6 ms·

I'm in the PNW and they put Flock cameras up in my area recently. Nobody likes them (libs or cons), and we've seen some rather creative approaches to uh...disab

I'm in the PNW and they put Flock cameras up in my area recently. Nobody likes them (libs or cons), and we've seen some rather creative approaches to uh...disabling them. One person took a pipe cutter to the mount and spirited the whole unit away, another apparently fired a shotgun slug through it, somebody else looks like they used it to relieve their anger problems with a metal pipe. Flock cameras, America's bipartisan issue?

reactordev 1y ago
And yet they drive away in their GM/Ford/Nissan/Tesla/Any car/truck with its connected media unit and telemetry gathering infotainment systems and think “This is fine”.
- helterskelter 1y ago
  Hey it's a start. Get people together who don't like Flock cameras and tell them about pulling the modem out of their vehicle and you'll get some bites.
  - reactordev 1y ago
    Except when it’s all tied into the ECU and you can’t remove it. Ugh… You’re right. It’s a start. There’s also https://www.deflock.me https://www.deflock.me
    - Infernal 1y ago
      On some vehicles it’s easier than others. Unfortunately it’s a great idea to research before making a purchase decision.
      - tavavex 1y ago
        Is local jamming or removing their antennas a viable strategy? Seems like it could be easier to just make them unable to phone home, rather than trying to surgically rip out the bundle of hardware and software responsible for it while leaving everything else intact.
        pseudalopex 1y ago
        Vehicles differ. Disconnecting the antenna is easiest in some. Removing a fuse is sufficient in some. Disconnecting the relevant module is not surgical in some. Some nag if the antenna is disconnected.
- guywithahat 1y ago
  Well Tesla cameras don't qualify as public record "On Thursday, a Skagit County Superior Court judge ruled that pictures taken by Flock cameras in the cities of Sedro-Woolley and Stanwood qualify as public records, and therefore must be released as required by the state’s Public Records Act, court records show." I do think that's an important distinction though; if I have a camera and record a public space, that's not an issue. If the government sets up a bunch of cameras, that's an issue, whether or not it's ICE, the FBI, or someone else using the cameras. I can't imagine the government will set up cameras and do non-scary things with it.
  - hopelite 1y ago
    No need to imagine. There are several cases already of these buffoons in law enforcement doing scary things. The Institute for Justice (IJ) is one of the organizations taking these cases on and who also has suggestions for how to go about combating this stuff. I’m sure most here are also familiar with Louis Rossmann; he’s also been beating the drum on this stuff locally and in Colorado.
- xboxnolifes 1y ago
  "And yet, you live in a society. I am very smart."
  - idle_zealot 1y ago
    Not the right point to take away. The useful observation is that visibility is key to people understanding how their rights are being violated. Unfortunately this lesson is mostly useful to bad actors. If you're going to install surveillance cameras, don't make them look like surveillance cameras (unless they're part of a theft deterrent system).
- sixothree 1y ago
  Put me on that jury.
- pseudalopex 1y ago
  Most cars or trucks used in the US are older than you seemed to assume.[1] [1] https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-trucks-operation-united-states https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-truc...
  - reactordev 1y ago
    They have been collecting data since 2014, with some car manufacturers as early as 2010. Also, average age of vehicle isn’t a good metric when a lot of vehicles in the US are registered but never driven.
    - pseudalopex 1y ago
      The statistics I linked were Average Age of Automobiles and Trucks in Operation in the United States. The title said in operation not registered. The sources suggested market research not registration records. How many vehicles are registered but never driven? According to what source? The statistics said the average age of light vehicles was 12.8 years. The average age of passenger cars was 14.5 years. And Consumer Reports said 32 of 44 brands offered some form of wireless data connection in 2018.[1] This implied 12 brands or more offered vehicles without wireless data connections. [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/automotive-technology/who-owns-the-data-your-car-collects/ https://www.consumerreports.org/automotive-technology/who-ow...
- afavour 1y ago
  For most people in the US a car is a daily necessity so it’s very difficult to avoid that telemetry gathering.
  - snickerbockers 1y ago
    We aren't at the point where it's unavoidable though. Even if we assume that its impossible to dodge random onstar/sirius bloatware crap that probably tracks you, you can definitely still buy a car that doesn't have a 5g wireless modem, 360-degree webcam coverage, mandatory automatic software updates, and ass-warming seats locked behind DRM that forces you to have an online account linked to your credit card.
    - reactordev 1y ago
      There is no new vehicle produced today that doesn’t track you. Not a single one.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        Lot of new motorcycles don't. Although sadly many new ones now have bluetooth and smart phone connectivity which even if not used can be used as an identifier.
  - bluedino 1y ago
    I have multiple cars and none of them are new enough to have that. They'll have to track me the old-fashioned way, by my phone.
    - reactordev 1y ago
      If they were made after 2016, they definitely are tracking you.
- asveikau 1y ago
  People are probably unaware of the telemetry on their vehicle. But this is a good point, people get upset when government is perceived to screw them over and not upset enough when the private sector does it. In practice, the private sector screws over the public quite a bit.
  - jaredklewis 1y ago
    Might be logical. The government can throw me in jail, steal my stuff (aka civil forfeiture), or (as we found out recently) tear gas my kids all without any penalty. In some situations, the government decides they are allowed to kill you. Companies at least risk significant consequences if they start tear gassing children. For the most part the worst they can do is screw you out of some money, which is not great, but obviously better than imprisonment and the like.
  - tiahura 1y ago
    If millions of people are being tracked by GM and haven’t noticed, how is it a problem?
    - array_key_first 1y ago
      Because doing something evil and then lying about it isn't any better than doing something evil and being honest. Everyone with even a quarter of a brain can recognize that the extreme data collection is a ticking time bomb. This WILL be leaked. This WILL be used to deny people's rights. This WILL lead to financial loss for people. It's only a matter of when.
    - asveikau 1y ago
      This is a weak argument. eg. If I come into your house at night and you don't notice, what's the problem?
    - jjgreen 11mo ago
      If I wank in your soup and you don't notice, how is that a problem?
- theamk 1y ago
  Everyone was fine with Flock as well until arrests started. Once there will be a few high-profile cases around telemetry data being used, there will be much more outcry there.
- jancsika 1y ago
  Same ones who probably will develop fast homomorphic encryption and distribute it to the entire world, completely oblivious to the eventual heat death of the universe.
captainkrtek 1y ago
Is there a way to see where they are located? Or which cities are installing them? Hadn’t heard of them til this week
- Buildstarted 1y ago
  You can find them listed here. https://deflock.me/map#map=5/39.828300/-98.579500 https://deflock.me/map#map=5/39.828300/-98.579500
  - FireBeyond 1y ago
    Which is better than Flock's "Transparency" Report. I live in WA, ex-Flock employee, and in my County, half of the agencies with Flock agreements are not on their Transparency portal. And at the very least - why can't you search the Transparency Portal? You have to try each and every agency name. Let's try https://transparency.flocksafety.com/ https://transparency.flocksafety.com/ ... <Error> <Code>NoSuchKey</Code> <Message>The specified key does not exist.</Message> <Key>index.html</Key> <RequestId>[redacted]</RequestId> <HostId>[redacted]</HostId> </Error> Has been like that for a year plus, at least.
    - tavavex 1y ago
      > And at the very least - why can't you search the Transparency Portal? You have to try each and every agency name. Was it different in the past? It seems like it'd be beneficial to Flock and their customers to make obtaining this information as obtuse as possible, while maintaining the vaguest appearance of "transparency". If they could charge you $10 per search, they probably would. As an aside - can I ask why you left Flock? I assumed that the people who would've wanted to work there would be fully invested into the idea. What changed your mind?
      - FireBeyond 1y ago
        > As an aside - can I ask why you left Flock? I assumed that the people who would've wanted to work there would be fully invested into the idea. What changed your mind? The Flock of my recruitment process would be a lot less problematic. There was discussion of the obvious, the surveillance "state". But everything was a high ground of ethics and legality, ideas were supposedly run through groups to discuss "not just whether we could, but whether we should", protecting individuals whose data was collected by Flock but had no safety or LE purpose, retention, sharing controls ... ... the reality was much more "mask off". "Eliminate all crime, using Flock". Very Airbnb'ish. "We know your jurisdiction doesn't allow you to share this data. It's not our job to enforce that on our platform; if you're sharing it, that's not our concern - you'll still have access to all the tools to do so." Sales worked with Agencies who weren't allowed to gather data themselves, weren't directly allowed to partner with Flock for cameras, were asked where they saw or believed they'd most want said cameras, and Flock would aggressively work with businesses, HOAs, other government entities in those areas, and get them onboard, and then go back to the Agency saying "Hey, guess what, we know you're not allowed to collect this, but these customers are, and you're able to share their data." That didn't sit well with me - there was nothing actively illegal Flock were doing, but they were openly helping Agencies flout the spirit of laws constraining them while staying within the letter (in the above examples, HOAs and others would often get deeply subsidized, at least, installations, knowing that Flock would be able to get a bigger contract with an Agency that would otherwise have no over very limited means of working with them). These things, coupled with Garrett's "vision" that, he emphasized repeatedly, was his literal vision, "Eliminate all crime with Flock", were too much (and I think lead to some of their even more troublesome initiatives now, like "Have AI look for potential suspicious vehicle movements, even without a reported incident, and have it alert officers to go investigate in realtime", with talk of that being extended to conversations and audio).
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
SilverElfin 1y ago
> Nobody likes them This seems like an unsupported assumption. Lots of people like them. Anyone who wants policing to be effective and cares about crime / public safety would like them to have the best tools.
- bdangubic 1y ago
  > Anyone who wants policing to be effective and cares about crime / public safety would like them to have the best tools. This depends on what the “cost” is for this “safety,” no? "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
  - generalizations 1y ago
    The public safety issue has been ignored and denied (and "defunded") to the point where measures like this now appear necessary.
    - bdangubic 1y ago
      no, they don’t
    - tavavex 1y ago
      That seems like the general mantra that's currently being adapted to justify all sorts of power grabs and expansions of surveillance all over the world. "We would really rather not do this, honestly! But the crisis is just too pressing, and has been left unaddressed for too long. You all just couldn't behave, and now we're going to have to do it the painful way. This is just what is needed, it's the natural outcome." But surely, it's not the entire world that's suddenly experiencing these waves of perceived crises, right? The statistics to justify tough-on-crime enforcement are useful for the proponents, but it's not the statistics that prompted them to act. They have their own reasons, and some marketable justifications just happened to be lying around. If they weren't there, they would find some other numbers or some other category of criminals that must be urgently pursued, anything to justify the power grabs. Reducing crime won't stop them.
marssaxman 1y ago
Some guy I once met in a bar told me that he liked to mix a 1:1 solution of elmer's glue and water, put it into a spray bottle, set the nozzle to "stream", then squirt it all over the lens of a traffic camera near his house which he found offensive. His logic was that this made more sense than destroying the camera, because he could do it over and over and over: the company operating it would have to send someone out to clean the lens off each time, which would probably cost them more money than the camera was worth.
- throwaway173738 1y ago
  This is the best way to handle it because if the company presses charges they just look ridiculous.
  - dpoloncsak 1y ago
    Honestly, feels like the company is within their right to press charges here? Dude is disabling the equipment that they use to turn revenue, no? Don't agree with the company, but I don't find a suit here ridiculous. If my job put up cameras, and my form of protest was to deface and disable them, I'd get fired. This isn't a job, it's government, but it's similar in my head. The people with the authority to do something did it.
    - array_key_first 1y ago
      I don't think this counts as property damage or vandalism because nothing is damaged or vandalized. Part of putting shit in public is that it now has to interact with the public. If you want your stuff pristine, I would think you should not put it in public. Maybe the law disagrees with me here, and it probably does because this country bends over backwards for companies, but that's how I see it.
      - LexiMax 1y ago
        This is America. If you interfere with the business model of a large company, they'll eventually figure out something to criminally charge you with. Felony contempt of business model, and all that.
viraptor 1y ago
There's also this spray-on-a-pole diy option https://www.themarginalian.org/index.php/2013/07/31/ai-weiwei-cctv-camera-do-it/ https://www.themarginalian.org/index.php/2013/07/31/ai-weiwe...
Gibbon1 1y ago
I feel these camera's is a symptom of how anxious the US overclass is.
- tiahura 1y ago
  I feel worrying about security cameras is primordial mammal fear of being tracked and eaten. Like fear of vaccine poisoning, a vestige of long ago threats.
  - Gibbon1 1y ago
    The wealthy live different than you and me. A friends friends wife works at the facebook head quarters. Zuckerberg has a armed security escort when he walks between buildings. They're traveling around San Francisco, New York, London the same way you or I would travel around Mogadishu. The reality is these guys are scared of us. And that's behind inane airport security, militarization of police, the ICE raids. Years and years ago read a heretic economist that comment that highly unequal societies spend huge amount of money on security. Enough it has negative effects on their economy. This is really not a good thing for the rest of us.
rconti 1y ago
I live in the Bay Area and went to my Nextdoor because I was thinking of seeing if there's much anti-Flock sentiment, and (not surprisingly for Nextdoor), most people seem to think anti-camera people are paranoid, or have something to hide, and wish they were installed in more places to solve the (non-existent) raging crime issues, or speeding, or god knows what. I shouldn't have expected much more, though, to be fair. There's a reason I don't use nextdoor. The funny thing is the people calling anti-Flock people "paranoid". Well, I don't believe in dash cams or ringing my house with surveillance cameras and peering at the footage all day and all night. I think _those_ are the paranoid ones. What happened to just living your life and not worrying about everything?
lacker 1y ago
There are a lot of Flock supporters out there. In my neighborhood, homeowners can volunteer to put Flock cameras on their property, and a number of people are doing this. It's like having a Ring doorbell and sharing the feed with the police, which is also pretty popular in some areas. If you trust your local police to ethically fight crime, why not help them out?

reactordev 1y ago

And yet they drive away in their GM/Ford/Nissan/Tesla/Any car/truck with its connected media unit and telemetry gathering infotainment systems and think “This is fine”.

helterskelter 1y ago
Hey it's a start. Get people together who don't like Flock cameras and tell them about pulling the modem out of their vehicle and you'll get some bites.
- reactordev 1y ago
  Except when it’s all tied into the ECU and you can’t remove it. Ugh… You’re right. It’s a start. There’s also https://www.deflock.me https://www.deflock.me
  - Infernal 1y ago
    On some vehicles it’s easier than others. Unfortunately it’s a great idea to research before making a purchase decision.
    - tavavex 1y ago
      Is local jamming or removing their antennas a viable strategy? Seems like it could be easier to just make them unable to phone home, rather than trying to surgically rip out the bundle of hardware and software responsible for it while leaving everything else intact.
      - pseudalopex 1y ago
        Vehicles differ. Disconnecting the antenna is easiest in some. Removing a fuse is sufficient in some. Disconnecting the relevant module is not surgical in some. Some nag if the antenna is disconnected.
guywithahat 1y ago
Well Tesla cameras don't qualify as public record "On Thursday, a Skagit County Superior Court judge ruled that pictures taken by Flock cameras in the cities of Sedro-Woolley and Stanwood qualify as public records, and therefore must be released as required by the state’s Public Records Act, court records show." I do think that's an important distinction though; if I have a camera and record a public space, that's not an issue. If the government sets up a bunch of cameras, that's an issue, whether or not it's ICE, the FBI, or someone else using the cameras. I can't imagine the government will set up cameras and do non-scary things with it.
- hopelite 1y ago
  No need to imagine. There are several cases already of these buffoons in law enforcement doing scary things. The Institute for Justice (IJ) is one of the organizations taking these cases on and who also has suggestions for how to go about combating this stuff. I’m sure most here are also familiar with Louis Rossmann; he’s also been beating the drum on this stuff locally and in Colorado.
xboxnolifes 1y ago
"And yet, you live in a society. I am very smart."
- idle_zealot 1y ago
  Not the right point to take away. The useful observation is that visibility is key to people understanding how their rights are being violated. Unfortunately this lesson is mostly useful to bad actors. If you're going to install surveillance cameras, don't make them look like surveillance cameras (unless they're part of a theft deterrent system).
sixothree 1y ago
Put me on that jury.
pseudalopex 1y ago
Most cars or trucks used in the US are older than you seemed to assume.[1] [1] https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-trucks-operation-united-states https://www.bts.gov/content/average-age-automobiles-and-truc...
- reactordev 1y ago
  They have been collecting data since 2014, with some car manufacturers as early as 2010. Also, average age of vehicle isn’t a good metric when a lot of vehicles in the US are registered but never driven.
  - pseudalopex 1y ago
    The statistics I linked were Average Age of Automobiles and Trucks in Operation in the United States. The title said in operation not registered. The sources suggested market research not registration records. How many vehicles are registered but never driven? According to what source? The statistics said the average age of light vehicles was 12.8 years. The average age of passenger cars was 14.5 years. And Consumer Reports said 32 of 44 brands offered some form of wireless data connection in 2018.[1] This implied 12 brands or more offered vehicles without wireless data connections. [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/automotive-technology/who-owns-the-data-your-car-collects/ https://www.consumerreports.org/automotive-technology/who-ow...
afavour 1y ago
For most people in the US a car is a daily necessity so it’s very difficult to avoid that telemetry gathering.
- snickerbockers 1y ago
  We aren't at the point where it's unavoidable though. Even if we assume that its impossible to dodge random onstar/sirius bloatware crap that probably tracks you, you can definitely still buy a car that doesn't have a 5g wireless modem, 360-degree webcam coverage, mandatory automatic software updates, and ass-warming seats locked behind DRM that forces you to have an online account linked to your credit card.
  - reactordev 1y ago
    There is no new vehicle produced today that doesn’t track you. Not a single one.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      Lot of new motorcycles don't. Although sadly many new ones now have bluetooth and smart phone connectivity which even if not used can be used as an identifier.
- bluedino 1y ago
  I have multiple cars and none of them are new enough to have that. They'll have to track me the old-fashioned way, by my phone.
  - reactordev 1y ago
    If they were made after 2016, they definitely are tracking you.
asveikau 1y ago
People are probably unaware of the telemetry on their vehicle. But this is a good point, people get upset when government is perceived to screw them over and not upset enough when the private sector does it. In practice, the private sector screws over the public quite a bit.
- jaredklewis 1y ago
  Might be logical. The government can throw me in jail, steal my stuff (aka civil forfeiture), or (as we found out recently) tear gas my kids all without any penalty. In some situations, the government decides they are allowed to kill you. Companies at least risk significant consequences if they start tear gassing children. For the most part the worst they can do is screw you out of some money, which is not great, but obviously better than imprisonment and the like.
- tiahura 1y ago
  If millions of people are being tracked by GM and haven’t noticed, how is it a problem?
  - array_key_first 1y ago
    Because doing something evil and then lying about it isn't any better than doing something evil and being honest. Everyone with even a quarter of a brain can recognize that the extreme data collection is a ticking time bomb. This WILL be leaked. This WILL be used to deny people's rights. This WILL lead to financial loss for people. It's only a matter of when.
  - asveikau 1y ago
    This is a weak argument. eg. If I come into your house at night and you don't notice, what's the problem?
  - jjgreen 11mo ago
    If I wank in your soup and you don't notice, how is that a problem?
theamk 1y ago
Everyone was fine with Flock as well until arrests started. Once there will be a few high-profile cases around telemetry data being used, there will be much more outcry there.
jancsika 1y ago
Same ones who probably will develop fast homomorphic encryption and distribute it to the entire world, completely oblivious to the eventual heat death of the universe.

captainkrtek 1y ago

Is there a way to see where they are located? Or which cities are installing them? Hadn’t heard of them til this week

Buildstarted 1y ago
You can find them listed here. https://deflock.me/map#map=5/39.828300/-98.579500 https://deflock.me/map#map=5/39.828300/-98.579500
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Which is better than Flock's "Transparency" Report. I live in WA, ex-Flock employee, and in my County, half of the agencies with Flock agreements are not on their Transparency portal. And at the very least - why can't you search the Transparency Portal? You have to try each and every agency name. Let's try https://transparency.flocksafety.com/ https://transparency.flocksafety.com/ ... <Error> <Code>NoSuchKey</Code> <Message>The specified key does not exist.</Message> <Key>index.html</Key> <RequestId>[redacted]</RequestId> <HostId>[redacted]</HostId> </Error> Has been like that for a year plus, at least.
  - tavavex 1y ago
    > And at the very least - why can't you search the Transparency Portal? You have to try each and every agency name. Was it different in the past? It seems like it'd be beneficial to Flock and their customers to make obtaining this information as obtuse as possible, while maintaining the vaguest appearance of "transparency". If they could charge you $10 per search, they probably would. As an aside - can I ask why you left Flock? I assumed that the people who would've wanted to work there would be fully invested into the idea. What changed your mind?
    - FireBeyond 1y ago
      > As an aside - can I ask why you left Flock? I assumed that the people who would've wanted to work there would be fully invested into the idea. What changed your mind? The Flock of my recruitment process would be a lot less problematic. There was discussion of the obvious, the surveillance "state". But everything was a high ground of ethics and legality, ideas were supposedly run through groups to discuss "not just whether we could, but whether we should", protecting individuals whose data was collected by Flock but had no safety or LE purpose, retention, sharing controls ... ... the reality was much more "mask off". "Eliminate all crime, using Flock". Very Airbnb'ish. "We know your jurisdiction doesn't allow you to share this data. It's not our job to enforce that on our platform; if you're sharing it, that's not our concern - you'll still have access to all the tools to do so." Sales worked with Agencies who weren't allowed to gather data themselves, weren't directly allowed to partner with Flock for cameras, were asked where they saw or believed they'd most want said cameras, and Flock would aggressively work with businesses, HOAs, other government entities in those areas, and get them onboard, and then go back to the Agency saying "Hey, guess what, we know you're not allowed to collect this, but these customers are, and you're able to share their data." That didn't sit well with me - there was nothing actively illegal Flock were doing, but they were openly helping Agencies flout the spirit of laws constraining them while staying within the letter (in the above examples, HOAs and others would often get deeply subsidized, at least, installations, knowing that Flock would be able to get a bigger contract with an Agency that would otherwise have no over very limited means of working with them). These things, coupled with Garrett's "vision" that, he emphasized repeatedly, was his literal vision, "Eliminate all crime with Flock", were too much (and I think lead to some of their even more troublesome initiatives now, like "Have AI look for potential suspicious vehicle movements, even without a reported incident, and have it alert officers to go investigate in realtime", with talk of that being extended to conversations and audio).

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

SilverElfin 1y ago

> Nobody likes them This seems like an unsupported assumption. Lots of people like them. Anyone who wants policing to be effective and cares about crime / public safety would like them to have the best tools.

bdangubic 1y ago
> Anyone who wants policing to be effective and cares about crime / public safety would like them to have the best tools. This depends on what the “cost” is for this “safety,” no? "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
- generalizations 1y ago
  The public safety issue has been ignored and denied (and "defunded") to the point where measures like this now appear necessary.
  - bdangubic 1y ago
    no, they don’t
  - tavavex 1y ago
    That seems like the general mantra that's currently being adapted to justify all sorts of power grabs and expansions of surveillance all over the world. "We would really rather not do this, honestly! But the crisis is just too pressing, and has been left unaddressed for too long. You all just couldn't behave, and now we're going to have to do it the painful way. This is just what is needed, it's the natural outcome." But surely, it's not the entire world that's suddenly experiencing these waves of perceived crises, right? The statistics to justify tough-on-crime enforcement are useful for the proponents, but it's not the statistics that prompted them to act. They have their own reasons, and some marketable justifications just happened to be lying around. If they weren't there, they would find some other numbers or some other category of criminals that must be urgently pursued, anything to justify the power grabs. Reducing crime won't stop them.

marssaxman 1y ago

Some guy I once met in a bar told me that he liked to mix a 1:1 solution of elmer's glue and water, put it into a spray bottle, set the nozzle to "stream", then squirt it all over the lens of a traffic camera near his house which he found offensive. His logic was that this made more sense than destroying the camera, because he could do it over and over and over: the company operating it would have to send someone out to clean the lens off each time, which would probably cost them more money than the camera was worth.

throwaway173738 1y ago
This is the best way to handle it because if the company presses charges they just look ridiculous.
- dpoloncsak 1y ago
  Honestly, feels like the company is within their right to press charges here? Dude is disabling the equipment that they use to turn revenue, no? Don't agree with the company, but I don't find a suit here ridiculous. If my job put up cameras, and my form of protest was to deface and disable them, I'd get fired. This isn't a job, it's government, but it's similar in my head. The people with the authority to do something did it.
  - array_key_first 1y ago
    I don't think this counts as property damage or vandalism because nothing is damaged or vandalized. Part of putting shit in public is that it now has to interact with the public. If you want your stuff pristine, I would think you should not put it in public. Maybe the law disagrees with me here, and it probably does because this country bends over backwards for companies, but that's how I see it.
    - LexiMax 1y ago
      This is America. If you interfere with the business model of a large company, they'll eventually figure out something to criminally charge you with. Felony contempt of business model, and all that.

viraptor 1y ago

There's also this spray-on-a-pole diy option https://www.themarginalian.org/index.php/2013/07/31/ai-weiwei-cctv-camera-do-it/ https://www.themarginalian.org/index.php/2013/07/31/ai-weiwe...

Gibbon1 1y ago

I feel these camera's is a symptom of how anxious the US overclass is.

tiahura 1y ago
I feel worrying about security cameras is primordial mammal fear of being tracked and eaten. Like fear of vaccine poisoning, a vestige of long ago threats.
- Gibbon1 1y ago
  The wealthy live different than you and me. A friends friends wife works at the facebook head quarters. Zuckerberg has a armed security escort when he walks between buildings. They're traveling around San Francisco, New York, London the same way you or I would travel around Mogadishu. The reality is these guys are scared of us. And that's behind inane airport security, militarization of police, the ICE raids. Years and years ago read a heretic economist that comment that highly unequal societies spend huge amount of money on security. Enough it has negative effects on their economy. This is really not a good thing for the rest of us.

rconti 1y ago

I live in the Bay Area and went to my Nextdoor because I was thinking of seeing if there's much anti-Flock sentiment, and (not surprisingly for Nextdoor), most people seem to think anti-camera people are paranoid, or have something to hide, and wish they were installed in more places to solve the (non-existent) raging crime issues, or speeding, or god knows what. I shouldn't have expected much more, though, to be fair. There's a reason I don't use nextdoor. The funny thing is the people calling anti-Flock people "paranoid". Well, I don't believe in dash cams or ringing my house with surveillance cameras and peering at the footage all day and all night. I think _those_ are the paranoid ones. What happened to just living your life and not worrying about everything?

lacker 1y ago

There are a lot of Flock supporters out there. In my neighborhood, homeowners can volunteer to put Flock cameras on their property, and a number of people are doing this. It's like having a Ring doorbell and sharing the feed with the police, which is also pretty popular in some areas. If you trust your local police to ethically fight crime, why not help them out?