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”.…
Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
181–190 of 470 posts
Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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”.…
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.
It sounds like your last visit was during the COVID-19 pandemic. Homeless encampment conditions in downtown Seattle and throughout the city have much improved since then. Today, visible homelessness is effectively the same as it was back in ~2005.
Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#183A 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…
…and identify or track suspects?
For starters, we’re all suspects when those cameras are running. Granted, AI-driven facial recognition is 100% accurate, so if you have nothing to hide…
Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Yes, that's my experience when having to explain what getting a greencard entails, most people have no idea how the whole thing works.
Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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”.…
I don't know why you're being downvoted. I've lived in the area for nearly 20 years and I agree that his description is far exaggerated. It was true in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic (when any eviction or forcible displacement of people was prohibited), but not since then. Today, the visibility of homeless encampments in Seattle is roughly the same as it was 20 years ago.
See, this is wild to me. Seattle has a long-time notorious problem with Tent Cities and even now it's just completely normal. I remember The Jungle under I-5 at Beacon Hill was a big problem. I'm sure it still is.
Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#186A 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 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.
Privacy isn't a mechanic, it's a capability, and most reasonable people DO expect, implicitly, that that they can travel unremarked under most circumstances.
I think most people would agree that a government drone swarm specifically tasked to follow you everywhere in public (loitering outside buildings) would be an invasion of privacy. Especially when it is illegal not to be wearing some equivalent of license plates.
Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that there is no actual line. There's the premise which then collects the data. Then the data can be used for other purposes--no line prevents this.
Weird. There's an article right here showing them turning off the cameras when the line was crossed and now that data can't be used the way they don't want. So clearly we're allowed more nuanced takes than you think.
They're installing them in my mom's apartment complex after a vote.
Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure of that to be honest, I think that would be a loud minority. Once democratic cities got a taste of the flood of people coming in that were sent by southern states, they realized how big the issue is and how much of a drag on resources it is.
That's not how it is in reality, southern states (not just them though) have been doing that with homeless people too, not just immigrants. Republicans did jim crow in the 50s and 60s, we still talk about it today, and the positive blowback from that needs no explanation. Keep in mind that ICE is doing a lot more than cops did to protesters in the 60s, and it is targeting not just one group but several minority group…
Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#189Re: Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. I've lived in the area for nearly 20 years and I agree that his description is far exaggerated. It was true in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic (when any eviction or forcible displacement of people was prohibited), but not since then. Today, the visibility of homeless encampments in Seattle is roughly the same as it was 20 years ago.
> The homeless encampment problem in Seattle today is roughly now back at the same level of problem we had 20 years ago. See, this is wild to me. Seattle has a long-time notorious problem with Tent Cities and even now it's just completely normal. I remember The Jungle under I-5 at Beacon Hill was a big problem. I'm sure it still is.
The larger problem with "The Jungle" is that nobody can agree on what it means, and where it is. I used to live on Beacon Hill, and the way journalists used the phrase was all over the place. Incidents anywhere from the I-90/I-5 interchange to the camps under I-5 all the way south to Georgetown, to the camps up in the woods in the East Duwamish greenbelt were all called "The Jungle".