Comment by scottlamb
4 months ago
> Even if Flock took a stance on permitted use-cases, a motivated user could simply lie about why they're performing a search. We can never 100% know how or why our tools are being used.
I think this is a legitimate problem.
But...isn't this what warrants are for? With a warrant, the police have to say why they want to perform a search to a judge, under threat of perjury. They have a powerful incentive not to lie.
So...should warrants be required for this kind of Flock data also? Couldn't Flock set a policy that these searches are performed only under warrant? Or a law be enacted saying the same? I imagine it would make Flock much less attractive to their potential customers, and searches would be performed much less often. [1] So it's not something Flock is going to do on their own. I think we'd need to create the pressure, by opposing purchases of Flock or by specifically asking our elected representatives to create such a law.
[1] If I'm being generous, because of the extra friction/work/delay. If I'm being less generous, because they have no legitimate reason a judge would approve.
> So...should warrants be required for this kind of Flock data also?
Based on another incident [0] I feel Flock's explanation for their actions boils down to:
1. "We are familiar with the customer the person claimed to be an agent for."
2. "We didn't know whether the person was doing something illegal with the data... And we don't want to know, and we don't try to find out."
3. "They didn't force us. They gave us money! We like money!"
As you might guess, I don't find these points especially compelling or exculpating. Certainly nothing that would/should stand up against state or local laws that prohibit the data being shared this way.
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[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45382434
Any law would upset the third-party data broker constitutional runaround that the government has become addicted to. It is already a breach of privacy. We just need legislators willing to serve the public and ignore the lobbyists and executive.
Which requires us, the people, to replace them if they won't.
It requires us, the people, to stop buying into their games of misdirection.
This is no easy task, but it is critical. They know they can throw a million issues at us and then we'll just argue over what's more important instead of actually solving things. So at this point I'll suggest a nonoptimal, but simple solution: stop arguing over what's more important and just concentrate on what you think is most important. If they're going to throw a million things at us we can be a million little armies. Divide and rule only works by getting those little armies to fight each other. If instead we are on, mostly, the same side then they lose power. They have to fight on a million fronts.
It's far from an optimal solution but it's far better than what we've been doing for the last half century. Because for during that time they've only grown and divided us even more. People are concerned that a small forward isn't enough. They're wrong. It isn't that by not making enough progress we're standing still, we're losing ground. We can't even take a small step forward, we need to first stop losing ground. Once we do that I think we can build momentum moving forward. But it's insane to constantly give up ground in order to maybe make small steps forward. That's certainly a losing battle
"So...should warrants be required for this kind of Flock data also? "
Yes.
Yes, this is what warrants are for.
Flock's entire business model is a flagrant violation of the 4th amendment. What Flock does for their core business is called "stalking", which is a crime.
The issue here is not that the law is inadequate to resolve this problem. The issue is that the current administration has chosen to collude with private corporations that flagrantly violate the law, thereby replacing our entire judiciary system with a protection racket.
Please don't be generous. Fascists depend on our patience to insulate them from consequences.
Yes, but the problem is deeper than flock or even privacy as a concept. The problem is that we routinely fail to recognize organization crime. Basically, you're allowed to just spread and obfuscate accountability and get away with basically anything.
If I stalk someone, I go to jail. If 100 people get together and invent Super Stalking and they stalk everyone all the time, nobody goes to jail. It's completely counter-intuitive but this is how we structured society and justice.
If 100 police officers get together and stalk you, that is a crime.
The problem here is not the lack of law, it's the lack of law enforcement.
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I'm not sure why we've decided that if one dude named Mark stalks one girl then he's a creep, but if he stalks a million girls he's a hero and role model.
Flock has existed for longer than 3 years, hasn't it?
What's your point?
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Warrants for this is actually a great idea. Thats the exact correct solution to gov/leo overreach
Eh, if a cop sat at a Dunkin Donuts and wrote down every license plate they saw that wouldn't require a warrant.
Why should contracting that out to a private company require a warrant?
Flock isn't say Google which collects location data because it needs it for Google Maps to function. Flock is only here because the local government paid it to setup equipment.
It's really an issue for the local community. Do you want your local tax dollars going to support parks or tracking individuals?
if a cop followed you for private reasons in a private car while off duty, they wouldn't need a warrant. why should they need a warrant if they pay a private individual to do it? why should they need a warrant if they pay a private company to do it electronically? why should they need a warrant when they pay a private company to do it electronically while on the clock as part of their official duty? why should they ever need a warrant? they could just kill her if they wanted, nobody would do anything about it.
> they could just kill her if they wanted, nobody would do anything about it.
Exactly, people act like “warrants” are going to protect you from authoritarians. It’s literally just a piece of paper! All this going on about surveillance and privacy really is futile.
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I'm not talking private.
Think of it this way. The government pays somebody to collect data about how many bicyclists use an intersection to decided if they should add a dedicated bike light. Why would the government need to use a warrant to get that information?
That's the same situation here. Flock is placing the cameras because the government has paid them to.
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> if a cop followed you for private reasons in a private car while off duty, they wouldn't need a warrant.
No, they wouldn't need a warrant, because they'd be stalking you.
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> It's really an issue for the local community. Do you want your local tax dollars going to support parks or tracking individuals?
Correct. In your analogy, the Texas cop is being paid by your community to write down your license plate. (Otherwise, he has no authority to be operating outside his state.)
They wouldn't require a warrant, but at the same time, that wouldn't be scalable to be able to record every license plate everywhere in the city.
Having a barrier to accessing data can help prevent casual abuse in my opinion, so that officers can't look up say some ex girlfriend's license plate, but if they get a warrant they can look up some suspect's license plate.
It is an emergent effect of scale. The first principle reasoning logic of small scale examples doesn’t work as you zoom out.
Being able to scope out a small scale example of why something is ok is a very poor indicator of how it operates in a massive one.
>Eh, if a cop sat at a Dunkin Donuts and wrote down every license plate they saw that wouldn't require a warrant
I would say that there is an appreciable qualitative difference between a man using his eyeballs and a piece of paper to write down license plate numbers and a technologically sophisticated network of computerized surveillance apparatus installed over a geographically large area being used to track an individual.
Call me old-fashioned I guess