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

Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 534 posts

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#251

Post by bee_rider »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #229
bee_rider wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather, a community could pass a law to prevent persistent filming of public locations—why not, right?

Well, not in the US since filming in public is (at least AFAIK) constitutionally protected. It's weird though, somehow two party consent for audio recording (even in public) seems to be accepted by the courts. Although it's entirely possible that I have a misunderstanding.

It is actually kind of hard to look this up: I get lots of search results about the right to record police being protected constitutionally. And the lack of an inherent right to privacy, when in public. But, this doesn’t seem to preclude a locality from creating a law that disallows recording of public locations, right? You may not have a constitutional right to safe air, but as far as I know states can pass their own environmental regulations…

(All US specific)

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#252

Post by willyt »

wrs wrote: post #75
Waterluvian wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not ideal, but it is necessary when the higher-desirability options are not working. What has worried me for years is that Americans would not resort to this level. That things are just too comfortable at home to take that brave step into the firing lines of being on the right side of justice but the wrong side of the law. I'm relieved to see more and more Americans causing necessary trouble. I still think th…

What confuses me is that no revolution is required. All we had to do to avoid this was to vote. Voting would still (probably) work.

Your voting system is shit. It results in a two party state. If one party fails to present a coherent offering and the other one is infiltrated by nut jobs then the system breaks down. After all, if it was such a good system, why didn’t you impose it on Germany and Japan when you won WW2? (This comment is politically neutral; who the incoherents and the nut jobs are are left to the reader’s discretion)

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#253

Post by dirasieb »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #234
dirasieb wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Damaging or destruction of property is not violence. you wouldn't consider someone vandalizing your home or the infrastructure in your neighborhood to be violence? of course it is violence, an attack on the place i live (whether that's limited to just my home or to the larger community i live in) is an attack on me is it not violence to, for example, burn down a business where people work in if you do it at a time…

> you wouldn't consider someone vandalizing your home or the infrastructure in your neighborhood to be violence? Very obviously not. Words have meaning. You are misusing words to garner emotional support for your preferred political position. Burning down anything (including a business) is arson. Not violence. It only becomes violence if people are present and at imminent risk of physical harm. Financial damage is no…

how did you jump from property damage and arson to speech? non sequitur much? financial damage absolutely can be violence, you can ruin someone's life if you take away their job by burning down the place they work at and it could lead to something horrific like them taking their own lives or not being able to pay for their medication or not be able to pay for their child's education, etc as a direct consequence of your act of destroying that place. destroying infrastructure people rely on to stay healthy/safe/economically stable/etc should be considered by civilized people as a violent attack on them, you cannot pretend that disrupting someone's livelihood is not at all related to attacking their liberty and/or life

a case where you can argue speech can be violence would be a verbal threat to hurt or kill someone, but that has nothing to do with what we're talking about, i don't know why you're bringing up speech, are you trying to say that destroying these cameras is a form of expressing freedom of speech? (not accusing you of this btw, just genuinely curious what you meant by that)

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#254

Post by nceqs3 »

the__alchemist wrote: post #10

This breakdown in rule of law is unfortunate. Ideally, this would be handled by, in order of desirability: - Flock decision-makers and customers holding ethics as a priority, and not taking the actions they are due to sense of duty, community, morals etc - Peer pressure resulting in ostracization of Flock execs and decision makers until they stop the unethical behavior - Governments using legislation and law enforcem…

> It is not ideal, but it is necessary when the higher-desirability options are not working.

You are simply imposing your own views on others. Just because you disagree with Flock doesn't give you the right to destroy license plate readers that my tax dollars paid for. Who appointed you king?

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#257

Post by zwaps »

it's wild to me that Americand accept a private company plastering their town with surveillance cameras, given you know, everything

Additionally, that you draw the line at sharing that juicy data with law enforcement. I mean sure, yeah, but even before that, sharing essentially all your movement data with some company because...?

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#258

Post by fc417fc802 »

steviedotboston wrote: post #158
magicalist wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and for good measure get rid of the tracking device in your pocket that you willingly use all day to send your location to facebook, X, tiktok, etc. I don't have facebook, X, or tiktok installed on my phone.

my point is people are freaking out about Flock but everyone has a tracking device in their pocket at all times, and people absolutely love Ring doorbell cameras (ok maybe not you, I get it). It seems incongruous to me that people are willing to recognize the benefits that these tools provide law enforcement at solving crimes but when it comes to Flock cameras somehow things are totally different. They're just camera…

A phone provides the individual with tangible benefits. It only tracks the individual. The individual is always free to opt out.

A ring doorbell camera provides the individual with tangible benefits. It is installed by the individual on personal property. It does however typically capture some amount of public space which I think is problematic.

Government run centralized surveillance does not provide the individual with tangible benefits. It almost exclusively captures public spaces (that's usually the entire point of the exercise after all). It generally is not realistic to opt out short of being denied access to any surveilled public spaces. If that happens to include the majority of roads near your home then I guess you'll want to look into moving.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#259

Post by elektronika »

etrautmann wrote: post #17
jvm___ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They talk about a K shaped recovery in economics. It just depends on if you're on the up portion of the K or the down stick. The larger picture might show an increase but if you split the data apart one leg is actually declining while the other is growing.

while an important consideration, I'm sure there are many on the up side of the k-economy that don't believe that persistent surveillance is warranted or ethical.

They will fall in line as property crime increases.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#260

Post by dddgghhbbfblk »

simianparrot wrote: post #245

[flagged]

I'm with you on the AI slop but your complaint on this post just sounds like bootlicking.

I would say that anarchist-style direct action against mass surveillance pretty much embodies the classic hacker ethos going back many decades at this point.

Post reply on HN