4 ms·

What right does a Flock camera violate?

eternauta3k 2mo ago
Not American, but 1. I don't think Texas was around during the Tea Party, and 2. Property is also a right, so this is just about how much privacy you are willing to sacrifice for how much property.
- alex43578 2mo ago
  I've yet to hear a convincing connection between driving down a public road and having privacy - in fact, the outside of a registered motor vehicle on a public road is about as non-private as you can expect. You already have a unique plate tied to the registered owner of the car, and a range of court cases have held you can be stopped, ordered out of the car, questioned (by both police and immigration enforcement), etc.
  - awolf 2mo ago
    It's not about your vehicle being seen in public at a single point in time, it's the fact that this system captures everyone's patterns of life. School, doctor, shooting range, church, play, protest. When, when, how often. All tracked and packaged up in a commercial database, without warrant or justification. If you happened upon me on a public street, I'd say "that I'm here on this street now is not private information". If you installed sensors across the entire city with 2-5 block resolution and could tell me everywhere I have been in the last 30 days (and hence where I'm liable to be tomorrow), I'd say "you are grossly violating my right to be secure in my person against unreasonable search - this is wrong".
    - alex43578 2mo ago
      Is the same outrage present for your cell-carrier, credit card issuer, email provider, and the dozen other data-collecting orgs you assumably interact with throughout the day? They've built a more comprehensive pattern of life on you than a few points in the city you may have driven past. All that is subject to search and all of it is being sold now to random people. The panic over Flock is silly unless you're already living in a hut in the woods, because it's not capturing 5% of what you describe. But, I guarantee your phone provider, Meta, and email provider do know all those things.
      - mcmcmc 2mo ago
        > Is the same outrage present for your cell-carrier, credit card issuer, email provider, and the dozen other data-collecting orgs you assumably interact with throughout the day? All of these require a search warrant.
        alex43578 2mo ago
        Not for the data brokers, advertisers, and employees of the orgs. Every feigned panic because some cop Flock-searched an ex rings a little hollow when you consider the reach and lack of accountability present across the data collection schemes I mentioned.
      - awolf 2mo ago
        Yes, same outrage: it’s most of what I’ve worked on for twenty years. But “you’re already surveilled” isn’t a defense of Flock, it’s an argument for less surveillance everywhere. Volume isn’t the distinction that matters, who holds the data and what is possible as a result is. Meta can sell my movements to an advertiser. It can’t pull me over, detain me unjustly, or hand my neighbor over to ICE. With Flock, police aren’t a downstream buyer; they’re the direct customer. And “you already gave it away” is no longer good law. Chatrie v. United States (2026): Chatrie had opted into Google Location History, and the Court still held that disclosure to a third party doesn’t forfeit your Fourth Amendment interest. Worth noting where we started, though. Two comments ago there was no plausible connection between public roads and privacy. Now there’s one, it’s just smaller than Meta’s. I'm really glad you have had this anparently eye opening moment here on HN.
        alex43578 2mo ago
        I never said that there was a plausible connection between public roads and privacy - I still maintain it’s the most clear cut example of a public place without an expectation of privacy imaginable. Unfortunately your eyes weren’t open enough to see that from previous comments. Nice to see we got to what this really was though: not a genuine privacy concern, but an “Orange Man Bad” concern because ICE could use Flock to deport illegal immigrants.
moralestapia 2mo ago
Right to privacy, is this not mega-obvious?
- alex43578 2mo ago
  "Right to privacy" isn't a specific right in the US. Furthermore, being in the middle of a public roadway in a registered vehicle shouldn't confer the expectation of privacy, per Katz. Probably the closest case law is Carpenter, which only covers cell data and was specifically meant to apply narrowly to that type of info.
  - moralestapia 2mo ago
    Ok, it's not called a "right", it's the fourth amendment, and federal statutes and state laws and whatnot. You got me there, pal ;) I didn't use the exact technical terms you expected, my argument is now void, nooo. I guess I should go and install one of those cameras right outside my house now.
    - alex43578 2mo ago
      "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" in case you forgot. I'm not saying you have to reply in a technical term - just explain how being seen and recorded driving down a public street, in a vehicle that's required to display an identifiable plate you've registered with the government, constitutes a search, seizure, or even an invasion of your privacy. Nobody's saying you have to install a camera outside your house (ignoring the dozens of cameras your neighbors have willingly installed to replace their doorbell or to deter theft/burglary). But you can't argue that the government or private businesses can't deploy cameras because you expect privacy in the middle of a road.
      - awolf 2mo ago
        [flagged]
      - 2mo ago
DarmokTanagra 2mo ago
Carpenter v. United States and the supporting opinion written by John Roberts in 2018 reaffirms that ongoing electronic surveillance requires a search warrant and constitutes a violation of the 4th amendment. I don't live in the US, but it seems that constant monitoring via government sanctioned facial recognition technology falls under that umbrella.
- alex43578 2mo ago
  Carpenter only covers cell data and was specifically meant to apply narrowly to that type of info.
  - DarmokTanagra 2mo ago
    Good thing that there isn't a court in the United States that exists solely to make those kinds of distinctions and revise previous interpretations of the law in order to apply them to an evolving legal landscape. Flock cameras using facial recognition to surveil citizens in public spaces without a warrant is a 4th amendment violation under any rational reading, and it is up to the American people whether they want to live in country that no longer holds itself accountable to the law or not. It really has no impact on my life beyond the looming existential crisis of the world's largest military and nuclear power slowly becoming a rogue fascist state.
    - alex43578 2mo ago
      Good thing the courts are already upholding the constitutionality of Flock in US v Jackson and Schmidt v. City of Norfolk. If it reaches the SC, I think it'd be easy to see a limit similar to Carpenter on scope and duration of the searches of the database without a warrant, but recognize fundamentally that collecting the data itself is not violating anyone's rights. As just mentioned, being watched in a public space doesn't constitute a violation of the 4th Amendment. Under any rational reading, you are not being searched. It really has no impact on anyone's life, especially if they participate in any part of society. Your phone records, credit cards, and every social media and email account are all far more invasive tracking and without even the veneer of accountability. Even for criminals, it hardly makes a difference if they pull an ID from Flock, your cell records, or the bodega security camera and Ring doorbell footage people would happily offer to a cop. Investigating a crime by looking at a security camera is not fascism, just like deporting an illegal immigrant or dispersing a riot isn't fascism.
rexpop 2mo ago
Right not to be stalked by idiot cops. Right to protest without being stalked by idiot cops.
nilamo 2mo ago
That's a great point. We should roll up some of the privacy laws we've made into actual rights secured by amendments, instead of just wishing we weren't living in a police state. I'm still upset that we have a TCPA to protect consumers from spam calls, and then refuse to ever enforce it.
Timon3 2mo ago
IMO this discussion must not leave out the fact that the comprehensive surveillance of the public movements of all citizens only became possible over the last few years. While there already was a ton of effort spent in this direction, governments were still limited by their employee headcounts and the reliability of image recognition. So while there might not be an existing decision that this practice is in violation of specific rights, it's completely possible that judicial systems are lagging behind the new options that governments now have thanks to technological progress. Such extensive surveillance is likely a necessary precondition for governments to be able to take any number of horribly authoritarian steps against their populace. Given the likelihood that this leads to violations of all other rights, I find it hard to argue that these cameras don't violate people's rights.
spicymaki 2mo ago
> What right does a Flock camera violate? The first amendment, fourth amendment, and the fourteenth amendment of the US Constitution. You should read it.
- alex43578 2mo ago
  Can you name the specific right? For the first, assumably you think you can’t be observed coming or going from a riot? That’s not true. For the fourth, a Flock camera existing is not inherently a search, just like how a database of cell records is not unconstitutional (Carpenter, Chatrie, Katz). Is the 14th just a nebulous due process argument? Again, the camera existing is not an unconstitutional, see 4th. You should read them again.

Not American, but 1. I don't think Texas was around during the Tea Party, and 2. Property is also a right, so this is just about how much privacy you are willing to sacrifice for how much property.

alex43578 2mo ago
I've yet to hear a convincing connection between driving down a public road and having privacy - in fact, the outside of a registered motor vehicle on a public road is about as non-private as you can expect. You already have a unique plate tied to the registered owner of the car, and a range of court cases have held you can be stopped, ordered out of the car, questioned (by both police and immigration enforcement), etc.
- awolf 2mo ago
  It's not about your vehicle being seen in public at a single point in time, it's the fact that this system captures everyone's patterns of life. School, doctor, shooting range, church, play, protest. When, when, how often. All tracked and packaged up in a commercial database, without warrant or justification. If you happened upon me on a public street, I'd say "that I'm here on this street now is not private information". If you installed sensors across the entire city with 2-5 block resolution and could tell me everywhere I have been in the last 30 days (and hence where I'm liable to be tomorrow), I'd say "you are grossly violating my right to be secure in my person against unreasonable search - this is wrong".
  - alex43578 2mo ago
    Is the same outrage present for your cell-carrier, credit card issuer, email provider, and the dozen other data-collecting orgs you assumably interact with throughout the day? They've built a more comprehensive pattern of life on you than a few points in the city you may have driven past. All that is subject to search and all of it is being sold now to random people. The panic over Flock is silly unless you're already living in a hut in the woods, because it's not capturing 5% of what you describe. But, I guarantee your phone provider, Meta, and email provider do know all those things.
    - mcmcmc 2mo ago
      > Is the same outrage present for your cell-carrier, credit card issuer, email provider, and the dozen other data-collecting orgs you assumably interact with throughout the day? All of these require a search warrant.
      - alex43578 2mo ago
        Not for the data brokers, advertisers, and employees of the orgs. Every feigned panic because some cop Flock-searched an ex rings a little hollow when you consider the reach and lack of accountability present across the data collection schemes I mentioned.
    - awolf 2mo ago
      Yes, same outrage: it’s most of what I’ve worked on for twenty years. But “you’re already surveilled” isn’t a defense of Flock, it’s an argument for less surveillance everywhere. Volume isn’t the distinction that matters, who holds the data and what is possible as a result is. Meta can sell my movements to an advertiser. It can’t pull me over, detain me unjustly, or hand my neighbor over to ICE. With Flock, police aren’t a downstream buyer; they’re the direct customer. And “you already gave it away” is no longer good law. Chatrie v. United States (2026): Chatrie had opted into Google Location History, and the Court still held that disclosure to a third party doesn’t forfeit your Fourth Amendment interest. Worth noting where we started, though. Two comments ago there was no plausible connection between public roads and privacy. Now there’s one, it’s just smaller than Meta’s. I'm really glad you have had this anparently eye opening moment here on HN.
      - alex43578 2mo ago
        I never said that there was a plausible connection between public roads and privacy - I still maintain it’s the most clear cut example of a public place without an expectation of privacy imaginable. Unfortunately your eyes weren’t open enough to see that from previous comments. Nice to see we got to what this really was though: not a genuine privacy concern, but an “Orange Man Bad” concern because ICE could use Flock to deport illegal immigrants.

moralestapia 2mo ago

Right to privacy, is this not mega-obvious?

alex43578 2mo ago
"Right to privacy" isn't a specific right in the US. Furthermore, being in the middle of a public roadway in a registered vehicle shouldn't confer the expectation of privacy, per Katz. Probably the closest case law is Carpenter, which only covers cell data and was specifically meant to apply narrowly to that type of info.
- moralestapia 2mo ago
  Ok, it's not called a "right", it's the fourth amendment, and federal statutes and state laws and whatnot. You got me there, pal ;) I didn't use the exact technical terms you expected, my argument is now void, nooo. I guess I should go and install one of those cameras right outside my house now.
  - alex43578 2mo ago
    "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" in case you forgot. I'm not saying you have to reply in a technical term - just explain how being seen and recorded driving down a public street, in a vehicle that's required to display an identifiable plate you've registered with the government, constitutes a search, seizure, or even an invasion of your privacy. Nobody's saying you have to install a camera outside your house (ignoring the dozens of cameras your neighbors have willingly installed to replace their doorbell or to deter theft/burglary). But you can't argue that the government or private businesses can't deploy cameras because you expect privacy in the middle of a road.
    - awolf 2mo ago
      [flagged]
    - 2mo ago

DarmokTanagra 2mo ago

Carpenter v. United States and the supporting opinion written by John Roberts in 2018 reaffirms that ongoing electronic surveillance requires a search warrant and constitutes a violation of the 4th amendment. I don't live in the US, but it seems that constant monitoring via government sanctioned facial recognition technology falls under that umbrella.

alex43578 2mo ago
Carpenter only covers cell data and was specifically meant to apply narrowly to that type of info.
- DarmokTanagra 2mo ago
  Good thing that there isn't a court in the United States that exists solely to make those kinds of distinctions and revise previous interpretations of the law in order to apply them to an evolving legal landscape. Flock cameras using facial recognition to surveil citizens in public spaces without a warrant is a 4th amendment violation under any rational reading, and it is up to the American people whether they want to live in country that no longer holds itself accountable to the law or not. It really has no impact on my life beyond the looming existential crisis of the world's largest military and nuclear power slowly becoming a rogue fascist state.
  - alex43578 2mo ago
    Good thing the courts are already upholding the constitutionality of Flock in US v Jackson and Schmidt v. City of Norfolk. If it reaches the SC, I think it'd be easy to see a limit similar to Carpenter on scope and duration of the searches of the database without a warrant, but recognize fundamentally that collecting the data itself is not violating anyone's rights. As just mentioned, being watched in a public space doesn't constitute a violation of the 4th Amendment. Under any rational reading, you are not being searched. It really has no impact on anyone's life, especially if they participate in any part of society. Your phone records, credit cards, and every social media and email account are all far more invasive tracking and without even the veneer of accountability. Even for criminals, it hardly makes a difference if they pull an ID from Flock, your cell records, or the bodega security camera and Ring doorbell footage people would happily offer to a cop. Investigating a crime by looking at a security camera is not fascism, just like deporting an illegal immigrant or dispersing a riot isn't fascism.

rexpop 2mo ago

Right not to be stalked by idiot cops. Right to protest without being stalked by idiot cops.

nilamo 2mo ago

That's a great point. We should roll up some of the privacy laws we've made into actual rights secured by amendments, instead of just wishing we weren't living in a police state. I'm still upset that we have a TCPA to protect consumers from spam calls, and then refuse to ever enforce it.

Timon3 2mo ago

IMO this discussion must not leave out the fact that the comprehensive surveillance of the public movements of all citizens only became possible over the last few years. While there already was a ton of effort spent in this direction, governments were still limited by their employee headcounts and the reliability of image recognition. So while there might not be an existing decision that this practice is in violation of specific rights, it's completely possible that judicial systems are lagging behind the new options that governments now have thanks to technological progress. Such extensive surveillance is likely a necessary precondition for governments to be able to take any number of horribly authoritarian steps against their populace. Given the likelihood that this leads to violations of all other rights, I find it hard to argue that these cameras don't violate people's rights.

spicymaki 2mo ago

> What right does a Flock camera violate? The first amendment, fourth amendment, and the fourteenth amendment of the US Constitution. You should read it.

alex43578 2mo ago
Can you name the specific right? For the first, assumably you think you can’t be observed coming or going from a riot? That’s not true. For the fourth, a Flock camera existing is not inherently a search, just like how a database of cell records is not unconstitutional (Carpenter, Chatrie, Katz). Is the 14th just a nebulous due process argument? Again, the camera existing is not an unconstitutional, see 4th. You should read them again.