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- Hacker News
- Policy officers are mis-using this powerful, hugely invasive massive surveillance tool? I am utterly shocked!by progforlyfe
- Flock makes it easy to track people and where they go. For example, if you are going to a gun range, or going to a place to buy guns and ammo, Flock makes it easy to track that. This makes it easy to figure out who has weapons and allows the government to easily target them first. This would make it easy to create a digital database of known and suspected gun owners.
This is something I'm sure all gun owners support.
by jasonlotito - The government would never do that! /s
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/dea-planned-moni...
https://www.libertynation.com/flock-cameras-vs-gun-shops-the...
by kennywinker - by toomuchtodo
- In this case the issue isn't 19k flock cameras, but an utter lack of repercussion for failure to justify usage. In the same way I'd be arrested and jailed if I breached/used 19K ring cameras that do not belong to me, this guy should be arrested and jailed for his misuse. Police unions are a major root cause of many issues in the USA.by maerF0x0
- This is the inevitable result of having hundreds of thousands of cameras all collecting data and searchable from one point. Even if every search required a warrant, this would still be abused with cops lying on affidavits etc.
We don't need this system, we don't need to tolerate having this vector for abuse lying around.
by advisedwang - It’s clear to me that these networked license plate cameras represent a fundamental impingement on freedom.
Just one example: how is a journalist supposed to meet with a secret source if their locations at all times are logged?
Even if these databases are only ever searched investigating violations of laws, it’s trivial to find ways to twist that against political rivals, protesters and activists, ex girlfriends, journalists, and leakers.
by kennywinker - My commit messages when no one is looking, and the reason I hardly ever open source stuff...
- flock isn’t going away. this feels like the 1990s web that grew into a more regulated system with safeguards. flock or a (more advanced) replacement are going to be part of policing in the us foreverby foolfoolz
- Once upon a time, one of the largest companies of the USA, Bell Labratories, was declared an illegal monopoly and eradicated.
In the correct political environment, entire companies can be dismantled with one executive action. Not our current political environment, but in the 1980s one it could happen.
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Oh, also, companies were literally an act of Congress when this country started. We can change the rules back and dismantle any company that refuses to work for the benefit of this country.
Remember that one time when a large global company (The Dutch East India company) got a tax break from the king, and it angered the population so much that we took a bunch of tea (a symbol of the Dutch East India Company) and threw it into the Boston Harbor?
Ahhhhh yeah. I remember. Oh right, we teach that situation a bit differently today don't we? People probably don't remember exactly how easy it used to be or how this country used to treat companies that betrayed our values.
We can go back. But lets start with understanding that we _can_ go back. Step 2 is electing people who will agree with this political message.
by dragontamer - > Data reviewed by the EFF included searches labelled 'LMAO', 'LOL', 'Hehe', 'Haha', 'idk' and 'blah'. Other entries included 'asdfg' and strings of apparently random keyboard characters. In one case, an officer entered: 'robbery I don't remember the case number leave me alone'.
lol wtf. Like, I get it, "haha quirky me", if it was a personal coding project or an informal setting, but not here!? I wouldn't believe if you told me they were older than, what, 30?
On second thought, that's absolutely possible.
- Cops are not known for being well regulated individuals
The obvious flaw is that someone added this field as a requirement but they never actually audit it and hold officers accountable
I think you can trace both of these problems back to the police union.
by mingus88 - What do you mean "not here"? They're looking at video footage of public places, I would not care either. I'm not happy about flock cameras but this is not like he's filling out paperwork for a charge or doing something important, these cops are looking at existing camera data of public spacesby guywithahat
- I mean, if the field is required and is open text with no requirement that the text be useful, why would you bother? How many of use put stupid text into fields just to get to the download? Yeah yeah, cops are supposed to be above blah blah, but they are human.by dylan604
- This sounds exactly what happens when you are required to fill out a reason for say a deployment to your test enrvironment in a jira ticket. After a certain point you just stop obeying cause nobody reads the ticket anyways.by a34729t
- So, I've actually implemented a system like this for my work. It's completely non-shocking to me that a unchecked and unvalided "reason" field ends up with nothing but garbage in it to get past the software checks.
My 3 "words" requirement because managers wanted more than just "caus" ended up with workers simply putting in "a o k".
These systems need more validation and teeth than simply letting the officers enter whatever text allows them to search. A case number isn't enough, IMO. There needs to be an actual warrant which the system checks. But further, misuse needs to be prosecuted (I know, fat chance).
by cogman10 - Naturally I don't know how the Flock search platform operates but this implies to me that this "Reason:" field is a mere formality, after-the-fact accountability (if even that!).
If the search was granted based on human checks for the reason given, they would not dare be flippant about this. Of course it would take more time, humans don't scale, etc. but that's kinda the point: invasive methods should be a last resort.
- > July 2025, an officer with the Lake County, Indiana, Sheriff's Department
Do they not know the name of this officer, or are they not reporting it?
by josefresco - It's public. It's in the dataset that was released containing "LMAO".by nonethewiser
- This cop is doing his part to get rid of flockby vatsachak
- Yeah but they changed it to a dropdown now so others won't be able to follow in his footsteps.by frandroid