4 ms·

Abuse by police officers and other individuals with access to these systems is the answer to the stupid but common question "why should I worry about surveillan

by simonw 2mo ago

Abuse by police officers and other individuals with access to these systems is the answer to the stupid but common question "why should I worry about surveillance if I have nothing to hide".

tptacek 2mo ago
I never hear that question from Flock supporters. The question I hear[†] is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?". It's a much harder one to answer than the straw man questions we set up for these things. (To be clear: I think the current generation of ALPRs is a policy failure and that major changes need to happen inside state law enforcement systems before they can be deployed successfully. But I also think people on HN have a real problem in convincing themselves about the obvious righteousness of their anti-surveillance arguments.) [†] I heard arguments like these because I was deeply involved in getting the cameras disabled in the inner-ring Chicago suburb in which I live, getting the first ACLU CCOPS ordinance in Illinois passed there, and helping draft what are probably the most detailed ALPR police General Orders in any municipality, or at least were at the time. Which is a long and pretentious way of saying I spent a lot of time talking to people who are not Very Online.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- aftbit 2mo ago
  What was your answer then?
  - akerl_ 2mo ago
    To spare you the search of his comment history, my memory is that it's roughly: the stolen car databases have tons of cars listed that weren't actually stolen, or have already been recovered, so you end up pulling over a ton of unsuspecting people just driving around.
    - tptacek 2mo ago
      To the actual question people ask, about getting stolen cars off the street, I don't have a good answer. It's a valid point! The stolen cars pose more of a threat to my neighbors than the police do; in reality, the median adult in my neighborhood doesn't believe any of the online rhetoric about how dangerous the police are to begin with. The reason the current generation of ALPR cameras doesn't work is the one you gave. Illinois LEADS was never intended for realtime enforcement and isn't updated reliably, so we ended up pulling over almost as many innocent motorists as we did stolen cars. To that, add: a plurality of all our camera-driven enforcement actions ended up being failure-to-appeal warrant enforcement, which effectively had our police force doing municipal debt collection for other suburbs, at enormous expense.
  - tadfisher 2mo ago
    One answer is that ALPRs have much too high an error rate (John Oliver claims it exceeds 30%) to rely on them for dragnet surveillance. Maybe it makes sense to track specific vehicles, with safeguards such as warrants and also checking make/model/color, but it makes less sense to just give the government a 30-day rolling database of the public's movements in total, especially when 30% of those data points are inaccurate and thus not useful as evidence.
    - tptacek 2mo ago
      I don't know where this stat comes from. It doesn't square with our experience of Flock cameras. There is a truly high error rate in the underlying hotlist data the state maintains and the cameras rely on. But, like, cameras randomly flagging the wrong car, I don't think we saw that happen even once.
      - doc_ick 2mo ago
        Plenty of reports of that
      - _DeadFred_ 2mo ago
        One California town found Flock's license plate cameras were wrong 71% of the time https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/california-town-says-flock-cameras-misread-license-plates-71-of-the-time/ https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/california-town-says-flo...
        tptacek 2mo ago
        Seems implausible, for the reason I gave one comment back.
        doc_ick 2mo ago
        Your comment is anecdotal vs this report.
- Teever 2mo ago
  I see you make frequent comments on this subject and as time goes on I’m starting to have a harder and harder time following them. I’m starting to think that you’re having a conversation with yourself and your perception of people online, not actual people and the things that they’re saying.
- unclebucknasty 2mo ago
  >The question I hear is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?". It's a much harder one to answer than the straw man questions we set up for these things. The "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?" question is just a more specific variant of GP's "nothing to hide" question. i.e., the only people asking it are those who aren't stealing cars, thus have "nothing to hide". The answer is the same.
- AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
  >> Abuse by police officers and other individuals with access to these systems is the answer to the stupid but common question "why should I worry about surveillance if I have nothing to hide". > I never hear that question from Flock supporters. The question I hear is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?" These are the same Constitutional question. In order to determine what cars are stolen, all cars must be inspected. If all cars are inspected, there is a reasonable case that the 4th amendment is being violated: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[0] > But I also think people on HN have a real problem in convincing themselves about the obvious righteousness of their anti-surveillance arguments. See above. 0 - https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/
  - tptacek 2mo ago
    They're not remotely the same Constitutional question. The people asking this aren't saying "I'm fine with being profiled because I've got nothing to hide unlike the people driving stolen cars". They're just as upset about abuses of these systems as you are (though: some of them think these cameras are no more intrusive than cell tower tracking). They just see an upside to the system that privacy advocates refuse to recognize. I get that this sounds like standard-issue message board rhetoric where I'm Mary Sue'ing normies to make my points for me, but I don't agree with my neighbors about this stuff, and you'll probably have to take my word for it that I'm not making any of this up.
    - AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
      >>>> Abuse by police officers and other individuals with access to these systems is the answer to the stupid but common question "why should I worry about surveillance if I have nothing to hide". >>> I never hear that question from Flock supporters. The question I hear is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?" >> These are the same Constitutional question. > They're not remotely the same Constitutional question. They absolutely are the same Constitutional question; surveillance by the State without a warrant supported by probable cause, verified by the judiciary and issued thusly, does not have "an upside" of coincidentally identifying criminality. Remember this portion of the 4th amendment: ... and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. How does ubiquitous surveillance used as evidence whenever possible not violate this section of the Constitution, if not others? And how could the question "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?" be answered without "why should I worry about surveillance if I have nothing to hide" being aligned? They are the same Constitutional question - to accept one is to accept the other.
veec_cas_tant 2mo ago
Maybe for some, but I honestly don't find it very persuasive. The misuse of license plate data wouldn't make my top ten list of potential powers that law enforcement might abuse. Clearly, abuse of any kind of power should not be tolerated, but potential benefits must also be considered. I think the widespread deployment of cameras at businesses and homes provides strong evidence of their benefits. The idea that a crime happens outdoors and the proper course of action is for police to knock on 100 doors to collect grainy doorbell footage is pretty inefficient, to say the least.
- AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
  > The misuse of license plate data wouldn't make my top ten list of potential powers that law enforcement might abuse. Are you sure about that? How about if your license plate were stolen without your knowledge, placed on another vehicle of the same make and model, then photographed leaving the scene of a crime?
  - veec_cas_tant 2mo ago
    Yes, I find that quite unpersuasive. Should we not allow the analysis of hair found at crime scenes because someone might steal some of my hair and place it there? Someone framing me in this manner is incredibly unlikely, would be disproven by the other broad investigative powers afforded to law enforcement, and, at least in my opinion, is ridiculously less likely than the cameras photographing real criminals. And that doesn't even take into account that camera footage is already collected from homes and businesses, just very inefficiently.
    - AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
      > Should we not allow the analysis of hair found at crime scenes because someone might steal some of my hair and place it there? First, I never implied disallowing analysis at a crime scene. What I described is a realistic activity criminals do in order to disguise their identity. Second, "stealing your hair" is a very different thing than stealing license plates off of your vehicle. This should be obvious. > Someone framing me in this manner is incredibly unlikely, would be disproven by the other broad investigative powers afforded to law enforcement, and, at least in my opinion, is ridiculously less likely than the cameras photographing real criminals. The point is that it would be you having to defend yourself for something you did not do. Could you successfully do so? Maybe. It depends on what the crime was and if you could afford a skilled enough lawyer. And therein lies the rub. You would have to drop tens-of-thousands of dollars in defense of your not being one of the "real criminals." Because the police are not going to sit there and say, "gee wiz, veec_cas_tant could not possibly be a 'real criminal' because they said they are being framed!" They are going to say, "we can place you at the scene of the crime."

by simonw 2mo ago

Abuse by police officers and other individuals with access to these systems is the answer to the stupid but common question "why should I worry about surveillance if I have nothing to hide".

tptacek 2mo ago

I never hear that question from Flock supporters. The question I hear[†] is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?". It's a much harder one to answer than the straw man questions we set up for these things. (To be clear: I think the current generation of ALPRs is a policy failure and that major changes need to happen inside state law enforcement systems before they can be deployed successfully. But I also think people on HN have a real problem in convincing themselves about the obvious righteousness of their anti-surveillance arguments.) [†] I heard arguments like these because I was deeply involved in getting the cameras disabled in the inner-ring Chicago suburb in which I live, getting the first ACLU CCOPS ordinance in Illinois passed there, and helping draft what are probably the most detailed ALPR police General Orders in any municipality, or at least were at the time. Which is a long and pretentious way of saying I spent a lot of time talking to people who are not Very Online.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
aftbit 2mo ago
What was your answer then?
- akerl_ 2mo ago
  To spare you the search of his comment history, my memory is that it's roughly: the stolen car databases have tons of cars listed that weren't actually stolen, or have already been recovered, so you end up pulling over a ton of unsuspecting people just driving around.
  - tptacek 2mo ago
    To the actual question people ask, about getting stolen cars off the street, I don't have a good answer. It's a valid point! The stolen cars pose more of a threat to my neighbors than the police do; in reality, the median adult in my neighborhood doesn't believe any of the online rhetoric about how dangerous the police are to begin with. The reason the current generation of ALPR cameras doesn't work is the one you gave. Illinois LEADS was never intended for realtime enforcement and isn't updated reliably, so we ended up pulling over almost as many innocent motorists as we did stolen cars. To that, add: a plurality of all our camera-driven enforcement actions ended up being failure-to-appeal warrant enforcement, which effectively had our police force doing municipal debt collection for other suburbs, at enormous expense.
- tadfisher 2mo ago
  One answer is that ALPRs have much too high an error rate (John Oliver claims it exceeds 30%) to rely on them for dragnet surveillance. Maybe it makes sense to track specific vehicles, with safeguards such as warrants and also checking make/model/color, but it makes less sense to just give the government a 30-day rolling database of the public's movements in total, especially when 30% of those data points are inaccurate and thus not useful as evidence.
  - tptacek 2mo ago
    I don't know where this stat comes from. It doesn't square with our experience of Flock cameras. There is a truly high error rate in the underlying hotlist data the state maintains and the cameras rely on. But, like, cameras randomly flagging the wrong car, I don't think we saw that happen even once.
    - doc_ick 2mo ago
      Plenty of reports of that
    - _DeadFred_ 2mo ago
      One California town found Flock's license plate cameras were wrong 71% of the time https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/california-town-says-flock-cameras-misread-license-plates-71-of-the-time/ https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/06/california-town-says-flo...
      - tptacek 2mo ago
        Seems implausible, for the reason I gave one comment back.
        doc_ick 2mo ago
        Your comment is anecdotal vs this report.
Teever 2mo ago
I see you make frequent comments on this subject and as time goes on I’m starting to have a harder and harder time following them. I’m starting to think that you’re having a conversation with yourself and your perception of people online, not actual people and the things that they’re saying.
unclebucknasty 2mo ago
>The question I hear is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?". It's a much harder one to answer than the straw man questions we set up for these things. The "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?" question is just a more specific variant of GP's "nothing to hide" question. i.e., the only people asking it are those who aren't stealing cars, thus have "nothing to hide". The answer is the same.
AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
>> Abuse by police officers and other individuals with access to these systems is the answer to the stupid but common question "why should I worry about surveillance if I have nothing to hide". > I never hear that question from Flock supporters. The question I hear is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?" These are the same Constitutional question. In order to determine what cars are stolen, all cars must be inspected. If all cars are inspected, there is a reasonable case that the 4th amendment is being violated: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[0] > But I also think people on HN have a real problem in convincing themselves about the obvious righteousness of their anti-surveillance arguments. See above. 0 - https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-4/
- tptacek 2mo ago
  They're not remotely the same Constitutional question. The people asking this aren't saying "I'm fine with being profiled because I've got nothing to hide unlike the people driving stolen cars". They're just as upset about abuses of these systems as you are (though: some of them think these cameras are no more intrusive than cell tower tracking). They just see an upside to the system that privacy advocates refuse to recognize. I get that this sounds like standard-issue message board rhetoric where I'm Mary Sue'ing normies to make my points for me, but I don't agree with my neighbors about this stuff, and you'll probably have to take my word for it that I'm not making any of this up.
  - AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
    >>>> Abuse by police officers and other individuals with access to these systems is the answer to the stupid but common question "why should I worry about surveillance if I have nothing to hide". >>> I never hear that question from Flock supporters. The question I hear is "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?" >> These are the same Constitutional question. > They're not remotely the same Constitutional question. They absolutely are the same Constitutional question; surveillance by the State without a warrant supported by probable cause, verified by the judiciary and issued thusly, does not have "an upside" of coincidentally identifying criminality. Remember this portion of the 4th amendment: ... and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. How does ubiquitous surveillance used as evidence whenever possible not violate this section of the Constitution, if not others? And how could the question "why shouldn't we be pulling over stolen cars?" be answered without "why should I worry about surveillance if I have nothing to hide" being aligned? They are the same Constitutional question - to accept one is to accept the other.

veec_cas_tant 2mo ago

Maybe for some, but I honestly don't find it very persuasive. The misuse of license plate data wouldn't make my top ten list of potential powers that law enforcement might abuse. Clearly, abuse of any kind of power should not be tolerated, but potential benefits must also be considered. I think the widespread deployment of cameras at businesses and homes provides strong evidence of their benefits. The idea that a crime happens outdoors and the proper course of action is for police to knock on 100 doors to collect grainy doorbell footage is pretty inefficient, to say the least.

AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
> The misuse of license plate data wouldn't make my top ten list of potential powers that law enforcement might abuse. Are you sure about that? How about if your license plate were stolen without your knowledge, placed on another vehicle of the same make and model, then photographed leaving the scene of a crime?
- veec_cas_tant 2mo ago
  Yes, I find that quite unpersuasive. Should we not allow the analysis of hair found at crime scenes because someone might steal some of my hair and place it there? Someone framing me in this manner is incredibly unlikely, would be disproven by the other broad investigative powers afforded to law enforcement, and, at least in my opinion, is ridiculously less likely than the cameras photographing real criminals. And that doesn't even take into account that camera footage is already collected from homes and businesses, just very inefficiently.
  - AdieuToLogic 2mo ago
    > Should we not allow the analysis of hair found at crime scenes because someone might steal some of my hair and place it there? First, I never implied disallowing analysis at a crime scene. What I described is a realistic activity criminals do in order to disguise their identity. Second, "stealing your hair" is a very different thing than stealing license plates off of your vehicle. This should be obvious. > Someone framing me in this manner is incredibly unlikely, would be disproven by the other broad investigative powers afforded to law enforcement, and, at least in my opinion, is ridiculously less likely than the cameras photographing real criminals. The point is that it would be you having to defend yourself for something you did not do. Could you successfully do so? Maybe. It depends on what the crime was and if you could afford a skilled enough lawyer. And therein lies the rub. You would have to drop tens-of-thousands of dollars in defense of your not being one of the "real criminals." Because the police are not going to sit there and say, "gee wiz, veec_cas_tant could not possibly be a 'real criminal' because they said they are being framed!" They are going to say, "we can place you at the scene of the crime."