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Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

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Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#371

Post by autoexec »

Teever wrote: post #189
jacquesm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of truth in this but I'm not convinced sortition is going to work either. But what you could do is vote with a string attached and a penalty for being recalled that is going to make people think twice about running for office if their aim is to pull some kind of stunt. The 'you give me four years unconditionally' thing doesn't seem to work at all.

I've been mulling over a system where there's a legislative body composed of citizens picked through sortition and another legislative body that's elected like normal legislative bodies of today. The twist on that body however is that voting is mandatory and ballots have a non of the above option on them. If a super majority (say 60-75%) vote none of the above the election is a do-over with all the people on the ball…

I like the idea, but I worry about choosing random members of the public when so many people are unprepared for it. Any kind of government made up of "the people" requires that those people be literate, educated, and informed. With things the way they are today I'd worry that your secondary elected legislative body would end up doing everything and you'd either end up with a figurehead who'd be out of their depth and ineffectual or one being used/manipulated.

I could also envision an endless cycle of elections with 75%+ of the population voting "none of the above" because of issues like "Not my personal favorite candidate" or "eats the wrong mustard" or "I hate the idea of government"

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#372

Post by bcrosby95 »

mywittyname wrote: post #136
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 has worried me for years is that Americans would not resort to this level. They'll stop once the police (or ICE, more likely) start dishing out horrific punishments for it.

Yeah because that works out really well in history!

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#373

Post by mothballed »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #333
School-Cotton wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're supporting the point of the person you responded to.

That’s the separation of powers at work, which is desirable. Congress has to (and can ) do it. Obama, unlike Trump, would sometimes back down when he met the edges of executive authority. That’s how it should be. I wanted Gitmo closed, but I don’t want it closed in a way that further expands the executive branch by once again nibbling at the edges of another branch’s authority.

At ~all times for a long period of time during Gitmos operation, there was at least one (revolving) prisoner that no nation on earth would take. I think that was the biggest challenge for someone who actually wanted to close gitmo, to close it. Not clear where you would put them that wouldn't be yet another prison.

I guess now that the US has normalized relations with the Taliban, maybe they'll end up sending them to them, not sure who else will take the last ones.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#374

Post by zamadatix »

Waterluvian wrote: post #18
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. 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…

I can only hope what people will decide make trouble about is also what I consider necessary. If we could all agreed what was necessary to make trouble about there wouldn't be nearly as much to be making trouble over. It's a very double edged sword which does not necessarily do a very good job at bringing any more clarity of what the moral path was to the country.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#375

Post by abustamam »

nvesp wrote: post #53

Kind of weird all of those people weren't all up in arms about it before the whole ice thing, why would you be mad that they're tracking somebody else but not mad that they have been slurping up data about your movements and habits this whole time, then monetizing said data by selling it to industries like insurance companies etc.

1. Most people weren't aware before the whole ICE thing. I think I only started seeing flock trend on HN a few weeks before the ICE incidents, and it only stood out to me because I had a friend who worked for a company called Flock Freight that has nothing to do with the surveillance state.

2. What you mentioned sucks. But it's hard to get the public to care about things that don't directly affect them and their day to day lives. My wife somehow browses the internet without an ad blocker even though I've told her that they track you and are basically malware, but knowing that doesn't change her browsing habits or make her even want to use an ad blocker, even if the ads are hostile to her experience.

3. Once the ICE thing came to light, suddenly people were like, wait, they can use this information to deport us or kill us? That's not OK.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#376

Post by krapp »

kilohotel wrote: post #310
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…

Who is the arbiter of "necessarily trouble"? You? Only people that politically agree with you?

Who was the arbiter of the trouble necessary for gay rights? Who was the arbiter of the trouble necessary for civil rights? Who was the arbiter of the trouble necessary for womens' rights? Who was the arbiter of the trouble necessary for the rights of handicapped people? Indigenous people? Immigrants?

American society was created for the benefit of straight white Christian men alone. Every right held by any other group, every ounce of political power, every bit of basic human dignity, has had to be taken by force of "necessary trouble." There is no "arbiter." How could there be? An arbiter presupposes an objective moral ideal and a just society, neither of which we have. In the end, America can only be trusted to live up to its principles at the point of a gun.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#378

Post by tptacek »

array_key_first wrote: post #349
tptacek wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this presumes that residents in municipalities with ALPRs don't want them used the way they are. That's not true! These things are broadly pretty popular among a broad set of residents.

They're only popular because people are routinely lied to. We see this same issue time and time again in "free markets". If you tell people this will help stop crime and that's it, everyone and their mama is gonna say yes. If you tell people the truth, that police don't really care to look at the data and this surveillance is going to be used to target innocent people for unrelated "crimes" on the taxpayers dollar, t…

In what way are voters in these municipalities being lied to? We got logs of all the searches, and incident reports of every time they were used to curb another vehicle. We know how well they did (or didn't, in our case) worked.

I don't know what "surveys" have to do with this. Voters voted on it; it was a campaign issue in our trustee election.

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#379

Post by ratrace »

chasd00 wrote: post #97
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…

i'm not a fan of lawlessness but on the other hand, i'm 100% ok with the government living in fear of the governed.

[dead]

Re: Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras

#380

Post by anigbrowl »

dirasieb wrote: post #152
toomuchtodo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flock cameras are different, they take advantage of laws that have not kept pace with technology while being colocated and operated in public spaces, to where you are forced to live in a corporate surveillance state for Flock Group's enterprise value and potential shareholder returns. And so, destruction of the devices is all that is left available to them (if their jurisdiction opts to not remove them, as many have…

i've never found this type of "humans were left with no alternative" argument in defense of destruction of property convincing, some of the things that separates humans from other animals is the concept of private/public property, rule of law, etc, you know? there are alternatives, contrary to the alarmism found online the US is very far from actual dictatorships where people have close to 0 way of achieving change t…

How are they 'immediately jumping to violence'? This surveillance debate has been going on for years.
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