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As a reminder, Flock is a ycombinator company. Unrelated, in about a minute this post went from the front page to the third page.
Flock has a large amount of popular stories here, there's no conspiracy. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Oh he still thinks they're terrorists, he's just sorry he got caught saying the quiet part out loud.
To be precise, he thinks they're anti-authoritarian, for which "terrorist" is the long-established authoritarian code word.
I had to look this up, the word doesn't have a very long history claims this bit https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/history-of-the-word... . The first authoritarian regime that might come to mind to most after the French Revolution, the Nazis, didn't use this word commonly for their opposition, either, AFAIK.
"Fuck you, pay me! If not me, someone else will!, profit must be had, your privacy be damned."
Activists destroy visible surveillance cameras, so they hide them and make them hard to recognize. Activists trace the camera locations from the public data, so Flock kills those feeds and sells only to vetted buyers.
The value of mass surveillance is high enough and the power imbalance so strongly against the citizenry, that someone will setup these hidden cameras, as long as it's legal.
Imagine what you can do with this data, face recognition and GPT-5 class agents. Not only do you have the realtime location of your victims, but now you can see who they talk to, what they wear, what mood they are in, what they bought, are they drinking or visiting a brothel, what car they go into - and it's no longer an ephemeral cookie id, it's the face that person will have forever, on their id documents, in any interview or loan application they will ever do.
This data is worth trillions in the long run if sufficiently oppressive structures are put in place to leverage it.
I apologize is not an apology any more than saying, "I work out" is a workout. The fascist who considers his opposition antifa is in no way contrite. People only say "I apologize" because it's a whole lot easier to say than "I'm sorry."
American's don't want to live under constant surveillance, inside an open air prison. That idea should not be hard to understand.
Many people want surveillance on other people that they're afraid of, or have been told to be afraid of. Some openly want to try to establish that asymmetry. Others are willing to unthinkingly submit to surveillance themselves as long as it surveils their perceived enemies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be precise, he thinks they're anti-authoritarian, for which "terrorist" is the long-established authoritarian code word.
Has it? My impression is in the USA the start was the normalization of "on our side or the enemy" polarization started with Newt Gingrich into ordinary sedate (for the time period) political debate and was weaponized in the aftermath of 9/11 when any criticism of Bush/Cheney actions was reframed as what side is one questions in the 'war on terrorism' with the implied positioning of any opposition as pro terrorism. I…
?? you think no government between the French Revolution government and the Nazis could qualify as "authoritarian"?
American's don't want to live under constant surveillance, inside an open air prison. That idea should not be hard to understand.
A lot of Americans do if it "owns the libs" or makes the lives immigrants worse.
I think it’s important to highlight that the timing of this article comes right after Tucker Carlsons monologue and podcast “Flock Cameras and the Coming Slave State”. Would wager a bet this is a paid piece for Forbes for PR damage control. Garrett probably thought by making those statements a year ago he could get political support from the current administration and population. Looks like that was a bad bet. I actu…
In a society that respects and protects privacy rights by law, the service Flock provides could not exist. There are no 'guardrails' to mass surveillance.
- Require a judicial warrant before recording anything. Recording with a camera network is now considered a 4th amendment search, and scope must be minimized to prevent harm to the public.
- Police must articulate a probable cause for a search, and can only record locations for specified vehicle or individual traits during a specified time window as approved in the warrant.
- No BS with recording everyone and searching the existing database of every public movement whenever you want; this is a "dragnet" and is unconstitutional or highly contested in other contexts (e.g. geolocation).