualify as public records, and therefore must be released as required by the state’s Public Records Act, court records show." This video by Tom Lehto talks more about that court case that illustrates citizens can legally do FOIA requests for traffic cameras (e.g. Flock): https://yo…

The example of Seattle Police dashcam and body camera footage may be interesting. When those things were relatively new, ten years ago or so, someone started filing daily public records requests for footage from all 911 dispatches (among other things). They wanted to build their own database of the theoretically public footage. The SPD complained that the overhead of redacting all that footage would be impossible. Ev…

I think someone even tried automating the redactions then posting to YouTube.

It’s an interesting case that pits privacy against transparency.

I absolutely want the cops to wear bodycams and I’d prefer they can’t even turn them off. But they also need to protect the privacy of victims, suspects, and witnesses. So they can’t just live stream to the Internet either.

How much is the redaction fee? How much would it cost to just pay it for everything?

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

#176

Post by polski-g »

sergiomattei wrote: post #164
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the perspective of a beat-down Seattlite that thinks all the problems are just "normal". I lived there for a very long time, and have lived in several other major cities since then. Seattle's problems are not "normal". And they should not be normalized by thinking this is just how it is . It is not that way in other places.

Deflecting is a fun game, but I won’t play it. I’m challenging your hyperbole here—on the other hand, you’re making assumptions about me. Explain to me how “the entire downtown area is just homeless tents”. By all means bring some proof of Pike Place being “overrun with druggies”. Get real.

A single druggie/hobo is unacceptable in a functional society. Just enforce trespassing laws.

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

#177

Post by mulmen »

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 is the most foreseeable consequence I can imagine. It’s up there with “When I throw this baseball where will it land?”. It shouldn’t even require conscious thought.

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

#178

Post by expedition32 »

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.

In my country you'd have to get a warrant. You'll get pretty much carte blanche for an Amber Alert but the judge isn't going to let you hunt down brown people.

But I guess if you elect judges pretty much all bets are off, no? Just find yourself a card carrying MAGA judge willing to sign off.

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

#179

Post by Terr_ »

potato3732842 wrote: post #136
zahlman wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context of the original quote doesn't prevent others from finding it more generally applicable or well-put.

It's kind of funny if you think about it. Franklin spent so many years arguing for liberty, low taxes and limited government that when he tried to argue in favor of taxation and federal power he unintentionally still argued in favor of the former.

A lot of our political discussions and systems these days are warped by a failure to understand the ways that state-versus-federal differences have changed over time.

Even today, it's not necessarily hypocritical for someone to argue that states should do more X while the federal government should do less X.

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

#180

Post by FireBeyond »

SilverElfin wrote: post #118
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..…

From what I read, the pressure from activist groups on Redmond’s city leadership began before the Skagit County ruling. So it is probably unrelated. But I think it’s still a bad outcome for Redmond. Why wouldn’t you want law enforcement to be able to observe public spaces (which these cameras are monitoring) and identify or track suspects? We want our city services (like policing) to be efficient, right? We want crim…

> Why wouldn’t you want law enforcement to be able to observe public spaces (which these cameras are monitoring) and identify or track suspects?

Yeah, why wouldn't I want that? Or Flock "helpfully" proactively flagging AI-generated "suspicious vehicle movements" to LE for investigation? What could wrong there?

> We all want safe cities and neighborhoods, right?

Was it hard not to end that paragraph with a "Won't somebody think of our children?"?

Post reply on HN