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At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

stateofsurveillance.org

291–300 of 373 posts

Re: At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

#291

Eventually toll cameras and a consortium of private businesses will have this tech and then game over. Better to use this energy and legislate the behavior you want. Never let the enemy decide the terms.

Eventually all dash cams will have this tech and a built in data connection you can't turn off. The incentive to do so will cost too much to not add it or likely mandated by law as the "the threat to children is too great not to have it!". (all the child abductions could be stopped of course don't you care for children?)

Re: At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

#292
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least part of it is that we do attribute malice or lack of care (or madness) to people who repeatedly do it, and treat their output differently in the future. For some reason, some people repeatedly defend machines that constantly do the same thing, and claim we should give it the benefit of the doubt.

Why give anyone benefit of doubt when you're just trying to extract true information. If a person BSs you, you don't believe them in the future either. Giving BS the benefit of doubt isn't serving anyone. Giving intent benefit of doubt makes sense, but intent isn't important when it comes to technical information and lying about it

Yes, that is my point about "AI" generated text. It's deep into "doubt by default, require evidence before bothering" territory. Hence I think it's strange to defend spending time on it by default.

Re: At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

#293

25 cameras destroyed over the course of a year, and more than half were destroyed by a single person. This doesn't appear to be a widespread concern the headline makes it out to be.

That’s a shame.

But it’s not too late!

Re: At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

#295
post #2

"At least 25 cameras have been destroyed". Sounds like a mere drop in the bucket.

The author wants them smashed. The point of the article is to attempt to normalize and provide justification for the behavior, so that more people feel OK doing it.

I'd love to see smashing flock cameras so normalized it actually mattered.

Re: At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

#296
post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concern is widespread, but most people aren't ready to challenge the government which can have severe consequences to your life.

I don't think there is "widespread concern". I'd be willing to bet >99% of people don't know what Flock is. But if you go ask people, in a non-duplicitous way, whether you want less of a police presence or curtail use technology to solve crimes, most people will not want less police. Here is an example > When asked whether they want the police to spend more time, the same amount of time or less time than they current…

Black people wanting more police presence is a well known fact, as is the fact that increased police presence in their communities results in the police arresting and killing a lot of innocent people. This reflects a world where policing is broken, but it's the only discussed mechanism to reduce crime. In parallel the perception of crime rates has become totally unhinged from actual crime statistics. If you ask an average person whether they think crime has gone up or down they're likely to say "up by a lot." Which is basically uniformly untrue. So then they ask for more police, the only way they can think of to solve the real (but overestimated) problem.

It's not a luxury belief to grapple with reality instead of subjecting yourself to a false dichotomy where you either have police prowling the streets or gangs doing the same. Don't give this "common sense" crap, you know very well that intuition fails all the time, especially when applied to incredibly complex topics like governance or social policy.

Re: At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

#298

25 cameras destroyed over the course of a year, and more than half were destroyed by a single person. This doesn't appear to be a widespread concern the headline makes it out to be.

it is a widespread concern that more haven’t been destroyed

Re: At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

#299
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smashing cameras is enjoyable whereas building movement for legislation is laborious. It will be easier to negotiate for legislation as well if the economic risk of installation increases because of vandalism.

[flagged]

> I wonder how many Flock decision makers will take personal offense to their little installations being damaged

I'd bet any amount of money it will be approximately 0.

Re: At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five states since April 2025

#300
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author wants them smashed. The point of the article is to attempt to normalize and provide justification for the behavior, so that more people feel OK doing it.

It is against the law, but I would wager it is morally coherent to smash them.

It's more coherent with moralities that put a relatively low value on property rights and rule of law.
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