7 ms·

Lawsuit challenges Virginia City's use of cameras for warrantless surveillance

134 points by sbuttgereit 2y ago

sbuttgereit 2y ago
This suit in part deals with the surveillance technology company Flock Safety (https://www.flocksafety.com/ https://www.flocksafety.com/)
- heywire 2y ago
  These have been popping up all around my town in southwest Ohio
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- Someone1234 2y ago
  Let's discuss this: > 100% Homicide cases cleared in Cobb County, Georgia and Riverside, California with the help of Flock* > *As of March 2023 Cobb County PD in Georgia reports, “Over the last two years... we’ve had 62 homicides and solved 100% of those homicides.” I'm sure people's initial gut reaction is "100% murder solves is awesome!" because, well, yeah. But we need to quantify what a "solve" is: You charge someone with murder; the secondary concern is if they did it. When you read extremely high figures like 100% solves in 62 murders over two-years, one has to wonder if this is the most effective detective work ever, or they're finding any warm bodies to charge to pump the stats. As the article about this says, the national average is closer to 50%, and even that is known to contain wrongly charged and or convicted people. Do people really believe that a couple of hundred cameras in fixed public locations really improved the solve rate that much? I'm extremely skeptical. And: > 90% Michigan freeway shootings resulted in arrests with the help of Flock* > * As of July 2023, Michigan State Police reports using Flock in 90% of the freeway shootings having an arrest in all of them. So now we're using arresting people (not charges, or convictions) as our yard stick? So we're rewarding police departments for going out and finding anyone who may be loosely connected, taking away their civil liberties, in order to look better on paper? That's outright gross. Major red flag. Let's just say for the sake of argument that "Flock Safety" helps police find/arrest/charge legitimate suspects. There must be better ways of showing it. Also someone needs to look into Cobb County PD in Georgia for the quality of their murder charges, because that stat is more indicative of abuse than competence.*
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    There's no doubt in my mind that this sort of technology and omnipresent surveillance helps the police solve crimes. That is obviously beneficial to the rest of us. However it gets back to the old argument over trading liberty for safety. It's long been established that you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when moving about in public. However that precident was established at a time when tracking people en masse was technically impossible. An individual, or a place could be surveilled, but not everyone, everywhere. To my mind, such mass surveillance databases, given that they are now possible and do have some clear beneficial uses, must be protected in ways that were not necessary in the past. Warrants should be required to access the data for specific places at specific times, at minimum. And the governments that contract for these services should own the data, not Flock or other vendors.
aryan14 2y ago
How does a project like this go unnoticed? I feel like someone should’ve called it sooner… It’s not exactly unnoticeable with 170+ cameras going up
- immibis 2y ago
  it's not unnoticed, it's just not illegal. And how often do you notice cameras? There's no constitutional right to privacy (Roe v Wade overturned, remember), it's legal to photograph people in public in that country, and doing something legal 60 times per second in 170 locations automatically doesn't make it illegal.
  - nkrisc 2y ago
    Except as the article noted previous courts have ruled that prolonged and detailed surveillance can constitute a search and is protected by the fourth amendment.
    - millerm 2y ago
      I'm not sure, but it's probably not too far of a stretch to call this surveillance harassment. Sure, if I'm walking down the street on public property and film houses and people, it's fine. If I showed up every day in front of your house and set up a camera to watch you, your family, and property... I'm pretty sure I could get a restraining order as it's a pattern of intimidation, stalking, and/or harassment. These cameras are there to threaten you.
      - potato3732842 2y ago
        "but you see it's different because we're doing it under color of law" -city's attorney, probably.
        manofmanysmiles 2y ago
        Doesn't "under color of law" mean that it is unlawful, just appears to be lawful? "“Under color of law” refers to actions taken by government officials (such as police officers or public officials) that are done in their official capacity but violate someone’s rights or are unlawful. These actions appear legal because the person is using their official authority, but in reality, they can be an abuse of power or a violation of laws or civil rights. In the United States, such actions can lead to legal consequences under federal law, particularly 42 U.S. Code § 1983, which allows people to sue for civil rights violations committed under color of law." - ChatGPT
perihelions 2y ago
Text of complaint (pdf), https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024.10.21-1-Complaint.pdf https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024.10.21-1-Compl... Related, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40222649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40222649 ("Flock Safety is the biggest player in a city-by-city scramble for surveillance", 143 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33994205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33994205 ("Flock is Building a New AI-Driven Mass-Surveillance System", 15 comments) https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety (YC S17)
jtbayly 2y ago
I hope they win, but it won’t be worth much since Amazon can simply collect this data themselves and then sell a subscription to the city. I rarely say this, but we need legislation.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  I do really hope some day we get legislation that recognizes the data broker hole in the 4th Amendment. IMO if the information would require a warrant/subpoena to get if the police collect it it should require a warrant for them to purchase the data from a 3rd party.
  - cortesoft 2y ago
    I feel like if we don't like the government buying this data from a broker, we should make laws that make it so NO one can buy that data from a broker.
    - rtkwe 2y ago
      True that's an ideal outcome, given the option though I'd at least block the government from having it.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    There isn't even a hint of extending "papers and effects" to "digital stuff held by a 3rd party" yet. I wouldn't hold my breath. But yes, it's a massive oversight and should be closed. But it won't be because the government benefits soooo much from being able to scrutinize any person's past metadata going back god knows how long on a whim. And speaking of "going back god knows how long". I hope I'm not the only one who noticed that in the whole Fani Lewis Georgia thing they at one point introduced 10yo (!!!) cell location data as evidince in court like it was nothing and normal evidince to have on hand. I forget which side introduced the data or what the "sides" even were in that case but imagine having to defend your cherry picked whereabouts a decade ago from a prosecution team who's already built a narrative about them.
greenavocado 2y ago
If you enter New Mexico then exit New Mexico three days later you are at high risk of being pulled over several states away due to ALPRs "I ran his vehicle through a License Plate Reader, and it showed his vehicle traveled through New Mexico westbound and back eastbound in New Mexico three days later." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S06KOykIAV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S06KOykIAV4
- jeffbee 2y ago
  "High risk" or it happened exactly once?
  - greenavocado 2y ago
    If you dig deeper on the net you will see ALPRs are used to trap many people. It's not going to be widely publicized, just like nobody is going to loudly proclaim their use of Stingrays
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  The bigger issue here is the use of drug sniffing dogs as probable cause. These dogs aren't tested for accuracy by any sort of independent auditor, and it is clear that in many cases they are really just being used for fishing expeditions. In this case the dog theoretically alerted on amphetamines, which are not always illegal since there are numerous prescribable versions of amphetamines. The rest of the "probable cause" wasn't indicative of any crime in particular (traveling to Oklahoma and New Mexico is hardly proof of anything). OTOH, if you are going to be traficking drugs for a living, don't leave duffel bags in plain sight, and use your turn signal.
  - greenavocado 2y ago
    They pulled him over for a completely bogus reason. They were going to search him no matter what. Concealment would do nothing since they were already dead set on searching the car.
    - 2y ago
pj_mukh 2y ago
While I agree the concept of "Warrantless" here is bad, I think we can find solutions here that meet the spirit of the law. For very long our justice system has operated under the principle that Law enforcement cannot catch every criminal and we shouldn't even try, instead we need to make an "example" out of every criminal we do catch to deter enough of the percentage of the population to make crime not a problem. This leads to aggressive prosecution [1]. Now as blowback, justifiably, we've started under-prosecuting and an overburdened (and frankly quiet quitting) police force catches no criminals, even simple traffic crime in major cities is basically not policed [2] As a resident of Oakland, California, I find this kind of technology a decent middle-ground. I'd like to be able to catch a decent percentage of criminals so as to make crime statistically pointless.I'd love for someone to explore expanded "digital" warrant courts and civilian oversight commissions instead of preemptive blanket ban of this technology via lawsuit. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-1233.ZO.html https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-1233.ZO.html [2] https://sfstandard.com/2023/07/01/ask-the-standard-san-francisco-traffic-enforcement/ https://sfstandard.com/2023/07/01/ask-the-standard-san-franc...
- colechristensen 2y ago
  >I'd love for someone to explore expanded "digital" warrant courts and civilian oversight commissions instead of preemptive blanket ban of this technology via lawsuit. No. Just normal warrants for surveillance like always, and ban "warrantless" subscriptions to data sources that might be used to investigate or prosecute crime. Here's a New York Times article for today "As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator" And you want warrantless broad spectrum surveillance to prevent crime.
- digging 2y ago
  > As a resident of Oakland, California, I find this kind of technology a decent middle-ground. I'd like to be able to catch a decent percentage of criminals so as to make crime statistically pointless. That's not at all what's going to happen. I don't think we have reason to believe it's going to significantly reduce crime let alone make it "statistically pointless." What it will do is, you know, conduct mass surveillance. This technology will support the policing doctrine that everybody is a criminal suspect. That means you are a criminal suspect, and the police will watch you, and if they want to, they'll stop or arrest you for something or other. You don't need to be dangerous to anyone, that's irrelevant. Just vulnerable. And this tech makes you more vulnerable. Is that a price worth paying for a pipe dream of safety?
aurizon 2y ago
If they accumulate the plate data as a searchable data base, you have 10 billion grains of sand, but you know nothing about each grain, just their number. Then a warrant is issued for XYZ123 and you sift the sand for XYZ123 and know all about it from plate filings and you can see where it was with time slices. Thus only a judge approved plate is tracked and you would have no saleable data - but each state might?? sell plate databases?
tptacek 2y ago
I don't think they're going to win. But I do worry a bit about Flock, which is extraordinarily popular (for some good reasons and some bad ones). I've posted here before about this, but: we did a give-to-get in my local municipality. The police (and voters), concerned about a wave of carjackings, wanted a Flock deployment. Activists opposed the cameras. There was a board fight, which came down to a tie-breaking vote from the board president. In exchange for a pilot deployment of Flock, we ultimately: * Disabled automatic sharing of Flock data to out-of-state entities (I tried getting sharing disabled altogether, but we solved a murder with shared access to another muni's cameras) * Revised the police department's General Order regarding ALPR cameras to get a bunch of privacy/security stuff added (mandatory 2FA, use exclusively from PD computers, monthly audits of Flock stops, etc). The General Order we approved also forbade the use of Flock cameras for non-violent crimes. * Got the ACLU's CCOPS model ordinance enacted, which mandates board approval of any new surveillance technology --- we're the first muni in Illinois to do that (put us on your silly maps, ACLU!), and, finally * Forbade the police department from using Flock to stop "stolen" cars (the Illinois "hot list" of stolen cars is surprisingly bad, with months sometime passing after cars reported stolen being removed when it turned out they weren't); we instead monitor for stolen license plates (for which there are no innocent explanations). None of this is perfect. The activists certainly aren't happy! On the other hand, we probably have the most tightly restricted ALPR deployment in the country, and we were up against an electorate that, if it had to choose between no cameras and 5x as many cameras with zero restrictions, would have sided with the cameras. So I'm calling it a huge win.
- Onavo 2y ago
  > The General Order we approved also forbade the use of Flock cameras for non-violent crimes. What's the point of a surveillance system if you are not going to use it to solve property crimes? The biggest issues with liveability in a lot of "nice" US cities like SF are property crime and law enforcement choosing to go after "easy" white collar crime like traffic and parking violations instead of the blue collar crimes that affect safety and property.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
_sys49152 2y ago
When you travel for work, getting helicopters everywhere you go is next level flexxing as well. Total population control has been here for years now.
hnpolicestate 2y ago
Americans are too comfortable. A healthy population would physically destroy these cameras the moment they popped up. We prefer to eat, sit and scroll.
- brokenmachine 2y ago
  It's amazing how hot a frog can get without boiling.
hnpolicestate 2y ago
Well said Hyperliner! "“Middle ground” is not how rights work. The government cannot infringe on your right to bear arms, to free speech, and to be safe of searches and seizures, among others. The rights have limits, but the limits need to be reasonable. The rights are not given to you by the government. You were born with them. This system is casting a wide net, and people for which the government lacks reasonable articulate suspicion of a crime are getting unreasonable caught in it. The government is unreasonably infringing on your right."
ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
Honestly what's the difference between this and simply asking someone 'have you seen a red Honda civic'? You can do that without a warrant today. You haven't ever been entitled to privacy on public roads. To me laws against this will just increase the cost to investigate crimes, moving the bar for a crime to actually get investigated ever higher. And I swear traffic cameras have been around for ages. The only difference being you no longer have to pay someone to comb through footage.
- 1shooner 2y ago
  This isn't so similar to 'have you seen a red Honda civic' as it is requiring you to wear a GPS tracker and report your location to the police at all times.
- brokenmachine 2y ago
  Scale is important.
willio58 2y ago
There's a small town near where I live called "Virginia City" so when this article was about Norfolk I was so confused..
yellowapple 2y ago
The headline had me confused because of the capitalization; it's about a city in Virginia (or, seemingly, multiple such cities), and not Virginia City (a town in my area notorious for being a tourist trap and a cesspool of racism).

134 points by sbuttgereit 2y ago

This suit in part deals with the surveillance technology company Flock Safety (https://www.flocksafety.com/ https://www.flocksafety.com/)

heywire 2y ago
These have been popping up all around my town in southwest Ohio
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Someone1234 2y ago
Let's discuss this: > 100% Homicide cases cleared in Cobb County, Georgia and Riverside, California with the help of Flock* > *As of March 2023 Cobb County PD in Georgia reports, “Over the last two years... we’ve had 62 homicides and solved 100% of those homicides.” I'm sure people's initial gut reaction is "100% murder solves is awesome!" because, well, yeah. But we need to quantify what a "solve" is: You charge someone with murder; the secondary concern is if they did it. When you read extremely high figures like 100% solves in 62 murders over two-years, one has to wonder if this is the most effective detective work ever, or they're finding any warm bodies to charge to pump the stats. As the article about this says, the national average is closer to 50%, and even that is known to contain wrongly charged and or convicted people. Do people really believe that a couple of hundred cameras in fixed public locations really improved the solve rate that much? I'm extremely skeptical. And: > 90% Michigan freeway shootings resulted in arrests with the help of Flock* > * As of July 2023, Michigan State Police reports using Flock in 90% of the freeway shootings having an arrest in all of them. So now we're using arresting people (not charges, or convictions) as our yard stick? So we're rewarding police departments for going out and finding anyone who may be loosely connected, taking away their civil liberties, in order to look better on paper? That's outright gross. Major red flag. Let's just say for the sake of argument that "Flock Safety" helps police find/arrest/charge legitimate suspects. There must be better ways of showing it. Also someone needs to look into Cobb County PD in Georgia for the quality of their murder charges, because that stat is more indicative of abuse than competence.*
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  There's no doubt in my mind that this sort of technology and omnipresent surveillance helps the police solve crimes. That is obviously beneficial to the rest of us. However it gets back to the old argument over trading liberty for safety. It's long been established that you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when moving about in public. However that precident was established at a time when tracking people en masse was technically impossible. An individual, or a place could be surveilled, but not everyone, everywhere. To my mind, such mass surveillance databases, given that they are now possible and do have some clear beneficial uses, must be protected in ways that were not necessary in the past. Warrants should be required to access the data for specific places at specific times, at minimum. And the governments that contract for these services should own the data, not Flock or other vendors.

aryan14 2y ago

How does a project like this go unnoticed? I feel like someone should’ve called it sooner… It’s not exactly unnoticeable with 170+ cameras going up

immibis 2y ago
it's not unnoticed, it's just not illegal. And how often do you notice cameras? There's no constitutional right to privacy (Roe v Wade overturned, remember), it's legal to photograph people in public in that country, and doing something legal 60 times per second in 170 locations automatically doesn't make it illegal.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  Except as the article noted previous courts have ruled that prolonged and detailed surveillance can constitute a search and is protected by the fourth amendment.
  - millerm 2y ago
    I'm not sure, but it's probably not too far of a stretch to call this surveillance harassment. Sure, if I'm walking down the street on public property and film houses and people, it's fine. If I showed up every day in front of your house and set up a camera to watch you, your family, and property... I'm pretty sure I could get a restraining order as it's a pattern of intimidation, stalking, and/or harassment. These cameras are there to threaten you.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      "but you see it's different because we're doing it under color of law" -city's attorney, probably.
      - manofmanysmiles 2y ago
        Doesn't "under color of law" mean that it is unlawful, just appears to be lawful? "“Under color of law” refers to actions taken by government officials (such as police officers or public officials) that are done in their official capacity but violate someone’s rights or are unlawful. These actions appear legal because the person is using their official authority, but in reality, they can be an abuse of power or a violation of laws or civil rights. In the United States, such actions can lead to legal consequences under federal law, particularly 42 U.S. Code § 1983, which allows people to sue for civil rights violations committed under color of law." - ChatGPT

perihelions 2y ago

Text of complaint (pdf), https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024.10.21-1-Complaint.pdf https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024.10.21-1-Compl... Related, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40222649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40222649 ("Flock Safety is the biggest player in a city-by-city scramble for surveillance", 143 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33994205 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33994205 ("Flock is Building a New AI-Driven Mass-Surveillance System", 15 comments) https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety (YC S17)

jtbayly 2y ago

I hope they win, but it won’t be worth much since Amazon can simply collect this data themselves and then sell a subscription to the city. I rarely say this, but we need legislation.

rtkwe 2y ago
I do really hope some day we get legislation that recognizes the data broker hole in the 4th Amendment. IMO if the information would require a warrant/subpoena to get if the police collect it it should require a warrant for them to purchase the data from a 3rd party.
- cortesoft 2y ago
  I feel like if we don't like the government buying this data from a broker, we should make laws that make it so NO one can buy that data from a broker.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    True that's an ideal outcome, given the option though I'd at least block the government from having it.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  There isn't even a hint of extending "papers and effects" to "digital stuff held by a 3rd party" yet. I wouldn't hold my breath. But yes, it's a massive oversight and should be closed. But it won't be because the government benefits soooo much from being able to scrutinize any person's past metadata going back god knows how long on a whim. And speaking of "going back god knows how long". I hope I'm not the only one who noticed that in the whole Fani Lewis Georgia thing they at one point introduced 10yo (!!!) cell location data as evidince in court like it was nothing and normal evidince to have on hand. I forget which side introduced the data or what the "sides" even were in that case but imagine having to defend your cherry picked whereabouts a decade ago from a prosecution team who's already built a narrative about them.

greenavocado 2y ago

If you enter New Mexico then exit New Mexico three days later you are at high risk of being pulled over several states away due to ALPRs "I ran his vehicle through a License Plate Reader, and it showed his vehicle traveled through New Mexico westbound and back eastbound in New Mexico three days later." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S06KOykIAV4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S06KOykIAV4

jeffbee 2y ago
"High risk" or it happened exactly once?
- greenavocado 2y ago
  If you dig deeper on the net you will see ALPRs are used to trap many people. It's not going to be widely publicized, just like nobody is going to loudly proclaim their use of Stingrays
dghlsakjg 2y ago
The bigger issue here is the use of drug sniffing dogs as probable cause. These dogs aren't tested for accuracy by any sort of independent auditor, and it is clear that in many cases they are really just being used for fishing expeditions. In this case the dog theoretically alerted on amphetamines, which are not always illegal since there are numerous prescribable versions of amphetamines. The rest of the "probable cause" wasn't indicative of any crime in particular (traveling to Oklahoma and New Mexico is hardly proof of anything). OTOH, if you are going to be traficking drugs for a living, don't leave duffel bags in plain sight, and use your turn signal.
- greenavocado 2y ago
  They pulled him over for a completely bogus reason. They were going to search him no matter what. Concealment would do nothing since they were already dead set on searching the car.
  - 2y ago

pj_mukh 2y ago

While I agree the concept of "Warrantless" here is bad, I think we can find solutions here that meet the spirit of the law. For very long our justice system has operated under the principle that Law enforcement cannot catch every criminal and we shouldn't even try, instead we need to make an "example" out of every criminal we do catch to deter enough of the percentage of the population to make crime not a problem. This leads to aggressive prosecution [1]. Now as blowback, justifiably, we've started under-prosecuting and an overburdened (and frankly quiet quitting) police force catches no criminals, even simple traffic crime in major cities is basically not policed [2] As a resident of Oakland, California, I find this kind of technology a decent middle-ground. I'd like to be able to catch a decent percentage of criminals so as to make crime statistically pointless.I'd love for someone to explore expanded "digital" warrant courts and civilian oversight commissions instead of preemptive blanket ban of this technology via lawsuit. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-1233.ZO.html https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-1233.ZO.html [2] https://sfstandard.com/2023/07/01/ask-the-standard-san-francisco-traffic-enforcement/ https://sfstandard.com/2023/07/01/ask-the-standard-san-franc...

colechristensen 2y ago
>I'd love for someone to explore expanded "digital" warrant courts and civilian oversight commissions instead of preemptive blanket ban of this technology via lawsuit. No. Just normal warrants for surveillance like always, and ban "warrantless" subscriptions to data sources that might be used to investigate or prosecute crime. Here's a New York Times article for today "As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator" And you want warrantless broad spectrum surveillance to prevent crime.
digging 2y ago
> As a resident of Oakland, California, I find this kind of technology a decent middle-ground. I'd like to be able to catch a decent percentage of criminals so as to make crime statistically pointless. That's not at all what's going to happen. I don't think we have reason to believe it's going to significantly reduce crime let alone make it "statistically pointless." What it will do is, you know, conduct mass surveillance. This technology will support the policing doctrine that everybody is a criminal suspect. That means you are a criminal suspect, and the police will watch you, and if they want to, they'll stop or arrest you for something or other. You don't need to be dangerous to anyone, that's irrelevant. Just vulnerable. And this tech makes you more vulnerable. Is that a price worth paying for a pipe dream of safety?

aurizon 2y ago

If they accumulate the plate data as a searchable data base, you have 10 billion grains of sand, but you know nothing about each grain, just their number. Then a warrant is issued for XYZ123 and you sift the sand for XYZ123 and know all about it from plate filings and you can see where it was with time slices. Thus only a judge approved plate is tracked and you would have no saleable data - but each state might?? sell plate databases?

tptacek 2y ago

I don't think they're going to win. But I do worry a bit about Flock, which is extraordinarily popular (for some good reasons and some bad ones). I've posted here before about this, but: we did a give-to-get in my local municipality. The police (and voters), concerned about a wave of carjackings, wanted a Flock deployment. Activists opposed the cameras. There was a board fight, which came down to a tie-breaking vote from the board president. In exchange for a pilot deployment of Flock, we ultimately: * Disabled automatic sharing of Flock data to out-of-state entities (I tried getting sharing disabled altogether, but we solved a murder with shared access to another muni's cameras) * Revised the police department's General Order regarding ALPR cameras to get a bunch of privacy/security stuff added (mandatory 2FA, use exclusively from PD computers, monthly audits of Flock stops, etc). The General Order we approved also forbade the use of Flock cameras for non-violent crimes. * Got the ACLU's CCOPS model ordinance enacted, which mandates board approval of any new surveillance technology --- we're the first muni in Illinois to do that (put us on your silly maps, ACLU!), and, finally * Forbade the police department from using Flock to stop "stolen" cars (the Illinois "hot list" of stolen cars is surprisingly bad, with months sometime passing after cars reported stolen being removed when it turned out they weren't); we instead monitor for stolen license plates (for which there are no innocent explanations). None of this is perfect. The activists certainly aren't happy! On the other hand, we probably have the most tightly restricted ALPR deployment in the country, and we were up against an electorate that, if it had to choose between no cameras and 5x as many cameras with zero restrictions, would have sided with the cameras. So I'm calling it a huge win.

Onavo 2y ago
> The General Order we approved also forbade the use of Flock cameras for non-violent crimes. What's the point of a surveillance system if you are not going to use it to solve property crimes? The biggest issues with liveability in a lot of "nice" US cities like SF are property crime and law enforcement choosing to go after "easy" white collar crime like traffic and parking violations instead of the blue collar crimes that affect safety and property.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago

_sys49152 2y ago

When you travel for work, getting helicopters everywhere you go is next level flexxing as well. Total population control has been here for years now.

hnpolicestate 2y ago

Americans are too comfortable. A healthy population would physically destroy these cameras the moment they popped up. We prefer to eat, sit and scroll.

brokenmachine 2y ago
It's amazing how hot a frog can get without boiling.

hnpolicestate 2y ago

Well said Hyperliner! "“Middle ground” is not how rights work. The government cannot infringe on your right to bear arms, to free speech, and to be safe of searches and seizures, among others. The rights have limits, but the limits need to be reasonable. The rights are not given to you by the government. You were born with them. This system is casting a wide net, and people for which the government lacks reasonable articulate suspicion of a crime are getting unreasonable caught in it. The government is unreasonably infringing on your right."

ApolloFortyNine 2y ago

Honestly what's the difference between this and simply asking someone 'have you seen a red Honda civic'? You can do that without a warrant today. You haven't ever been entitled to privacy on public roads. To me laws against this will just increase the cost to investigate crimes, moving the bar for a crime to actually get investigated ever higher. And I swear traffic cameras have been around for ages. The only difference being you no longer have to pay someone to comb through footage.

1shooner 2y ago
This isn't so similar to 'have you seen a red Honda civic' as it is requiring you to wear a GPS tracker and report your location to the police at all times.
brokenmachine 2y ago
Scale is important.

willio58 2y ago

There's a small town near where I live called "Virginia City" so when this article was about Norfolk I was so confused..

yellowapple 2y ago

The headline had me confused because of the capitalization; it's about a city in Virginia (or, seemingly, multiple such cities), and not Virginia City (a town in my area notorious for being a tourist trap and a cesspool of racism).