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- Hacker News
- Florida is leading the nation on wise legislation where surveillance is involved in this example. It isn't doing too bad on income tax and other pain points either.by thataccount
- Counterpoints:
Parental Rights in Education Act aka "Don't Say Gay" (HB 1557)
Individual Freedom Act / "Stop WOKE" Act (HB 7)
School Choice & Expansion Reforms (HB 1)
Curriculum & Higher Education Governance (SB 266 / SB 7044)
by josefresco - Moving here after living in NYC for a decade was a breath of fresh air. I had forgotten that competent governments exist.by CSMastermind
- I'll go out on a limb here, all this pushback against ALPRs is starting to feel like throwing the baby out with the bathwater
this article in particular was an interesting case for the benefits of ALPRs: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/a-cops-case-for-flock
tl;dr - actually useful for stopping car related crime like thefts, which has a wide ranging affect on other related violent crime, - is not the same as facial recognition, or phone tracking - abuse is detectable - constitutional arguments for ALPRs being a form of privacy intrusion are flimsy since they are mostly applied to public roads which have no privacy protections
by abe94 - The constitutional arguments have actually already been heard, and the court has determined that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy from continuous government surveillance of movement. The relevant cases are Carpenter and Chatrie.by ibejoeb
- It's almost like in the movie Minority Report. The state knows where you are at all times (well, not entirely true right now, but to a high extent true now, at the least for car drivers).by shevy-java
- More like Enemy of the State. Where's your phone right now?by chuckadams
- This is the wrong thing to do, but we need more. Mass surveillance is a crime against humanity.
- What is the wrong thing to do?by Lord_Zero
- Fundamentally we need controls on how both the state and private industry can store, use, and share such data.
Playing whack-a-mole with each specific type of surveillance and company involved isn't really fixing the issue.
by stetrain - I cannot help to think 1 or more politician or their children was caught breaking a serious law that they would have avoided if the camera was not there. So the fix is to ban the cameras.by jmclnx
- Doubtful. Look at the Kennedys. The political class was never in serious danger. Worst case they have to do a favor for the department that has dirt on them.
- What would proper governance of a powerful flock like tool be? It is a public private partnership. Public benefit. Public infrastructure. Private collection. Private software. Private computing. Private access.
Private power.
by nashashmi - At a minimum a judge signed warrant should be required for any data access.
Second, a third-party annual security and data audit, with power to revoke licenses if findings aren't mitigated within a reasonable time frame.
Finally, a civilian oversight committee with real power to sanction bad actors.
- Has there been any reporting into whether Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise has adequate data access controls around SunPass? They have ALPRs to operate the toll-by-plate system on bridges and toll roads across the state.
In my view, that’s one of the better reasons to have ALPRs at all, but you do need strict controls to prevent misuse.
by asploder - Monroe County Sheriff Rick Ramsay on the data from toll roads:
"The data is used by all law enforcement. All they have to do is contact the state and get the information. We’ve used it countless times for criminal investigations to see where they’re going, what car they’re in, who the driver is to possibly ID the suspect."
https://keysweekly.com/42/state-orders-removal-of-plate-came...
- This is definitely a good step, however, ALPRs are not going away unfortunately. They have and are and will keep getting deployed by private businesses. They are too valuable for them at this time. The likes of Wal-Mart, etc., will potentially sell information to brokers and so on and some aggregator will resell the data to whomever wants to use the data.by mc32
- Any business that puts an ALPR in their parking lot is a business I do not visit.by techdmn
- I once interviewed for a trucking logistics SAAS vendor who installed cameras every X number of miles along every major highway/interstate to track shipments of freight. their moat was that physical surveillance network that they had already installed, cameras which scanned (like Flock) not just license plates but decals, looked for signals of driver awareness, new scuffs/dents/marks, collected EMF emissions to see if certain safety and satellite features were on, etc
now they said they didn't sell their data to LEOs but their founders also literally used to work for the CIA (it was bragged about in the initial interviews)
I wouldn't be surprised if companies of that kind are a dime-a-dozen
by paimapi - This refers only to Flock cameras. In Pinellas and Hillsborough counties (probably others or even most, but I cannot personally verify), there are non-Flock ALPR cameras on every major intersection stoplight gantry, feeding license plate and vehicular-fingerprint data to regional LE "Fusion Centers," where Palantir's Gotham product absolutely is in use. This is of course in addition to FDOT's PTZ cameras also. Forgive a cynic for telling you that banning Flock on state highways is purely performative in such light.by justanother
- I am thinking that Palantir has fully established tech and AI systems to be weapons of harm. All tech companies should now be seen as private defense contractors.
We are sleeping here
by nashashmi - "On Monday, Aug. 31, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) issued a memorandum revoking existing permits for automated license plate recognition (ALPR) systems, commonly referred to by the brand name "Flock cameras," that are installed within the right of way of roads on the State Highway System."
Very first paragraph. "Flock" is basically being used like "Kleenex" here
by spogbiper - The memo refers to all ALPR systems, and does not mention Flock at all.
It's one page: https://fdotwww.blob.core.windows.net/sitefinity/docs/defaul...
by chuckadams