4 ms·

> this story has have nothing to do with the cameras or AI This story wouldn't exist without flock cameras constantly surveilling the public...cameras have EVE

> this story has have nothing to do with the cameras or AI This story wouldn't exist without flock cameras constantly surveilling the public...cameras have EVERYTHING to do with this story.

pj_mukh 5mo ago
"Law enforcement is setting up a multi-county dragnet by putting every version or mistype of a license plate into a warrant list" wouldn't be a story? It should be! We should have a higher standard for the people with guns and a badge on the street.
- LocalH 5mo ago
  Flock is the problem too because their system is enabling the rights violations to scale up.
  - tcp_handshaker 5mo ago
    Its by design. By using a third party, they can get around the 4th amendment.
    - LocalH 5mo ago
      Using a third-party to bypass legal restrictions should in and of itself be considered willful and knowledgeable intent to violate the Constitution under color of law, regardless of the specific actions taken
    - _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
      How are they not an 'agent of the state' and how does the 4th not apply? If the government asked for the scan/info on the vehicle, they are acting on behalf of the government? https://www.fletc.gov/audio/definition-government-agent-under-4th-amendment-mp3 https://www.fletc.gov/audio/definition-government-agent-unde...
      - ranger_danger 5mo ago
        Flock claims that "Fourth Amendment case law overwhelmingly shows that LPRs do not constitute a warrantless search because they take point-in-time photos of cars" And that may be true, however Carpenter v. US established that long-term tracking of a person's location without a warrant is still not allowed under the Fourth Amendment.
    - ranger_danger 5mo ago
      I'm not convinced they can always get around it... I think they could challenge their arrest in court on Fourth Amendment grounds and have a chance at winning: https://epic.org/vehicle-fingerprinting-through-pervasive-camera-surveillance-likely-violates-fourth-amendment-court-finds/ https://epic.org/vehicle-fingerprinting-through-pervasive-ca... >In the 2018 case Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court affirmed that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their long term movements (even in public spaces) and, because of that expectation, queries into long term location tracking data constitute a Fourth Amendment search that requires a warrant. I suppose they would also have to argue that they are not the actual target of the warrant.
      - joquarky 5mo ago
        That's all fine until you learn about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
        ranger_danger 5mo ago
        My problem with this is that Flock explicitly does not manage their own equipment or store data obtained by cameras installed by their customers on any Flock-owned servers, so I'm not sure how they would be tipped off to anyone from outside the police department. And if that did happen, I feel like one could have a strong case against it by claiming that there is no reasonable way to have had that information without obtaining it illegally.
  - kayfox 5mo ago
    Flock can also fix this by validating the description of the target vehicle against the detected vehicle. The dispatch backend can fix this by annotating this warrant with a warning that its not this particular vehicle. Police themselves can fix this by being a human check on dumb entries in computer systems.
    - LocalH 5mo ago
      As we've seen with multiple incidents across the country, police largely don't want to be a human check. They want the computer to tell them who to arrest, regardless of facts in reality.
mlmonkey 5mo ago
This wouldn't be a story if the cops did not put the wrong license plate in the system. How is it Flock's fault? Flock is just doing what it is being asked to do! Let me put in simple terms: Flock flags license plates that are given to it. Someone, somewhere says, license plate "ABCD1234" has a warrant out. And guess what, if Flock sees that plate, it _will_ flag it each. and. every. time! Tomorrow, say an "Amber Alert" is issued for a pink Ford Taurus with plate "PINKLADY" (when in fact it was a red Taurus with the plate "MADLAD"). Don't you think anyone driving around in a pink Ford Taurus with that plate should be pulled over?
- chimpanzee 5mo ago
  > Flock is just doing what it is being asked to do! Well then clearly they are not a problem.
  - rationalist 5mo ago
    Hmm, I wonder what Flock proponents would say when immediately asked about guns, after all, it's just a machine doing what it is being asked to do!
    - LocalH 5mo ago
      they'd only support fully AI-driven guns with zero oversight
    - dylan604 5mo ago
      This is precisely what they mean when they say "guns don't kill people, bad people with guns kill people"
      - antonvs 5mo ago
        What that statement misses is that guns make people bad.
    - jjk166 5mo ago
      Are we up in arms about gun manufacturers selling guns to the police because police sometimes misuse them?
JuniperMesos 5mo ago
This story also wouldn't exist without license plates. License plates are IDs into a state registry of cars prominently placed on the car, in order to make it easy for anyone who sees it, including cops, to identify that car to the criminal justice bureaucracy later. The same issues with Flock cameras correctly identifying the letters and numbers on the plate and then informing law enforcement, which uses them as an index into a corrupted database, apply to any other system, including a human being looking at the car. Any argument for getting rid of Flock cameras for this reason also applies to getting rid of license plates themselves. And maybe we should get rid of license plates. What breaks if we abolish them, and neither cops nor anyone else is capable of running a license plate number search on the non-existent license plates of the cars around them?

> this story has have nothing to do with the cameras or AI This story wouldn't exist without flock cameras constantly surveilling the public...cameras have EVERYTHING to do with this story.

pj_mukh 5mo ago

"Law enforcement is setting up a multi-county dragnet by putting every version or mistype of a license plate into a warrant list" wouldn't be a story? It should be! We should have a higher standard for the people with guns and a badge on the street.

LocalH 5mo ago
Flock is the problem too because their system is enabling the rights violations to scale up.
- tcp_handshaker 5mo ago
  Its by design. By using a third party, they can get around the 4th amendment.
  - LocalH 5mo ago
    Using a third-party to bypass legal restrictions should in and of itself be considered willful and knowledgeable intent to violate the Constitution under color of law, regardless of the specific actions taken
  - _DeadFred_ 5mo ago
    How are they not an 'agent of the state' and how does the 4th not apply? If the government asked for the scan/info on the vehicle, they are acting on behalf of the government? https://www.fletc.gov/audio/definition-government-agent-under-4th-amendment-mp3 https://www.fletc.gov/audio/definition-government-agent-unde...
    - ranger_danger 5mo ago
      Flock claims that "Fourth Amendment case law overwhelmingly shows that LPRs do not constitute a warrantless search because they take point-in-time photos of cars" And that may be true, however Carpenter v. US established that long-term tracking of a person's location without a warrant is still not allowed under the Fourth Amendment.
  - ranger_danger 5mo ago
    I'm not convinced they can always get around it... I think they could challenge their arrest in court on Fourth Amendment grounds and have a chance at winning: https://epic.org/vehicle-fingerprinting-through-pervasive-camera-surveillance-likely-violates-fourth-amendment-court-finds/ https://epic.org/vehicle-fingerprinting-through-pervasive-ca... >In the 2018 case Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court affirmed that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their long term movements (even in public spaces) and, because of that expectation, queries into long term location tracking data constitute a Fourth Amendment search that requires a warrant. I suppose they would also have to argue that they are not the actual target of the warrant.
    - joquarky 5mo ago
      That's all fine until you learn about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
      - ranger_danger 5mo ago
        My problem with this is that Flock explicitly does not manage their own equipment or store data obtained by cameras installed by their customers on any Flock-owned servers, so I'm not sure how they would be tipped off to anyone from outside the police department. And if that did happen, I feel like one could have a strong case against it by claiming that there is no reasonable way to have had that information without obtaining it illegally.
- kayfox 5mo ago
  Flock can also fix this by validating the description of the target vehicle against the detected vehicle. The dispatch backend can fix this by annotating this warrant with a warning that its not this particular vehicle. Police themselves can fix this by being a human check on dumb entries in computer systems.
  - LocalH 5mo ago
    As we've seen with multiple incidents across the country, police largely don't want to be a human check. They want the computer to tell them who to arrest, regardless of facts in reality.

mlmonkey 5mo ago

This wouldn't be a story if the cops did not put the wrong license plate in the system. How is it Flock's fault? Flock is just doing what it is being asked to do! Let me put in simple terms: Flock flags license plates that are given to it. Someone, somewhere says, license plate "ABCD1234" has a warrant out. And guess what, if Flock sees that plate, it _will_ flag it each. and. every. time! Tomorrow, say an "Amber Alert" is issued for a pink Ford Taurus with plate "PINKLADY" (when in fact it was a red Taurus with the plate "MADLAD"). Don't you think anyone driving around in a pink Ford Taurus with that plate should be pulled over?

chimpanzee 5mo ago
> Flock is just doing what it is being asked to do! Well then clearly they are not a problem.
- rationalist 5mo ago
  Hmm, I wonder what Flock proponents would say when immediately asked about guns, after all, it's just a machine doing what it is being asked to do!
  - LocalH 5mo ago
    they'd only support fully AI-driven guns with zero oversight
  - dylan604 5mo ago
    This is precisely what they mean when they say "guns don't kill people, bad people with guns kill people"
    - antonvs 5mo ago
      What that statement misses is that guns make people bad.
  - jjk166 5mo ago
    Are we up in arms about gun manufacturers selling guns to the police because police sometimes misuse them?

JuniperMesos 5mo ago

This story also wouldn't exist without license plates. License plates are IDs into a state registry of cars prominently placed on the car, in order to make it easy for anyone who sees it, including cops, to identify that car to the criminal justice bureaucracy later. The same issues with Flock cameras correctly identifying the letters and numbers on the plate and then informing law enforcement, which uses them as an index into a corrupted database, apply to any other system, including a human being looking at the car. Any argument for getting rid of Flock cameras for this reason also applies to getting rid of license plates themselves. And maybe we should get rid of license plates. What breaks if we abolish them, and neither cops nor anyone else is capable of running a license plate number search on the non-existent license plates of the cars around them?