Eventually someone will start sending lawmakers and members of the judicary details of their childrens movements and suddenly it will be an invation of privacy. Apparently the security on the cameras and the API are garbage and if a YouTuber is able to do it (Benn Jordan), nation state actors certainly are.
Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
571–580 of 600 posts
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#572I've been very pleased to see the reaction to Flock in the US. I was talking to a younger guy, very normal kid who keeps his nose clean, studying criminal justice in his junior year at college. I jokingly mentioned to him that maybe he could bring some anti-surveillance awareness to whatever law enforcement agency he goes to work for and he said, very seriously, "oh yeah, definitely. I've only gotten two cameras so f…
Do you have any idea what it would mean for society if people routinely resolved political disagreements by destroying each other's property? I think celebrating that kind of behavior is deeply wrong.
Yeah, it would mean that the British Crown would no longer hold dominion over the Colonies. I'd insult you, but then dang would get mad at me.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's not necessarily legal to use information to dox if that can be construed as harassment. This is an incorrect understanding of the issue, these individuals are protected using a unique and unusual statute. In a mass broadcast scenario, without identifying their profession in context, there's arguably no crime here. There's certainly no crime to broadcast that you've seen their license plates with no association…
I'm trying to distinguish the collection of information from the use . Collection is legal - however there is no point to collecting it if you can't actually use it for anything. For example: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/federal-prosecutors-char... or https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/santa-monica-man-pleads...
I'm well aware of these cases (and have commented about the specific statute in question in the past here.) The originally-purported analogy of a "public Flock" that you can "actually use" is completely different than what the statute protects. "Hey! Look! Here's an ICE agent's home address" is a lot different than "here's a list of vehicles who traveled down this street on a given date and time."
The statute in question is 18 USC § 119: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/119
To preface: this statute is very arguably prior restraint and unconstitutional, which is likely why you only see those cases (non-affluent, non-connected defendants.) Furthermore, you'll notice that it requires "intent to threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime of violence."
I hate to get specific into this one very questionable statute, but no general/broad restrictions exist with regards to disseminating the video data or license plate information contained within. License plate data doesn't fall into the statute's definition of "restricted personal information," and the operator of a hypothetical service that doesn't single out these "protected" individuals amongst the rest of the population cannot be possibly construed as having malicious intent. This is an extremely unusual statute, few others like it exist.
A "public Flock" would let any interested party query the entire database of observed license plates. Collection isn't individualized to any one person, use and intent resides with the individual consuming the service.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#574I've been very pleased to see the reaction to Flock in the US. I was talking to a younger guy, very normal kid who keeps his nose clean, studying criminal justice in his junior year at college. I jokingly mentioned to him that maybe he could bring some anti-surveillance awareness to whatever law enforcement agency he goes to work for and he said, very seriously, "oh yeah, definitely. I've only gotten two cameras so f…
Well, good luck there and I mean that. Where were those activists when it was already clear what these companies are doing, but before the famous ad? I am not trying to be nasty, if one wants to be outraged about something bad happening, its 24/7 job and then some more. Whack-a-mole with problems is fine, but better to unplug the machine or something similarly drastic if you want to see some sort of permanent improve…
Sorry, are you saying that small direct action is pointless until you can overturn the entire governmental system?
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
And for the second time, you're trying to dodge the distinguishing factor between Jones and Flock. The former tracked movements in public and in private. The latter, only in public. That, and the Jones case involved the police accessing someone's vehicle without a warrant. You seem to be under the impression that the opinion of the court in the Jones was that everyone's public movements are private and the police nee…
I'm not claiming Jones held that cops need a warrant to visually follow someone on a public street. The point you're avoiding is that Carpenter expressly cited Jones for the proposition that people have a fourth amendment interest in the "whole of" their physical movements, and distinguished ordinary observation from technologically enabled, comprehensive tracking. Just because the camera is in public doesn't make it…
As I've repeatedly explained, the Carpenter decision was narrowly scoped to cell phone location data. The decision did not do anything to restrict other forms of monitoring. The idea that Carpenter restricts governments' ability to video record public spaces is entirely your own invention.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not talking about the specific ruling, I'm quoting the justification that the justices used in coming to that ruling, which is extremely relevant to modern day surveillance and whether LE using surveillance cameras from a third party to reconstruct people's movements constitutes unreasonable searches under 4A. Based on their arguments, it appears so. > nor did it overrule prior decisions I'm not saying it overrul…
> No, I'm saying that the same principles that led to the outcome of Carpenter also apply to technologically-assisted tracking (which includes LE using surveillance cameras to track movements over time). And this is just a factually wrong statement about the Carpenter decision. The Supreme Court didn't apply the same principles to other methods of surveillance. They could have. But they did not, and instead gave a na…
The legal reasoning I'm referring to is quite clear, even if it wasn't part of the court's final decision (it was part of the concurrence, though, which are also used in legal arguments):
> A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere. To the contrary, “what [one] seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.” Katz, 389 U. S., at 351–352. A majority of this Court has already recognized that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements. Jones, 565 U. S., at 430 (Alito, J., concurring in judgment); id., at 415 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Prior to the digital age, law enforcement might have pursued a suspect for a brief stretch, but doing so “for any extended period of time was difficult and costly and therefore rarely undertaken.” Id., at 429 (opinion of Alito, J.). For that reason, “society’s expectation has been that law enforcement agents and others would not—and indeed, in the main, simply could not—secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period.” Id., at 430.
You can continue to tell me that the court narrowed the scope of the final decision, but "A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere" is quite clear. Cool, the final decision narrowed the scope to cell phone location data; that is irrelevant to what we're discussing and doesn't negate that the concurrence literally states that part of the reasoning is that people don't lose 4A rights just because they're being surveilled in public:
> A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere
Just because you want to claim that cell phone location data is somehow completely distinct from photographic location data because people can take photographs in public doesn't make it so.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're focused on the narrowness of the final ruling and not the vast legal reasoning that led to it. Carpenter's reasoning concerning comprehensive records of an individual's movements (regardless of private or public) are relevant when LE uses aggregated Flock data to reconstruct a person's movements over an extended period.
Except the narrowness of the final ruling is exactly what makes it not impact the legality of Flock. It doesn't matter whether you think the courts decision should be extended to cameras - your opinion doesn't decide the law, the court's opinion does.
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Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
> No, I'm saying that the same principles that led to the outcome of Carpenter also apply to technologically-assisted tracking (which includes LE using surveillance cameras to track movements over time). And this is just a factually wrong statement about the Carpenter decision. The Supreme Court didn't apply the same principles to other methods of surveillance. They could have. But they did not, and instead gave a na…
The legal reasoning I'm referring to is quite clear, even if it wasn't part of the court's final decision (it was part of the concurrence, though, which are also used in legal arguments): > A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere. To the contrary, “what [one] seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protecte…
If it's not in the Supreme Court's decision then it doesn't matter as far as the law goes. At this point you've basically admitted that the Carpenter decision doesn't have any bearing on Flock, you're just trying to justify your earlier comments that you now realize aren't actually covered by the court cases you cited.
And even then your quotes are much weaker than you seem to think:
> what [one] seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected.”
"May be" means that there are some situations where it is protected, but also means ther exist other situations where it is not.
"the ball is blue", and "the ball may be blue" are two vastly different statements. Even if only a fraction of one percent of balls are blue, we can still make the statement "the ball may be blue".
> ...law enforcement agents and others would not — and indeed, in the main, simply could not — secretly monitor and catalogue every single movement of an individual’s car for a very long period.”
Flock cameras don't monitor every movement of a car - only where those cameras are present. Furthermore they're not secret: Flock cameras are publicly visible, and many governments public maps of where cameras have coverage.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're focused on the narrowness of the final ruling and not the vast legal reasoning that led to it. Carpenter's reasoning concerning comprehensive records of an individual's movements (regardless of private or public) are relevant when LE uses aggregated Flock data to reconstruct a person's movements over an extended period.
Except the narrowness of the final ruling is exactly what makes it not impact the legality of Flock. It doesn't matter whether you think the courts decision should be extended to cameras - your opinion doesn't decide the law, the court's opinion does.
Except what I'm discussing is why the court went with that decision and how that reasoning applies to modern technology like Flock cameras. Your original argument was that cameras are in public and location data is private and includes private data, and the distinction is that you have no expectation of privacy in public. The court doesn't agree, and they've explicitly pointed out that 4A still applies when someone is being monitored and tracked in public.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except the narrowness of the final ruling is exactly what makes it not impact the legality of Flock. It doesn't matter whether you think the courts decision should be extended to cameras - your opinion doesn't decide the law, the court's opinion does.
Except what I'm discussing is why the court went with that decision and how that reasoning applies to modern technology like Flock cameras. Your original argument was that cameras are in public and location data is private and includes private data, and the distinction is that you have no expectation of privacy in public. The court doesn't agree, and they've explicitly pointed out that 4A still applies when someone i…
> The court doesn't agree, and they've explicitly pointed out that 4A still applies when someone is being monitored and tracked in public.
Only when that tracking is done via cell phone location information. The Carpenter decision did not apply this to all forms of public monitoring. You keep ignoring the fact that the decision was narrowly scoped to cell phone location data, and continue to erroneously claim that it applied to public tracking in general.