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After Town Bans Flock, Councilmember Crashes Out, Proposes Internet, Phone Ban
- arikrahman 5mo agoI was expecting the headline to be sensational but a crash out was exactly what happened. The bad faith non-sequiturs is the cherry on top.
- mckn1ght 5mo ago[flagged]
- tekno45 5mo agoThe future is now old man.
- nemomarx 5mo agoWhy is the revealed preference of "I don't want to have a contract with a specific notorious company" mapped to "I don't want Internet at all" here? Maybe he should have proposed banning Comcast or another notorious company.
- mckn1ght 5mo agoThat’s not a revealed preference, but a stated one. My guess is that the councilman perceives the revealed preference to be: “I’m willing to give up privacy for convenience” and this is a way to get people to examine why they want certain conveniences at the cost of privacy, like doordash, netflix, facebook marketplace or group messages, vs others where they say they don’t, like convenience of law enforcement to track down criminals.
- sensen 5mo agoHonestly, there are ways to advocate for better digital privacy without the need to entirely dismantle modern day life.. Arguments like this are counterproductive and are made in bad faith, suggesting that privacy is an all or nothing approach. Comparing Flowers' total ban on all technology to "A Modest proposal" is incredibly troublesome. His argument seems to be designed to show that privacy is impossible and that government overreach is inevitable and reasonable. He's not challenging existing power structures in any way, but aims to legitimize it. "Crash out" might not be the best term, but I think it helps to emphasize how unreasonable his position is in this matter.
- mckn1ght 5mo agoFWIW I agree he’s not taking a good approach, it does sound like he’s flipping the bird on the way out due to frustration with not getting his way. I also agree that government overreach should not be inevitable and is not reasonable. But I also agree that privacy is actually already much more eroded than the average citizen realizes. For that reason, I agree there are actually better places to put ones effort than banning LPRs. For instance, tech companies like those I mentioned should face stricter regulations than they do today. Now, Flock would be party to that itself as it is collecting highly sensitive data. But operating in a regulated environment is not the same as being prohibited from operating at all. Generally speaking, I think machines that cause death and destruction and provide easy escape from crime scenes should be monitored while operating in public domains, where externalities of bad behavior can be foisted upon innocent parties. For the same reason, I also think speed and red light cameras should be a thing. Yes yes, then municipalities will shorten yellow light durations… this is an example of a pathological edge case than can be remedied, and doesn’t warrant throwing out the baby with the bathwater, IMO. We should also consider that the privacy concerns being raised against LPRs are also edge cases. Can’t we have the benefits of LPRs as well as systems that prevent and punish abuses of such technology?
- dpark 5mo ago> I think machines that cause death and destruction and provide easy escape from crime scenes should be monitored while operating in public domains This ignores the other issues that come with these systems. People concerned with Flock cameras are largely not complaining about catching criminals. > We should also consider that the privacy concerns being raised against LPRs are also edge cases. Can’t we have the benefits of LPRs as well as systems that prevent and punish abuses of such technology? These aren’t really edge cases. Abuses of surveillance systems seem ubiquitous and rarely are punished. The US is a nation where a man was put in jail for over a month for posting an anti Trump meme and it seems literally nothing will happen to the people who did this to him. We seem categorically unable to punish abuse of power for some reason.
- SpicyLemonZest 5mo ago[flagged]
- nemomarx 5mo agoanecdotes about whether people like Flock cameras where they live are kinda useful, I think? maybe it'll inspire other city council votes elsewhere
- SpicyLemonZest 5mo agoAnecdotes about whether people like Flock cameras are useful. Anecdotes about how one specific guy who likes Flock made an overheated analogy are not useful. The author conflating the two is a dictionary-perfect example of sensationalism.
- johnnyanmac 5mo ago> Anecdotes about how one specific guy who likes Flock made an overheated analogy are not useful. You haven't been on social media the last decade, have yoh? We're no longer in times where (if we ever were) of the most eloquent, subtle, balanced argument winning over elected representatives.
- msabalau 5mo agoThat's an odd way of viewing it. Having the reporting from the local paper amplified outside the immediate community strengthens the signal, and supports the general norm of holding officials accountable. "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main"
- SpicyLemonZest 5mo agoStrengthens what signal? The local coverage does not say anything about "crashing out". It states that the council has voted to terminate the contract after an initial approval, in response to public opposition, and publishes a dissenting statement from one of the councilmembers in full. The author could have amplified that non-sensational article and tied it in with the Youtube clips and other non-sensational articles he found; there's good journalism lurking in here. But instead he wanted to be sensational.
- tclancy 5mo agoYeah, it's even worse because the Johnathan Swift reference makes clear just how I Am Very Smart this dude is.
- mghackerlady 5mo agoIt would maybe be fine if it was just, like, one modest proposal instead of three of them
- tclancy 5mo agoDoes feel immodest.
- ofjcihen 5mo ago[flagged]
- davidu 5mo agoThis has not happened with Flock, nor have they ever been credibly accused of this. And what a weak conspiracy style post to insinuate it has.
- kotaKat 5mo agolol ok https://www.flocksafety.com/refer https://www.flocksafety.com/refer
- davidu 5mo ago[flagged]
- kotaKat 5mo ago"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- arkadiytehgraet 5mo agoIt's really telling how davidu, a GP at a16z, investor in Flock, author of https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-flock-safety/ https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-flock-safety/ is losing his mind about his investment being called out on corruption, which adds even more credulity to the accusation.
- davidu 5mo agoHow is it more telling or adding more credulity? Wouldn’t I be in a strong position to know? And how am I losing my mind?
- dogleash 5mo ago
- fred_is_fred 5mo agoDoes Texas have open records law for politicians? He's taking this personally, which means he has a personal stake in the outcome.
- zikduruqe 5mo agoProbably. https://deflock.org/foia https://deflock.org/foia
- dogleash 5mo agoDoesn't he know you have to be tech-coded to have unhinged takes on the necessity and inevitability of ubiquitous intrusive surveillance and be taken seriously?
- wagwang 5mo ago:) he's not wrong, it is all surveillance
- VoidWhisperer 5mo agoSince these town council members are elected, I hope this guy has no aspirations of getting elected again, because he basically just showed everyone in his town that he can't be reasonable - that it is either none (no electronics at all) or all (privacy invading stuff like Flock)
- OkayPhysicist 5mo agoIt's Texas. Being reasonable is not a prerequisite for winning elections. If anything, it's a handicap.
- kube-system 5mo agoSounds like it is the ripe time for others to respond earnestly with a GDPR-like proposal for all internet and phone providers :)
- curiouser2 5mo agohttps://archive.is/WGZoe https://archive.is/WGZoe
- 0xbadcafebee 5mo agoDo they not get that surveillance doesn't actually make anything safe? It makes it so you can prosecute after the crime has already been committed. It's not like thieves will go "I was going to rob this 7-11, but damn, they have security cameras inside!" The cameras are there to intimidate. Criminals aren't intimidated by prison time.
- kspacewalk2 5mo agoThe argument about surveillance isn't whether it helps catch criminals (which obviously prevents some further crime), it obviously does. And yes, security cameras make places harder targets for thieves and robbers and criminals are intimidated by prison time. This seems almost axiomatically so to me, not sure what your argument against this could conceivably be. The argument about surveillance is whether the negative trade-off (lack of privacy) is worth it.
- ianm218 5mo agoI responded to OP but he correct that criminals are not overly concerned by amount of prison time but the act of being apprehended itself https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/670398 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/670398. Flock is still awful though
- kspacewalk2 5mo agoWell, I'd say security cams and Flock affect the likelihood of apprehending a suspect, not so much the amount of prison time, so the argument still holds - you can't claim they won't have an effect.
- ianm218 5mo agoTo steelman the other side of this - you are basically wrong. One of the strongest deterrants for crime is how likely people think they are to be apprehended. If people were basically certain they would be caught their propensity for crime is low. [1]. Criminals aren't intimidated by prison time you are right but they are intimidated by getting apprehended. Now I hate the idea of Flock and think we should basically fully ban facial recognition technology, license plate readers, and similar topics. It is just too dangerous if the wrong people get in power. But we should make sure we are making real, fact based arguments. [1]. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/670398 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/670398
- beepbooptheory 5mo agoJust wanna say I am happy 404media is, presumably, not banned here anymore!
- Bender 5mo agoDoes not appear to be any more. [1] If I remember correctly dang said that at one point the site required membership to view articles. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co
- tptacek 5mo ago[flagged]
- johnnyanmac 5mo agoDismissing the action of local politics is exactly how we fall to the wayside in larger elections. Most politicians start somewhere, and actions like this should be shamed early on. Secondly, singular emotional appeals work a lot better on convincing a populace than broad statistics. Stories like this will likely be better to push if your goal is changing the mind of the common citizen. People relate more to people than numbers.
- tptacek 5mo agoI do local politics work.
- happytoexplain 5mo agoMe too (town of seven-hundred something). What are you implying in the context of the comment you're replying to? It sounds like everything they said is more or less valid regardless of your experience.
- tptacek 5mo agoI'm saying that I'm not dismissive of local politics. It's the politics I take most seriously and am most engaged with.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- Bender 5mo agoI think it may be useful to send a message to other rookie politicians that there will be blow-back when they have a temper tantrum and threaten to disable the internet. The world if full of these people. Some only become temporary HOA officers but a handful make it past that filter.
- 382hi 5mo agoarchived: https://nonogra.ph/after-town-bans-flock-councilmember-crashes-out-proposes-internet-and-phone-ban-05-20-2026 https://nonogra.ph/after-town-bans-flock-councilmember-crash...
- jayd16 5mo agoHow useful could it be if the poles are vandalized regularly?
- rolph 5mo agoyea, verily, quite usefull as demonstration of enticement to crimes against property, at the behest of such devices.
- everyone 5mo ago[flagged]
- intrikate 5mo ago"...Flowers said, "I believe personally that guilty people act defensively. If you don't have anything to hide, then it shouldn't be a problem." Oh boy, back to this crap again. If that's true, for you to be acting this defensively sure is sending some signal.
- deepsquirrelnet 5mo agoBaked into that is a presumption of justice, which is becoming comically out of touch to the point where that overused phrase could be a meme.
- summermusic 5mo ago"I don't need privacy because my actions are questionable, I need privacy because your judgement and intentions are."
- LocalH 5mo agoCheck his business connections
- psadauskas 5mo agoSomeone should go point a webcam at his house. I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem with it.
- salawat 5mo agoNarcissist's first strike: insist that the people preventing them from getting what they want are the problem, and setting the frame. All you can do is refuse to engage them in the frame, and deny them the luxury of shaping the engagement, which tends to fluster them even more. Hopefully whoever elected this person will have second thoughts and boot them. It's quite clear they are more interested in aggregating power and creating edifi through which to abuse the public than representing them in good faith.
- Bjartr 5mo agoThe link under "would be introducing measures"[1] has the full statement from the councilmember where he describes the proposals he will be bringing: > A Modest Proposal for Digital Device Prohibition: A total ban on all cellular and GPS-capable devices for all operations within city limits. > A Modest Proposal for Total Surveillance Abolition (Residential & Commercial): A total ban on all outward-facing cameras > A Modest Proposal for Total Municipal and Commercial Decommissioning: A total termination of all internet services and electronic record-keeping For those that didn't catch the reference, he's alluding to the 1729 publication by Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels >A Modest Proposal For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick. Which was a satirical work suggesting that the Irish poor's financial woes could be addressed by eating children, thus feeding people while reducing resource demand. [1] https://www.banderabulletin.com/article/3093,council-votes-to-terminate-flock-safety-contract https://www.banderabulletin.com/article/3093,council-votes-t...
- jagged-chisel 5mo agoThose first two are great if adopted by and for their local government office. Third one makes no sense.
- bathtub365 5mo agoOpenly admitting he’ll be wasting taxpayer time and money on frivolous proposals because he didn’t get his way through the democratic process. Thankfully the democratic process can go against him even further and remove him from office at their next opportunity and he can find somewhere else to throw a tantrum.
- tptacek 5mo agoI don't see how you can be at all engaged with local politics and not be familiar with performative (and even temper-tantrumy) proposed resolutions and ordinances. That the resolutions are literally titled "modest proposals" makes this article so much cringier.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo agoFlowers would make a great HN commenter Classic "all-or-nothing", "black and white" argument style It's either one extreme or another If the town wants to ban Flock cameras then surely it also wants to ban all outward-facing cameras, GPS-capable devices, cellular network devices, internet service and electronic record-keeping There is no option to go back to a few years ago before Flock cameras were installed. Nope, the town must go back to "1880, paper ledgers and cash only" Totally absurd
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5mo agoWas 2
- casey2 5mo agoIt's very odd that many town council in the US view their citizens as resources to exploit rather than fellow town members and friends. They should not have such a single minded focus on growth metrics. Leave corporate work to the corporations leave social work to the governments. That's how China does things, e.g. 12345