Comment by rkagerer
6 days ago
If someone followed me around 24x7 with a notebook, transcribing all my movements and affixing carefully attached photos of me to every page, it would be called Stalking and I'm pretty sure I could win at least a restraining order against them in court.
I don't get why we treat this any differently. The only difference is they're not as obvious.
you just described a private investigator.
stalking requires some kind of menacing or whatnot. i seriously doubt a judge would grant a restraining order just because you think someone is following you without any interaction.
>Stalking is a crime of power and control. It is a course of action directed at an individual that causes the victim to fear for their safety, and generally involves repeated visual or physical proximity, nonconsensual communication, and verbal, written, or implied threats.
> you just described a private investigator.
In most states that requires a license with actual professional standards being met to obtain and maintain one. It does not entitle you to harass someone.
> stalking requires some kind of menacing or whatnot.
Repetition, threats, and fear. The standard is "would most reasonable people perceive these actions in the same way?"
The better question is, in the cities that have installed flock, is the crime rate actually down? And can we make FOIA requests to see how often and for what the police have queried the system to receive data? I may not be able to challenge the existence of the system with a TRO but I can constrain police use of it; hopefully, to the point it is no longer economically viable for them to operate it.
The license is for selling a commercial service to the general public; the underlying activity (following people in public places) is lawful.
It's how much of journalism works: they're labelled "paparazzi" when it's negative-sentiment, or conversely "investigative journalists" when it's positive-sentiment. If you outlaw private citizens observing happenings in public spaces, you outlaw much of journalism. The targets of journalism, practically by definition, do not consent to being observed, analyzed, and reported on ("Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations"–Orwell).
And certainly the first to be arrested—ironically, if it was entities like Flock you meant to target—would be journalists observing, in public, police and LEO actions. There are a lot of powerful people eager to outlaw that today.
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Ok but private investigators are acceptable and stalkers are manageable individually because neither scales. You can't cover every individual in the US with a PI simultaneously.
Exactly. Imagine the extreme case of public surveillance. Every human is assigned a silent video drone that follows you around 24hrs/day all day everyday the moment you are on public land. Would anyone be okey with that?
>causes the victim to fear for their safety
If being pervasively spied on by an increasingly fascist government doesn't make you fear for your safety you might want to brush up on your history...
>causes the victim to fear for their safety
...this is completely up to interpretation. again, just being followed isn't a crime nor does it violate privacy as long as it occurs in public space.
i could say someone on the subway was stalking me because they have the same schedule as me and commute at the same time.
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You can eat shit. A private investigator has a specific target and a specific complaint. The topic, blanket surveillance by a private company does not have either. Again, eat shit. Shame on you apologizing for this behavior.