5 ms·

Right and what if lots of crime happens in a place where there are not many businesses? Hardly an implausible scenario given that crime is bad for business. Th

Right and what if lots of crime happens in a place where there are not many businesses? Hardly an implausible scenario given that crime is bad for business. The city can set up its own camera for its own use. Is that really that wild of a proposal?

asveikau 4mo ago
What if what if what if? That whole premise of "what if lots of crime happens" -- already false. Did you know that most places in America are at historically low crime rates in most of our lifetimes? It is garbage to say this needs deep societal focus right now. I don't give a shit about the hypothetical hurt feelings of small town cops whining that they don't have always-on spy equipment.
- cogman10 4mo ago
  In fact, there's a pretty strong argument that the reason crime has decreased so much in the US is because we've put strict controls and protections limiting lead in the environment. We do still need deep societal focus, but that's mostly around things like further getting lead out of homes and pipes.
- Manuel_D 4mo ago
  Historically low American crime rates are still several times higher than most of the developed world.
  - asveikau 4mo ago
    Look how much you've moved the goalposts. First Seattle. Then it's: what about small towns? Now we suddenly have an additional requirement of matching stats from a different country. Narrower and narrower the scope gets, before you admit that you're thinking about this the wrong way.
    - Manuel_D 4mo ago
      When did I ever mention small towns?
chmod775 4mo ago
What if lots of murders happened in bathrooms?
- Manuel_D 4mo ago
  The hopefully we'll be able to at least narrow down the list of suspects to the people who entered the bathroom around the time they the murder took place. Surveillance often doesn't directly capture crime on camera, but is rather used to identify who traveled to and from the crime scene around the time of the incident
  - etchalon 4mo ago
    You understand why that's worse, right?
    - Manuel_D 4mo ago
      No? If someone broke into your car as stole your luggage, the surveillance camera might not directly capture the thief breaking into your car. But if the camera recorded someone entering the parking garage and then exiting the garage carrying your luggage a few minutes later, that's strong evidence is it not?
      - etchalon 4mo ago
        You're missing the part where, for that to work, we have a government with access to a massive surveillance system capable of identifying and tracking the population at scale. And you're missing that, instead of specifically identifying a specific individual doing a specific thing, this network would be used to place under suspicion, investigation and possible arrest, people who's only documented action was "being somewhere." Oh, and while your example is "committed a crime", that same network could easily be used to identity and track people who were, say, coming and going from protests. Or libraries. Or voting.
        Manuel_D 4mo ago
LocalH 4mo ago
That is not this, however. This is the city hooking into a private, nationwide surveillance network. You didn't think these cities actually own these Flock cameras, did you?
- ocdtrekkie 4mo ago
  They pay to have them installed and maintained, they're not different in that sense from subscribing to Office 365 licensing, it's a subscription product. They key difference is not whether they own their cameras but the automatic data sharing with other agencies and their cameras. Arguably law enforcement does this casually on request anyways but the drastically reduced friction of an automatic system enables easy abuse. An officer may hesitate to ask a neighboring agency for data on their girlfriend, and would likely be very hesitant to file actual paperwork to request it. But a search in Flock's interface is probably all of the same legal peril in a venue which doesn't feel as intimidating or risky to do and doesn't see the same level of human review or scrutiny.
etchalon 4mo ago
In America, yes. Obviously in other places, no.
Ancapistani 4mo ago
While I would oppose a city setting up CCTV to be used the way Flock is used - that would be orders of magnitude less bad than Flock. As it is, you can assume that at the very least, every time your vehicle has passed one of the >100k Flock cameras, there's a database entry and a photo that will never, ever be deleted. Your full travel history from this point forward is available for a nominal fee, and without any regard for your privacy.
- Manuel_D 4mo ago
  Who says the city's retention period would be smaller than Flock? Furthermore, do you realize that you're free to photograph people in public and sell those images, no permission required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person.
  - GrinningFool 4mo ago
    "Anyone can record you at any time in public" is vastly different from "a single entity is recording you over time and locations across the country/state/city"
  - pesus 4mo ago
    > People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. Maybe this needs to be restricted in some capacity, then.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
  - Ancapistani 4mo ago
    The city's scope is smaller than Flock's - it's a city, not a multi-national corporation. Yes, I'm aware of what "expectation of privacy" means. I've been a photographer for ~25 years. > People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person. This isn't about recording in public - it's about building a comprehensive dataset containing the movement and association history of the entire US population. Not only is that without a warrant, it's being collected prior to any accusation being made.

asveikau 4mo ago

What if what if what if? That whole premise of "what if lots of crime happens" -- already false. Did you know that most places in America are at historically low crime rates in most of our lifetimes? It is garbage to say this needs deep societal focus right now. I don't give a shit about the hypothetical hurt feelings of small town cops whining that they don't have always-on spy equipment.

cogman10 4mo ago
In fact, there's a pretty strong argument that the reason crime has decreased so much in the US is because we've put strict controls and protections limiting lead in the environment. We do still need deep societal focus, but that's mostly around things like further getting lead out of homes and pipes.
Manuel_D 4mo ago
Historically low American crime rates are still several times higher than most of the developed world.
- asveikau 4mo ago
  Look how much you've moved the goalposts. First Seattle. Then it's: what about small towns? Now we suddenly have an additional requirement of matching stats from a different country. Narrower and narrower the scope gets, before you admit that you're thinking about this the wrong way.
  - Manuel_D 4mo ago
    When did I ever mention small towns?

chmod775 4mo ago

What if lots of murders happened in bathrooms?

Manuel_D 4mo ago
The hopefully we'll be able to at least narrow down the list of suspects to the people who entered the bathroom around the time they the murder took place. Surveillance often doesn't directly capture crime on camera, but is rather used to identify who traveled to and from the crime scene around the time of the incident
- etchalon 4mo ago
  You understand why that's worse, right?
  - Manuel_D 4mo ago
    No? If someone broke into your car as stole your luggage, the surveillance camera might not directly capture the thief breaking into your car. But if the camera recorded someone entering the parking garage and then exiting the garage carrying your luggage a few minutes later, that's strong evidence is it not?
    - etchalon 4mo ago
      You're missing the part where, for that to work, we have a government with access to a massive surveillance system capable of identifying and tracking the population at scale. And you're missing that, instead of specifically identifying a specific individual doing a specific thing, this network would be used to place under suspicion, investigation and possible arrest, people who's only documented action was "being somewhere." Oh, and while your example is "committed a crime", that same network could easily be used to identity and track people who were, say, coming and going from protests. Or libraries. Or voting.
      - Manuel_D 4mo ago

LocalH 4mo ago

That is not this, however. This is the city hooking into a private, nationwide surveillance network. You didn't think these cities actually own these Flock cameras, did you?

ocdtrekkie 4mo ago
They pay to have them installed and maintained, they're not different in that sense from subscribing to Office 365 licensing, it's a subscription product. They key difference is not whether they own their cameras but the automatic data sharing with other agencies and their cameras. Arguably law enforcement does this casually on request anyways but the drastically reduced friction of an automatic system enables easy abuse. An officer may hesitate to ask a neighboring agency for data on their girlfriend, and would likely be very hesitant to file actual paperwork to request it. But a search in Flock's interface is probably all of the same legal peril in a venue which doesn't feel as intimidating or risky to do and doesn't see the same level of human review or scrutiny.

etchalon 4mo ago

In America, yes. Obviously in other places, no.

Ancapistani 4mo ago

While I would oppose a city setting up CCTV to be used the way Flock is used - that would be orders of magnitude less bad than Flock. As it is, you can assume that at the very least, every time your vehicle has passed one of the >100k Flock cameras, there's a database entry and a photo that will never, ever be deleted. Your full travel history from this point forward is available for a nominal fee, and without any regard for your privacy.

Manuel_D 4mo ago
Who says the city's retention period would be smaller than Flock? Furthermore, do you realize that you're free to photograph people in public and sell those images, no permission required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nussenzweig_v._DiCorcia People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person.
- GrinningFool 4mo ago
  "Anyone can record you at any time in public" is vastly different from "a single entity is recording you over time and locations across the country/state/city"
- pesus 4mo ago
  > People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. Maybe this needs to be restricted in some capacity, then.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
- Ancapistani 4mo ago
  The city's scope is smaller than Flock's - it's a city, not a multi-national corporation. Yes, I'm aware of what "expectation of privacy" means. I've been a photographer for ~25 years. > People seem to struggle to wrap their head around the fact that privacy laws don't prevent people from recording them in public. You can be recorded at any time in public, by the government or another private person. This isn't about recording in public - it's about building a comprehensive dataset containing the movement and association history of the entire US population. Not only is that without a warrant, it's being collected prior to any accusation being made.