Birbla

Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

Sign in
  • Hacker News
  • I immediately thought this was like something from a Carl Hiaasen novel, then read “He was tracking and chasing a woman that he met and harassed on the set of the AppleTV+ show Bad Monkey.” Bad Monkey is based on a Carl Hiaasen novel.
    by ojbyrne
  • Hey, maybe we shouldn't build out this infrastructure so aggressively?
    by smalltorch
  • Rare good news story about a cop facing consequences (arrest). Was he fired as well? I couldn't tell from the article.
    by xnx
  • The linked article does not say what happened to him, but if you Google his name there are lots of hits. This one says he was fired:

    https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/monroe-county-deputy-arr...

    by andrewl
  • The penalties for police abusing the power we grant them should be severe.
    by beej71
  • HIPAA is pretty strict and hospitals will flag and fire you if you access unauthorized patients, the police should be subject to the same restrictions for accessing civilian info without cause. They would never police themselves, though.
    by randycupertino
  • Best we can do is a paid vacation and taxpayer-funded settlement, maybe transfer them to neighboring jurisdiction if they were real bad.
    by iAMkenough
  • It's worth mentioning that the ALPR's in the Florida keys are unavoidable due to it basically being 1 road.
    by epoxia
  • ALL car traffic in or out of Manhattan is subject to ALPR b/c all of the bridges and tunnels have ALPRs.
    by alexpotato
  • What an absolutely terrifying situation for that woman. It reminded me of a story from the UK where a police officer pulled over a woman, arrested her (for no reason) and raped and murdered her. I don’t know what you’re supposed to do in that situation because the law says you’re supposed to submit to police officers, not resist arrest, etc.
    by dabinat
  • I think it's intresting to read about the guy who made yolo. Take a look at his website and later, his thoughts about the monster he may have created.

    https://x.com/pjreddie/status/1230524770350817280

    https://pjreddie.com/darknet/yolo/

    https://medium.com/@graham.wallington/the-evolution-of-yolo-...

    by smalltorch
  • He should have patented it and restrict its use via IP laws. Won't prevent 3-letter agencies using it, but will prevent private companies like Flock.
    by M95D
  • > the cop illegally looked up her vehicle information on DAVID

    It continually surprises me that these tools operate on basically trust. Why cops have direct access to these databases is baffling. I don't have much hope for florida to regulate its police but at least mandating providing a reason to use the database seems like a very reasonable thing to legislate.

    by throwaway27448
  • If you require a reason that is bureaucracy which people complain about for good reason. Requiring a reason adds great cost and we would rather not pay it. We might be forced to because not everybody is honest, but it is much better if we can trust others and so not have to do this.
    by bluGill
  • Because republicans continue to fight each other over how much they can lick authority boot. Gone are the days of fiscal conservatives or small government… no sir they are all on board for locking this place down.
    by doobiedowner
  • Its a tradeoff between efficacy and accountability. Its tough. What access syrem would you propose? Genuinely asking
    by samrus
  • This guy only got punished because he wasn't enough of a bullshit artist to come up with an implausible but not-provably-false accusation against her, and he actually said the quiet part out loud about how this is used for tyrants. If he had just stuck to the story he overheard she was slinging crack or something he'd have likely gotten away with it with little more than side eyes and maybe some refresher class for appearances.
    by mothballed
  • This seems fairly common in most countries, and I would guess the reason is for practical reasons. When police are out they have a fairly high probability to stumble onto more than just the specifics things they was sent out to do, and so they need to have access to check up people and vehicles.

    What my country do (and others?) is to keep a strict records of every lookup, with different levels of auditor, some which checks every record in a shallow way and some which do random sampling with more deep checks. The punishment for misuse of the database is also fairly harsh.

    by belorn
  • That's mass surveillance for you.
    by Cider9986
  • Beyond that.

    Flock knows what inter-agency data sharing is legal and not legal in what states. So you think they'd have the functionality to disable forbidden data sharing when they sign a new agency in that state. They don't do that. "That's not our responsibility." And not only that, but:

    Agency: Could we get training on how to do [forbidden data sharing]?

    Flock: Absolutely. It's illegal in your state. Now that I've said that, here's how you do it in the app.

    by FireBeyond