5 ms·

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 smal

by schlap 6mo ago

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 life harder for regular people. But that's the whole appeal for bureaucrats. Buying a product looks like doing something without having to do any of the actual work.

noodlesUK 6mo ago
I think this echoes very true in a lot of places, not just in the US. Here in the UK I'm pretty sure the police/the state more broadly know perfectly well who is doing a lot of the low level quality-of-life crime in most areas, but for structural reasons either can't or won't bother acting in many instances. Investigative work has never been easier: oftentimes there's multiple cctv angles of offences being committed, endless digital records, etc., but unless something can be done with this information in the real world, it's useless and actually takes resources away from other areas of public services. Increasing the quality of the panopticon has all the downsides we talk about regularly on HN, and if you can't do anything useful for society with the data, it only ends up hurting people.
FireBeyond 6mo ago
> These companies build this tech in SF and Seattle, cities with some of the gnarliest public safety problems in the country I live just outside Seattle. I worked for Flock. Flock is a company based in Atlanta GA.
- superfrank 6mo ago
  Axon, on the other hand, does have a decent sized Seattle presence.
  - fblp 6mo ago
    Axon seems to be the defacto standard for body cameras but I don't know much about them...
    - dghlsakjg 6mo ago
      They are formerly known as TASER, after their best known product. They already had relationships with almost every department in North America so they became an easy choice for bodycams.
- dghlsakjg 6mo ago
  Also worth pointing out that Seattle and SF - despite their portrayal in the media - aren’t particularly violent places. Their violent crime rates are less than half the leading cities. Both Seattle and SF have lower violent crime rates than Salt Lake City. N.b. property crime is different and is a much less reliable metric. Both cities are ranked higher for property crime, but still below the famously dangerous Salt Lake City.
52-6F-62 6mo ago
> But that's the whole appeal for bureaucrats. I don't think it's the bureaucrats. You should hear the Flock CEO talk. They have made it very public that their direct intent is to influence government policy in sweeping and total fashion to enable their service to be the mass surveillance tool of the near future. They sincerely believe that people will look back on them as the saviours of mankind.
ryandrake 6mo ago
> They just make life harder for regular people. "Making life harder for people [in the other tribe]" has become a core platform for a great many politicians. There's growing movement advocating that one of the major purposes of government is to grief people you don't like. Looked at through that lens, blanketing small towns with these things, with a plan to use them against "Those People," makes complete sense.
vel0city 6mo ago
> These companies build this tech in SF and Seattle Flock's headquarters and largest offices are in Atlanta. They also have an office in Boston. Ring's headquarters were in Santa Monica until post-acquisition they moved to Hawthorne, CA. Arlo's offices are in Carlsbad and San Jose. Ok, finally an office in the Bay Area (one of two main offices), but still not San Francisco.
- cucumber3732842 6mo ago
  >They also have an office in Boston. That would be one of my seconnd pick for talent pool if I wanted to get at people who'd be exited to build 1984. Behind DC, of course.
jamiequint 6mo ago
"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.
- ggoo 6mo ago
  Surveillance tech can alter peoples behavior. I know I'm personally more stressed when I know I'm being filmed, even if I'm doing nothing wrong. https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2024/1/niae039/7920510?login=false https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2024/1/niae039/7920510?l...
  - jamiequint 6mo ago
    Untrue at a population level, just compare anxiety disorders and self-reported anxiety between USA and China.
    - qbit42 6mo ago
      There are certainly no other causal factors... I'm not saying that it couldn't be true, but we have no way of concluding that from just comparing such rates. There are many differences in daily life and thresholds for reporting beyond surveillance levels.
    - Barrin92 6mo ago
      anxiety in the sense you're talking about is a function of private surveillance and in that regard America is much worse. State led surveillance in Chinese public spaces is real and effective in producing compliance (20 years ago public theft, pulling people off motorcycles was a daily occurrence) but in private China is a significantly freer society. Foucault used to distinguish between models of authority that operate on "make die and let live" vs "let die and make live". China's the former, the US with its moral busybodies both in progressive and religious flavors the latter. The US now is a society of public disorder and personal policing, China is a society of public order and largely indifference in private life. Of course the former creates anxiety. American Beauty, a film about permanent surveillance without any state, would make no sense in China.
kylehotchkiss 6mo ago
Agreed. I live in a city that's top 5% of safest cities in CA and these cameras have sprouted up everywhere. I reached out to my cities representative about it and he ignored my outreach (nice thing about instagram - that "read" indicator!). The most blatant is one that just points into the Home Depot parking lot. I don't see them at target. It's gross but I think the cohort of America that watches Fox News all day probably loves these things because they've been brainwashed with crime reports that are disproportionate from reality.
- clickclackk 6mo ago
  I believe home depot themselves put up these cameras.
  - kylehotchkiss 6mo ago
    Cringe. I'll try to shop at other hardware stores going forward, thanks.
    - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
      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.
      - tt24 6mo ago
        Truly a difficult choice. One side fights against government bullying and the other… put security cameras up. Decisions, decisions
        cucumber3732842 6mo ago
        Both sides are government bullying with slightly different paths to abstract/obfuscate it away. Sure, hairs can be split over the exact nature and amount if desired.
teaearlgraycold 6mo ago
> 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).

by schlap 6mo ago

noodlesUK 6mo ago

I think this echoes very true in a lot of places, not just in the US. Here in the UK I'm pretty sure the police/the state more broadly know perfectly well who is doing a lot of the low level quality-of-life crime in most areas, but for structural reasons either can't or won't bother acting in many instances. Investigative work has never been easier: oftentimes there's multiple cctv angles of offences being committed, endless digital records, etc., but unless something can be done with this information in the real world, it's useless and actually takes resources away from other areas of public services. Increasing the quality of the panopticon has all the downsides we talk about regularly on HN, and if you can't do anything useful for society with the data, it only ends up hurting people.

FireBeyond 6mo ago

> These companies build this tech in SF and Seattle, cities with some of the gnarliest public safety problems in the country I live just outside Seattle. I worked for Flock. Flock is a company based in Atlanta GA.

superfrank 6mo ago
Axon, on the other hand, does have a decent sized Seattle presence.
- fblp 6mo ago
  Axon seems to be the defacto standard for body cameras but I don't know much about them...
  - dghlsakjg 6mo ago
    They are formerly known as TASER, after their best known product. They already had relationships with almost every department in North America so they became an easy choice for bodycams.
dghlsakjg 6mo ago
Also worth pointing out that Seattle and SF - despite their portrayal in the media - aren’t particularly violent places. Their violent crime rates are less than half the leading cities. Both Seattle and SF have lower violent crime rates than Salt Lake City. N.b. property crime is different and is a much less reliable metric. Both cities are ranked higher for property crime, but still below the famously dangerous Salt Lake City.

52-6F-62 6mo ago

> But that's the whole appeal for bureaucrats. I don't think it's the bureaucrats. You should hear the Flock CEO talk. They have made it very public that their direct intent is to influence government policy in sweeping and total fashion to enable their service to be the mass surveillance tool of the near future. They sincerely believe that people will look back on them as the saviours of mankind.

ryandrake 6mo ago

> They just make life harder for regular people. "Making life harder for people [in the other tribe]" has become a core platform for a great many politicians. There's growing movement advocating that one of the major purposes of government is to grief people you don't like. Looked at through that lens, blanketing small towns with these things, with a plan to use them against "Those People," makes complete sense.

vel0city 6mo ago

> These companies build this tech in SF and Seattle Flock's headquarters and largest offices are in Atlanta. They also have an office in Boston. Ring's headquarters were in Santa Monica until post-acquisition they moved to Hawthorne, CA. Arlo's offices are in Carlsbad and San Jose. Ok, finally an office in the Bay Area (one of two main offices), but still not San Francisco.

cucumber3732842 6mo ago
>They also have an office in Boston. That would be one of my seconnd pick for talent pool if I wanted to get at people who'd be exited to build 1984. Behind DC, of course.

jamiequint 6mo ago

"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.

ggoo 6mo ago
Surveillance tech can alter peoples behavior. I know I'm personally more stressed when I know I'm being filmed, even if I'm doing nothing wrong. https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2024/1/niae039/7920510?login=false https://academic.oup.com/nc/article/2024/1/niae039/7920510?l...
- jamiequint 6mo ago
  Untrue at a population level, just compare anxiety disorders and self-reported anxiety between USA and China.
  - qbit42 6mo ago
    There are certainly no other causal factors... I'm not saying that it couldn't be true, but we have no way of concluding that from just comparing such rates. There are many differences in daily life and thresholds for reporting beyond surveillance levels.
  - Barrin92 6mo ago
    anxiety in the sense you're talking about is a function of private surveillance and in that regard America is much worse. State led surveillance in Chinese public spaces is real and effective in producing compliance (20 years ago public theft, pulling people off motorcycles was a daily occurrence) but in private China is a significantly freer society. Foucault used to distinguish between models of authority that operate on "make die and let live" vs "let die and make live". China's the former, the US with its moral busybodies both in progressive and religious flavors the latter. The US now is a society of public disorder and personal policing, China is a society of public order and largely indifference in private life. Of course the former creates anxiety. American Beauty, a film about permanent surveillance without any state, would make no sense in China.

kylehotchkiss 6mo ago

Agreed. I live in a city that's top 5% of safest cities in CA and these cameras have sprouted up everywhere. I reached out to my cities representative about it and he ignored my outreach (nice thing about instagram - that "read" indicator!). The most blatant is one that just points into the Home Depot parking lot. I don't see them at target. It's gross but I think the cohort of America that watches Fox News all day probably loves these things because they've been brainwashed with crime reports that are disproportionate from reality.

clickclackk 6mo ago
I believe home depot themselves put up these cameras.
- kylehotchkiss 6mo ago
  Cringe. I'll try to shop at other hardware stores going forward, thanks.
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    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.
    - tt24 6mo ago
      Truly a difficult choice. One side fights against government bullying and the other… put security cameras up. Decisions, decisions
      - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
        Both sides are government bullying with slightly different paths to abstract/obfuscate it away. Sure, hairs can be split over the exact nature and amount if desired.

teaearlgraycold 6mo ago

> 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).