Comment by cipehr
12 hours ago
A little annoyed, this seems like is has nothing to do with the ICE arrests...
> The city suspended its Flock system because city officials could not guarantee they wouldn’t be forced to release data collected by those devices someday, she said.
Key part is "someday". Seems like the article is implying that flock may have shared this data with ICE which led to the arrests... but there is no proof supporting this...
> On Thursday, a Skagit County Superior Court judge ruled that pictures taken by Flock cameras in the cities of Sedro-Woolley and Stanwood qualify as public records, and therefore must be released as required by the state’s Public Records Act, court records show.
This is the more likely reason. What do folks here think about this ruling?
IMO it seems obvious that this should be public records/data, but would love to hear alternative positions to this.
I can't stand this type of "journalism"/sensationalism.
> Redmond’s Police Department was not among those listed in the report, and has never allowed external agencies to access their Flock data without requesting and receiving permission from the police chief first, according to an Oct. 24 statement by Lowe.
So because the arrests were near a Flock Camera the "journalist" is connecting the two? Even with the statements an information to the contrary?
:(
This wouldn't be the first time Flock was used by ICE and would not be the first time Flock allowed ICE backdoor access against the wishes of the local government or police department in Washington. https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2025/10/21/leaving-t...
So making the connection isn't a leap and seems like a pretty pragmatic action taken to reduce ICE's ability to surveil communities.
Very tinfoil hat of them.
The journalists didn't make this connection, it was a topic of discussion at the city council meeting. And the result of that discussion was to suspend the cameras anyway, out of concern that ICE could end up with the the Flock data, even if they hadn't already. It would have been odd for the journalist to report on the outcome and leave out the event that prompted it.
Yes. Because Flock literally cannot be trusted.
As an ex-Flock employee in my county alone, Flock's "Transparency Report" only lists -half- of the agencies using Flock.
I think we need to revise our understanding of expectation of privacy. The 'you have no expectation of privacy when you are outside' bit was formed before we had everything recording us and before face recognition could track us.
At the very least I think any kind of face recognition should require probable cause.
Its an interesting question indeed. You're saying there might be some expectation of privacy even in public?
The line here is a little different. I could point a camera out my window and record every license plate that drives by my house, and that would be allowed because its recording public activities, and the data I collect would be private—its mine from my camera.
The question here is if a public/government agency pays a private company to setup cameras in public, for the benefit of the public, then should that data collected by those cameras not also be public?
The courts seem to agree that it should be public, and I fail to see why it shouldn't be. Maybe I should read the opposition briefs on it.
You're saying there might be some expectation of privacy even in public?
There should be. I like how this is handled in Japanese media, where there is such an expectation - people's faces are blurred unless they opt in, and publishing photos/video without redating people's identities is not just a social misstep but grounds for a lawsuit if it causes distress for the subject. You need a release for any commercial use of photography, and non-commercial publication (eg Instagram or your art blog) can still get you sued if it infringes on others' privacy.
https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/4241/e...
Japan has set about harmonizing its privacy laws with the GPDR and similar for business purposes.
> The question here is if a public/government agency pays a private company to setup cameras in public, for the benefit of the public, then should that data collected by those cameras not also be public?
This is how NASA operates with the data/images collected from the tax payer funded operations it runs. There is a period of exclusivity allowed for some projects to allow the people to work with the data, but anybody can go down load high res imagery once it has been released.
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> You're saying there might be some expectation of privacy even in public?
Not parent poster, but yes!
What people expect are outcomes. The mechanics they know of for how data is/isn't available is merely how they reach their reasonable expectation.
I expect that almost nobody I meet in public is a Stasi informant.
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There is certainly some expectation of privacy in public. California at least has anti-paparazzi laws covering some of this.
If your neighbors were across the street and had their blinds open could you point your camera at their window and take pictures?
License plates were designed to be read and visible and they show that the vehicle is registered, but what about inside the vehicle? Do we have privacy in there?
What exactly does 'in public' mean? And why shouldn't someone have privacy from being recorded and their movements tracked even if they are in public?
None of these things are a given. The rights we have are because we decided they were important. There is no reason we can't revisit the question as situations change.
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> You're saying there might be some expectation of privacy even in public?
Sure. The expectation is that your every move in public is not being recorded and stored on a central system that the government, and by extension various kinds of bad actors, can access.
In a society where the government's role is to defend its citizenry rather than participate in their exploitation, this would be an easy choice.
US governments (both federal and local) face some challenges here, because "defend its citizenry" is not really one of its main goals.
> I could point a camera out my window and record every license plate that drives by my house, and that would be allowed because its recording public activities, and the data I collect would be private—its mine from my camera.
Maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to do that. Permanent persistent recording of the public feels very different than taking a photo every once in a while, and I feel it’s an infringement of privacy even when a single person does it.
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I think it's less of a revision and more a return to a core meaning.
Privacy isn't a mechanic, it's a capability, and most reasonable people DO expect, implicitly, that that they can travel unremarked under most circumstances.
I think most people would agree that a government drone swarm specifically tasked to follow you everywhere in public (loitering outside buildings) would be an invasion of privacy. Especially when it is illegal not to be wearing some equivalent of license plates.
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sigh I hope LLMs can save us from ourselves. :)
Maybe I need to write a news filter/browser extension that rewrites rage-bait articles to have titles and content based only on the meaningful content/facts, and less the speculation/insinuations.
I'd like that. Some sane, fact based news without all the hype and weasel words.
Paramilitaries kidnapping and assaulting my neighbors is not "rage bait." It's fascism.
From what I read, the pressure from activist groups on Redmond’s city leadership began before the Skagit County ruling. So it is probably unrelated. But I think it’s still a bad outcome for Redmond. Why wouldn’t you want law enforcement to be able to observe public spaces (which these cameras are monitoring) and identify or track suspects? We want our city services (like policing) to be efficient, right? We want criminals to be arrested and face consequences, right? We all want safe cities and neighborhoods, right?
I think the Skagit county ruling is likely to be appealed. There is a lot of information that governments can redact for a variety of reasons, despite FOIA or state/local transparency laws. It seems obvious that there’s a case for law enforcement to be able to access footage but to avoid handing over that kind of intelligence to the general public, where criminals could also abuse the same data. And I just don’t buy the argument that surveillance through cameras is automatically dystopian - we can pass laws that make it so that data is only accessible with a warrant or in a situation with immediate public risk. There are all sorts of powers the government has that we bring under control with the right laws - why would this be any different?
As for Redmond turning off its cameras - this is just fear-mongering about ICE. In reality, it’s just sanctuary city/state resistance to enforcing immigration laws. Redmond’s police department confirmed they’ve never shared this camera data with federal agencies, but that doesn’t stop activist types from making unhinged claims or exerting pressure. In reality, it’s activists of the same ideological bias as the soft on crime types that have caused crimes to go up dramatically in the Pacific Northwest in the last 20 years. They’re happy to see law enforcement hampered and the public put at risk - the ICE thing is just the new tactic to push it.
Your first paragraph doesn’t just beg the question, it outright harasses it.
…and identify or track suspects?
For starters, we’re all suspects when those cameras are running. Granted, AI-driven facial recognition is 100% accurate, so if you have nothing to hide…
> Why wouldn’t you want law enforcement to be able to observe public spaces (which these cameras are monitoring) and identify or track suspects?
Yeah, why wouldn't I want that? Or Flock "helpfully" proactively flagging AI-generated "suspicious vehicle movements" to LE for investigation? What could wrong there?
> We all want safe cities and neighborhoods, right?
Was it hard not to end that paragraph with a "Won't somebody think of our children?"?
You sound like great fun at a party.