Comment by scottydelta

>"i hope you never find yourself on the receiving end of the technology you want others to be on the receiving end of."

Absolutely solid line, and about sums it up. Batting for practices or technologies like this is publicizing your myopia and lack of imagination for seeing it being used against you or your friends/family/property in due time.

Are those groups opposed to any tool or technology that could be used for government overreach or oppression? Is that really the only thing we can do?

In rereading Thomas's comments on this post, I'm going to try to sum up how I've read his comments:

I'm about 98% certain understands why people are against this; other comments make this more clear, but even sentence right before the one you quoted to suggests this fact ("I understand people not being comfortable with Flock.").

By "I do not understand this idea that it's an obvious red line" he seems to mean that, even if you ignore all authoritarians, there are plenty of smart people who believe the benefits (particularly when well regulated) outweigh the risks.

There are plenty of things that are wrong that are not "an obvious red line," so merely thinking that Flock is bad is not enough to make it "an obvious red line."

His argument for why people should not be against seems to be twofold:

1. If it could be made to work in such a way that isn't invasive, it could be a boon, particularly to the most disadvantaged[0].

2. If all of the places that regulate it well kick it out, then they lose political capital that could constructively be used to encourage their neighbors to also regulate it[1].

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45475478

No I'm not. I actually do real political work on this issue, ran the commission process that restricted our cameras and created the only restrictive ALPR police General Orders in Chicagoland, and got us to pass an ACLU CCOPS ordinance --- the first municipality in Illinois to have one.

Whatever else I am, I'm not "muddying the waters". I'm commenting in good faith from actual experience. You're going to find my bona fides here are pretty strong.

The premise of these cameras is that the operating LEOs control sharing. If you assume the federal government is going to ignore those controls extralegally, then ALPRs themselves aren't acceptable. The red line you're proposing here isn't coherent.

Again I want to be clear that there's a difference between "bad idea" or "bad public policy tradeoff" and "red line". I believe it's pretty clear that when something is a live controversy with no clear winner in a municipality like Oak Park, whatever else it is, it isn't a "red line".

I'm deeply skeptical of surveillance and convinced it will be misused, more and more over time as all sides get used to it and the complaints become less, or less fundamental and more against something specific while not questioning the tech as such.

Still, I'm torn whenever I walk to the city center (Bavarian big city that is not Munich) and see how many rental bikes and rental e-scooters can be found thrown into the river that runs through the city. Or public trash cans that were actually put deep into the earth, with concrete too, lie broken with lots of earth and the long metal pipe with concrete attached because some people spent considerable effort to destroy public infrastructure. Or somebody must have jumped hard and repeatably on a weak point of a public bench, which has very thick wood and thick steel screws, but they still managed to destroy it.

I want those people to be found, I'm very angry. This is a frequent occurrence. If that means more surveillance, I would not oppose. I'm tired of seeing this happen again and again and again.

The city had to start using trashcans that look more and more like little war bunkers. They can't do anything for the bikes and scooters though, making them too heavy to lift and throw into the water is obviously not possible. Police do patrol, but they can't be everywhere all the time.

For illustration: Two bikes of a public bike rental service found in the river. They are not old, all of them are new, but this is how they look after a few days or weeks in the river:

https://img.mittelbayerische.de/ezplatform/images/4/4/8/8/40...

Divers are called regularly to retrieve bikes, scooters, and other big items thrown into the city's river: https://images.nordbayern.de/image/contentid/policy:1.132184...

No. Roughly half our community wanted to keep the cameras. And we're as blue/progressive as it gets. Whatever else it is, it isn't "a red line".

That is not the same thing as me saying I think the cameras were a good tradeoff.

People live in fear, and these things help police close cases quickly.

I served on a jury where a young woman slipped on ice while crossing the street and was run over by a negligent driver who was fleeing what he thought was the police, because he was on probation and not supposed to drive. With private surveillance, red light cameras and some other sources, they were able to track down the vehicle and apprehend the individual within 45 minutes of the event. Prior to that, much more primitive version of that technology being available, there would no chance of that case being solved.

Personally, I think this technology is dangerous, lacks effective governance, is operated without transparency, and is prone to abuse. Events of late highlight how different jurisdictional boundaries at the city, state and federal levels can be in conflict. But the technology is not going away -- imo it's time to govern it and limit the inter-jurisdictional data sharing.

Salami slicing tactics. The authoritarians will take a nibble at a time until we are all consumed.

Don't need radar to calculate speed with multiple photographs. And yes technically the city issued the warning.

Speed radar is unlikely but average speed is possible.

If you were in one place at 13:00 and 5 miles down the road at 13:10 you must have gone at least 30mph at least once.

It boggles my mind how some people can seem to only think in terms of "teams". And can't think critically about their supposed team.

"I'm on their site so I'm on their team... Of course I back everything they do, I'm on their team."

Similarly (and slightly related) when a big part of your motivation is to see the "other" side upset you've lost the plot.

How exactly is that relevant? I doubt most people who use Amazon admire Andy Jassy.

Good for him. That’s certainly a worthy accomplishment.

The point stands i think. It is difficult for someone in his position to offer meaningful commentary about the topic without alienating his customers. As I mentioned in another comment, I’ve see firsthand how this type of tech resulted in a prosecution that would have been impossible without it.

But… there are glaring risks to the public with this tech. Everything from dragnet surveillance to cops stalking their exes. Move fast and break things is a menace in this context, and the gulf between a foreign boogeyman and something closer to home may not be as wide as someone would like it to be.

And? Do you want me to memorize the management and organizational structure of every website that I use?

I am perfectly capable of using this site and not giving a flying shit about the CEO of YCombinator

That does not make them immune from criticism.

I give it 1-2 years max before he hands over the personal login emails / IP of every user on this site to the thought police. There’s nothing admirable about mercenary capitalists.