4 ms·

> Can someone explain to me why you wouldn't want a camera accessible to police monitoring the comings and goings of your residence? You can't be serious. htt

> Can someone explain to me why you wouldn't want a camera accessible to police monitoring the comings and goings of your residence? You can't be serious. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/02/how-police-officers-used-vast-network-cameras-spy-their-exes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/02/how-pol... "Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems." They're stalking people with them.

bko 2mo ago
[flagged]
- iamnothere 2mo ago
  You don’t buy it? Do you think the charges were fabricated?
- lightedman 2mo ago
  "I just don't buy it." Literally there are ARRESTS AND CHARGES against these cops and you 'just don't buy it.' Do you see what's wrong with your statement? You're being 100% disingenuous.
- digi59404 2mo ago
  Drops in crime are not related to Flock and Policing. The crime statistics have been dropping for a long time. Since its peak in the early 1990s. This has been occurring since before smartphones, before flock, hell before DVDs became mainstream. Crime is cultural. The US’s culture has changed significantly since the 1990s and continues to do so. Flock and Police are not crime prevention; they are crime reaction. The police in the US do not exist to “stop crime” despite the public marketing they do so. That’s literally marketing and salesmanship on their part. Police have no legal requirement to protect individuals nor their property. A police officer could watch someone be murdered infront of them, do nothing, and they would suffer no legal consequences. Infact they might get fired, then sue for back pay and early retirement. It’s happened. Multiple times. Going back to crime - Again, it’s cultural. The US has adopted a culture since the 1990s that “crime doesn’t pay” and that crime isn’t ok. The US has also changed its stance on drugs and addictive substances offering treatment instead of punishment in many cases. Weed is legal now, it wasn’t then. Flock and Policing tactics have very little to do with the drop in crime.
  - bko 2mo ago
    Of course cops stop crime. Well maybe not cops but putting people that commit crime in prison, there is less crime. Look at El Salvador as an example. It's that easy
    - ceejayoz 2mo ago
      https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trump-bukele-deportation-deal-cecot-prison-el-salvador/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trump-bukele-depo... > Bukele’s government had previously negotiated with MS-13 and other violent gangs it publicly claimed to be cracking down on, El Faro found. Those negotiations, documents showed, involved offering privileges to gang leaders in prison, in exchange for a reduction in homicides and voter support in territories the gangs controlled. Not sure that’s a great model to emulate.
      - bko 2mo ago
        > Over the past ten years, El Salvador’s crime rate has experienced a historic transformation, plummeting by roughly 98%. Homicides dropped from a devastating peak of 103 to 105 per 100,000 residents in 2015—when it was considered one of the world's murder capitals—to a historic low of approximately 1.3 per 100,000 residents. Yeah, I think its a great model to emulate.
        ceejayoz 2mo ago
        You think suspending the Constitution, the world's highest incarceration rate, and making deals with organized crime to get votes are good to emulate?
- bluGill 2mo ago
  Crime in cities has been going down globally for a long time. Is this because of Flock or not is an open question that I have not seen anyone unbiased comment on. (though honestly I don't think Flock has been around long enough for a proper study to be done - they need to figure out all the different confounding factors and how to control for them)
- pavel_lishin 2mo ago
  That's a heck of a correlation!
prolly97 2mo ago
Is this net bad behaviour that was added due to Flock, or was it a bad actor who happened to use Flock? Agreed that it's bad behaviour, and that we don't want police overstepping. But I don't see how the use of Flock by police can't be monitored in a way, which catches or even eliminates this issue.
- ceejayoz 2mo ago
  > Is this net bad behaviour that was added due to Flock, or was it a bad actor who happened to use Flock? Every tool we give to cops gets widely abused. Which is precisely why we should be slow to provide them with new ones.
- preg_match 2mo ago
  Yes, surely if we add more surveillance then the problems of surveillance will be solved. Police have bad behavior because it's de-facto allowed. Police have very little accountability. They can do whatever they want and nobody really cares in a way that matters. The department protects them, courts go light on them, and prosecutors don't prosecute. If you surveil the police, it doesn't matter. You can catch the police killing someone on camera and they're not going to jail. When bad behavior is allowed, and said bad behavior "helps" your life in some way, why wouldn't you do it? It's a matter of incentives. We build an incentive structure where police are rewarded for being awful. So the end result is the police are awful basically by construction. They can't not be awful.

bko 2mo ago

[flagged]

iamnothere 2mo ago
You don’t buy it? Do you think the charges were fabricated?
lightedman 2mo ago
"I just don't buy it." Literally there are ARRESTS AND CHARGES against these cops and you 'just don't buy it.' Do you see what's wrong with your statement? You're being 100% disingenuous.
digi59404 2mo ago
Drops in crime are not related to Flock and Policing. The crime statistics have been dropping for a long time. Since its peak in the early 1990s. This has been occurring since before smartphones, before flock, hell before DVDs became mainstream. Crime is cultural. The US’s culture has changed significantly since the 1990s and continues to do so. Flock and Police are not crime prevention; they are crime reaction. The police in the US do not exist to “stop crime” despite the public marketing they do so. That’s literally marketing and salesmanship on their part. Police have no legal requirement to protect individuals nor their property. A police officer could watch someone be murdered infront of them, do nothing, and they would suffer no legal consequences. Infact they might get fired, then sue for back pay and early retirement. It’s happened. Multiple times. Going back to crime - Again, it’s cultural. The US has adopted a culture since the 1990s that “crime doesn’t pay” and that crime isn’t ok. The US has also changed its stance on drugs and addictive substances offering treatment instead of punishment in many cases. Weed is legal now, it wasn’t then. Flock and Policing tactics have very little to do with the drop in crime.
- bko 2mo ago
  Of course cops stop crime. Well maybe not cops but putting people that commit crime in prison, there is less crime. Look at El Salvador as an example. It's that easy
  - ceejayoz 2mo ago
    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trump-bukele-deportation-deal-cecot-prison-el-salvador/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/trump-bukele-depo... > Bukele’s government had previously negotiated with MS-13 and other violent gangs it publicly claimed to be cracking down on, El Faro found. Those negotiations, documents showed, involved offering privileges to gang leaders in prison, in exchange for a reduction in homicides and voter support in territories the gangs controlled. Not sure that’s a great model to emulate.
    - bko 2mo ago
      > Over the past ten years, El Salvador’s crime rate has experienced a historic transformation, plummeting by roughly 98%. Homicides dropped from a devastating peak of 103 to 105 per 100,000 residents in 2015—when it was considered one of the world's murder capitals—to a historic low of approximately 1.3 per 100,000 residents. Yeah, I think its a great model to emulate.
      - ceejayoz 2mo ago
        You think suspending the Constitution, the world's highest incarceration rate, and making deals with organized crime to get votes are good to emulate?
bluGill 2mo ago
Crime in cities has been going down globally for a long time. Is this because of Flock or not is an open question that I have not seen anyone unbiased comment on. (though honestly I don't think Flock has been around long enough for a proper study to be done - they need to figure out all the different confounding factors and how to control for them)
pavel_lishin 2mo ago
That's a heck of a correlation!

prolly97 2mo ago

Is this net bad behaviour that was added due to Flock, or was it a bad actor who happened to use Flock? Agreed that it's bad behaviour, and that we don't want police overstepping. But I don't see how the use of Flock by police can't be monitored in a way, which catches or even eliminates this issue.

ceejayoz 2mo ago
> Is this net bad behaviour that was added due to Flock, or was it a bad actor who happened to use Flock? Every tool we give to cops gets widely abused. Which is precisely why we should be slow to provide them with new ones.
preg_match 2mo ago
Yes, surely if we add more surveillance then the problems of surveillance will be solved. Police have bad behavior because it's de-facto allowed. Police have very little accountability. They can do whatever they want and nobody really cares in a way that matters. The department protects them, courts go light on them, and prosecutors don't prosecute. If you surveil the police, it doesn't matter. You can catch the police killing someone on camera and they're not going to jail. When bad behavior is allowed, and said bad behavior "helps" your life in some way, why wouldn't you do it? It's a matter of incentives. We build an incentive structure where police are rewarded for being awful. So the end result is the police are awful basically by construction. They can't not be awful.