4 ms·

Flock should be shut down and their entire c-suite should be sent to prison for human rights violations Also, not just an isolated incident: https://youtu.be/8

• lotsofpulp 5mo ago
  Why punish the employees of a business when the root cause is corrupt government employees abusing their power? Edit to respond to smt88: IBM knowingly selling services to the Nazis specifically to violate human rights is not the same as Flock selling services to cops to aid in identification. In addition, going after 1 business is simply an inefficient use of resources, when the government employees can simply use a different business to abuse their power.
  • LocalH 5mo ago
    I didn't say the employees should be imprisoned. I said the c-suite, the ones actually in charge. They're enabling these cops to be lazy and not do their job properly, and have directly contributed to numerous human rights violations.
    • lotsofpulp 5mo ago
      C Suite are employees too. I do not see them breaking any laws, but I do see government employees abusing their power, if not breaking the law.
      • toast0 5mo ago
        C-suite are officers. Officers have more responsibility.
      • toast0 5mo ago
        C-suite are officers. Officers have more responsibility for the conduct of the company than employees.
      • anigbrowl 5mo ago
        No they're not, they're executives who can only be fired by the board. Equating them with line-level employees is somewhere between naive and isingenuous.
      • LocalH 5mo ago
        Sure, and Elon Musk is just a Twitter employee
      • jumpconc 5mo ago
        C-Suite are the top level of the company. Above them is only the board of directors, whose power is limited to firing the C-Suite if they don't like what they're doing. In day to day operations, the C-Suite controls the entire company.
  • smt88 5mo ago
    Do you think IBM executives should've been punished for facilitating the Nazi war machine after WW2? If you sell a tool and know that it'll be used for evil, are you innocent?
    • LocalH 5mo ago
      > Do you think IBM executives should've been punished for facilitating the Nazi war machine after WW2? Emphatic yes Bayer lost their exclusive rights to aspirin because they aided the Central Powers during WW1
  • Zigurd 5mo ago
    Your question is too unspecific. We're talking about cop tech and surveillance, which has a very specific business ecosystem.
  • smt88 5mo ago
    Why didn't you just respond to my comment instead of editing? Anyway you didn't explain how IBM and Flock are different. Flock's work has already resulted in innocent citizens getting murdered extrajudiciously.
• analogpixel 5mo ago
  maybe we could start small, just add the entire c-suite to the warrant list and shrug when they tell people to take them off.
  • LocalH 5mo ago
    The cops won't do that because they'd rather be lazy and let Flock do their investigative work for them
• efitz 5mo ago
  Flock is doing something I find unethical, even immoral, but maybe not illegal. I want people who break the law to go to jail. I don’t care if they’re cops or c-suite execs. But what I really want is laws (preferably federal) that make it illegal to build systems that can be used for mass surveillance, and I want law enforcement to HAVE to get a warrant to receive data from surveillance companies, even if they offer it without a warrant, because I want oversight.
  • bigyabai 5mo ago
    > make it illegal to build systems that can be used for mass surveillance Is such a law realistically enforceable? A lot of the surveillance systems used today are benign services like Push Notifications, SMS and online filesharing sites. A significantly motivated threat actor (like the NSA, Unit 8200, Salt Typhoon, etc.) would have no problem appropriating that data for themselves. Something like an oversight committee might work better, but there would be a bipartisan effort to neuter them the moment they take action.
  • munk-a 5mo ago
    We live in a strange time politically where the consensus on ethics is incredibly detached from justice. There is a danger in giving in to mob rules when it comes to the legal system but at this point we've wandered too far in the other direction with clear corruption around Flynn, Ticketmaster and others. I simply don't find the argument that something isn't illegal compelling anymore since our justice system is so deeply misaligned with society. We live in the era of grift.
    • JuniperMesos 5mo ago
      What sorts of things are you personally doing that aren't illegal, but that someone would want to imprison you for because they think you are unsympathetic for some reason and no longer find the argument that what you're doing isn't illegal to be compelling?
  • josefresco 5mo ago
    > but maybe not illegal We won't know for years/decades. This type of corporate malfeasance it being institutionalized at the highest levels.
• readthenotes1 5mo ago
  "We need strong laws preventing any AI process from being used for law enforcement at all. The mere presence of AI at any step in the process should result in complete exoneration." Why? It seems to me that the biggest problem with policing is qualified immunity that prevents proper feedback (or what my dad would have called "consequences"). Without that, the tools the police use are largely irrelevant.
  • LocalH 5mo ago
    Good luck ending qualified immunity. The current SCOTUS would strike such a law down in seconds if it reached their docket
    • Zigurd 5mo ago
      Colorado and New Mexico do not have qualified immunity for law-enforcement. It's not carved in stone and it's not inevitable. If your state has ballot questions, it's time to get that on the ballot at the next possible opportunity.