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

US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

cnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 468 posts

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#411

Post by onetokeoverthe »

yowayb wrote: post #396
xracy wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his comment about "why dogs might provide actual neighborhood safety" is a good reminder that the thing that makes communities safe is "knowing your neighbors." You don't get safety by building a castle with a moat and a million cameras. You get safety by building a community with context that can respond without having to just "react" to the 6s version of "what happened".

Vietnam is extremely safe because there are communities everywhere. There are old folks watching young folks. One viet friend said there's an expression "rice-powered cameras" which refers to people that start filming when something is happening.

[dead]

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#412

Post by [deleted] »

snerbles wrote: post #262
xracy wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his comment about "why dogs might provide actual neighborhood safety" is a good reminder that the thing that makes communities safe is "knowing your neighbors." You don't get safety by building a castle with a moat and a million cameras. You get safety by building a community with context that can respond without having to just "react" to the 6s version of "what happened".

I'm reminded of prepper forum discussions. Where some do little more than hoard supplies, weapons and gadgets yet don't network and build communities. In an actual societal breakdown scenario these isolated individuals will become loot drops for others who actually band together.

[deleted]

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#413

Post by stinkbeetle »

ausbah wrote: post #363
timoth3y wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are not willing to sacrifice their freedom to save 40,990 people from cars, why should our constant locations be monitored? It's not binary. People are absolutely willing to sacrifice some of their freedoms to save lives. That's why we have speed limits, seat-belt and helmet laws, automobile safety regulations, DWI laws, etc.

have you seen how anyone online reacts when speeding or red light cameras are installed? or when parking becomes discouraged for sake of pedestrians or residents? i am somewhat convinced that Americans views on cars is like that of guns, a absolute right that can and will not be infringed no matter how many must die cars are more of a necessary “evil” than guns so the comparison is a little extreme so i don’t think t…

> have you seen how anyone online reacts when speeding or red light cameras are installed? or when parking becomes discouraged for sake of pedestrians or residents?

That didn't address what the poster wrote, it's just a cheap reddit style of internet arguing that doesn't add anything. OP is right, society in general tolerates a bunch of regulations as to what and where and how they can drive.

Deaths from road accidents are (somewhat) more tolerated than say murder because of the enormous utility of cars. This is not bewildering to anybody who is not being disingenuous.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#414

Post by tt24 »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #379
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cringe. I'll try to shop at other hardware stores going forward, thanks.

Meanwhile here I am shopping at Home Depot because they actively fight against the "thou shalt pay a licensed..." laws and codes that the industry groups lobby for. There's no winning.

Truly a difficult choice.

One side fights against government bullying and the other… put security cameras up.

Decisions, decisions

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#415

Post by fsckboy »

Cider9986 wrote: post #263

>[1] Would crime go up, down or stay the same if all surveillance cameras were removed? The answer to that is the only one that matters. At least 40,990 [2] innocent people died in the US in 2023, without significant outcry - that is, on the road, in car accidents. People in the US clearly value the freedom of driving over the deaths of innocent people. In 2023, there were an estimated 19,800 [3] homicides in the US.…

>At least 40,990 [2] innocent people died in the US in 2023, without significant outcry - that is, on the road, in car accidents.

in 2025 in NYC 235 people died in auto accidents. in 1900 in NYC, 200 people died in horse related accidents. As the population has quadrupled in that time, the death rate has dropped substantially. Automobiles claim all those saved lives, "innocent" & criminal alike.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#416

Post by hackable_sand »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #389
jamiequint wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Cameras don't fix homelessness or addiction or underfunded services. They just make life harder for regular people." In what way do cameras make life harder for regular people? If anything rampant crime (and progressive legal systems' unwillingness to lock up repeat offenders for a long time or at all) makes life much harder for regular people than a camera just sitting there.

One of the services that is most underfunded is the service of arresting, trying, and incarcerating homeless people who commit petty thefts, vandalism, and in some extreme cases physical assault or even murder. Insofar as cameras drive down the cost to the legal system of gathering enough evidence to convict and incarcerate people who do these things, this would make life better for regular people.

Jesus Christ dude...

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#417

Post by tzs »

fsckboy wrote: post #415
Cider9986 wrote: post #263

>[1] Would crime go up, down or stay the same if all surveillance cameras were removed? The answer to that is the only one that matters. At least 40,990 [2] innocent people died in the US in 2023, without significant outcry - that is, on the road, in car accidents. People in the US clearly value the freedom of driving over the deaths of innocent people. In 2023, there were an estimated 19,800 [3] homicides in the US.…

> At least 40,990 [2] innocent people died in the US in 2023, without significant outcry - that is, on the road, in car accidents. in 2025 in NYC 235 people died in auto accidents. in 1900 in NYC, 200 people died in horse related accidents. As the population has quadrupled in that time, the death rate has dropped substantially. Automobiles claim all those saved lives, "innocent" & criminal alike.

Medical advances have a lot to do with saving those lives. Many injuries that would have been fatal in 1900 are survivable now.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#418

Post by Krasnol »

burningChrome wrote: post #335
Krasnol wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So as much bad as you think it does, there are clear cases where its helped You can "justify" so much with that sentence, that it becomes meaningless. Also, it won't hide the fact that this surveillance infrastructure can cause much much more harm then it prevents. We've seen what it might do in repressive states and we see today that even those states which represented the idea of individual freedom on this planet…

>> "it won't hide the fact that this surveillance infrastructure can cause much much more harm then it prevents." " can cause much much more harm." Cars kill way more people than guns per year. Where do you draw the line on something as subjective as this? It has the capability to cause harm but has it to the degree you're talking about? Its debatable. Also, taking a serial killer who murdered 8 women and dismembered…

There is absolutely nothing subjective about a surveillance state.

There is historical and current evidence for the danger of those tools. Continuous danger for the whole population of an affected state. Some countries has learned from that, like Germany from the Stasi. They have some educative materials on that topic. You should google it up.

> Also, taking a serial killer who murdered 8 women and dismembered several of them off the streets to me outweighs quite a bit of harm. But that's just me.

Unfortunately it is not just you. Many people are willing to give up their privacy for something that has been suggested to them as "security", based upon fear mongering and abstract dangers to them. Fear is a very powerful tool.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#419

Post by conductr »

ceejayoz wrote: post #383
conductr wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two nearly identical peaks on this chart. The trough between them is Covid. I’m not seeing anything I can call a Covid spike

The lowest point of the first trough is when COVID starts. It then rapidly increases and stays high for two years.

It looks like that rapid increase was a return to pre-covid normal. It never spikes above pre-covid. Given the world was returning to normal, this is precisely what you'd expect most trends to look like, something like in-restaurant dining probably looks similar.

Re: US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology

#420

Post by teaearlgraycold »

schlap wrote: post #178

These companies build this tech in SF and Seattle, cities with some of the gnarliest public safety problems in the country, then turn around and sell it to smaller towns where it does more harm than good. Most places in America don't have problems that surveillance solves. They have problems they already know about and won't act on. Cameras don't fix homelessness or addiction or underfunded services. They just make l…

> SF and Seattle, cities with some of the gnarliest public safety problems in the country

As someone that lives in SF and has spent a decent amount of time in Seattle... this isn't accurate. I lived for a few years in Philadelphia and would actually hear gunshots frequently. Friends of friends got shot. Many a friend got mugged. Thankfully I never got attacked.

Don't fall for the bait that because we have homelessness we're a hellscape (and the homeless population is nothing like what is in Los Angeles from what I've seen with my own eyes).

Post reply on HN