Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla
sfchronicle.com
sfchronicle.com
That's not to say that we should give up fighting for some level of privacy even when we don't own the cars, but seems more likely that legislation would be passed that forces the vehicle owners/operators (Alphabet in the Waymo case) to blur peoples' faces. Then of course the state (police/gov/etc.) will clamor for a backdoor key that will unlock the blurred faces/bodies if a crime is suspected to have occurred. Speaking of, I wonder if Waymo already does blur people when they capture them through Waymo rides? I can't seem to find mention of it online.
This commentary assumes self-driving cars are here to stay and become the de facto way we drive instead of driving ourselves. Still not sure how their adoption plays out over time because, at least in the US, people will fight against mandates to use self-driving cars because it compromises their freedom (note that the freedom crowd (no judgment) will be saying that, at first, because they will consider it their right to drive themselves, but once the privacy implications are clear there will be full-on (figurative?) wars fought over self-driving). Guessing a politician, in Texas or another red state, will sooner than later enshrine the right-to-drive-oneself into the state constitution.
This seems like an extremely myopic "tech bubble" take to me. I'm trying to find a way to put this so that it doesn't sound like an attack, but have you been to suburban or rural areas outside of places like SF, NYC or Phoenix? Being reliant on third party transportation, on roads the are often in disrepair with poor signage, is a nonstarter for probably most of the US population.
And really, this kind of thing was common in most countries and turned out America (along with Canada, Australia) are the odd ones out with almost ubiquitous private car ownership in most of its area.
I have no idea how self driving taxis will change the USA, but I rode in my first Waymo last week on a trip to SF and it felt very real. Having lived in a country where I took a taxi to work everyday, I can totally see that life working for me (since I already lived it anyways).
Lots of tech folks love to shit on "car-culture" in the US, and while I agree it has resulted in really crappy urban design for a lot of US cities, you can't ignore that a lot of people love their cars because it gives them a ton of freedom. People like being able to go off at a moment's notice, independently, and drive long distances.
America may be an "outlier", but that still doesn't mean that it's reasonable to think we'll move from where we are now to getting rid of our cars because that's how China does it.
What's different about the US and those other places is that far more large cities were built after private automobiles were common. There are cars everywhere in both countryside and cities in Italy, say, but there is ALSO more walkability and transit because the cities were there first (and even there, there are cities like Florence that didn't invest in rail for decades before starting to build some more light rail again very recently).
China is something of an odd one out for development patterns because of the much higher levels of state control.
What I don't really see is places voluntarily giving up point-to-point private transit after having it as an easy option for generations. Places where even the super-wealthy have turned in their private cars and drivers and take the bus with everyone else. I think the market that self-driving cars could potentially capture over mass transit is exactly those people who would rather have a private point-to-point experience. Which can be an overlapping set with the people who would also be willing to use mass transit if it was "good enough", in addition to the people who actively dislike mass transit. The total pool of users is very large.
I disagree.
I grew up in Rural Australia, lived in the Yukon and have driven to many of the world's most remote and undeveloped countries.
You are saying "Self driving cars will NEVER work in <this specific case>"
When what you mean to say is "Self driving cars will first work in the easy cases, and then years later will work in more and more cases until they eventually work everywhere."
FWIW, people said exactly the same thing when the automobile came around and horses were the best transport. Of course automobiles didn't work well in places with no gas stations or very nasty horse tracks for many years. But the years will always roll on, and things will change.
That is, for many areas, I don't think it's just a case of the tech improving bit-by-bit and taking over more and more areas. I think that will happen in some ways, but take for example a friend of mine who lives in Pennsylvania. Where he lives is a far-out suburb, but he often drives out to rural areas on the weekend to go camping, or he drives long distances to various client sites. Forget the tech, I just don't see how an economic model of a self-driving car company would make these kinds of trips feasible anytime in the foreseeable future.
Also, I work in a very rural environment that couldn't be more hostile to self-driving cars, at least as I thought about them before riding in Waymos (an example: where I stay when I work there I have to give people turn by turn directions because if you rely on Google or Apple Maps your car will get stuck on a road with foot-deep ruts where you'll need to be pulled out; I mean it's not driving on those crazy roads in Pakistan you see videos about (never been) but I would be willing to bet those roads, which I transit regularly, are amongst the poorer-quality roads in the US and I can see self-driving tech working there before long).
And I have spent a few evenings trying to understand how the corporate-owned-fleet economics work in rural areas (and in urban). I don't think it works today. But I do think that when costs come down, and they will come down if regulation doesn't kill self-driving cars broadly, or if Elon's right and you can do it with "cameras only," then it will only be a matter of time before the tech is adapted to crappy rural roads.
> urban areas, defined as densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas, now account for 80.0% of the U.S. population
Like religion having a license is on the decline:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/05/17/gen-z-les...
Generational social trends are not immutable physics.
You do realize that "most" of the US population lives in cities, right? The "rural" population has remained almost constant since the 1960s, while the "urban" population has grown to roughly 5x the rural population's size. Even just counting the largest 100 cities is more than the rural population. Setting that aside for a moment, how does poor signage affect self-driving cars? They're not like humans expecting to take the third left but miscounting, or turning right at the Dairy Queen (which has shut down). They have GPS and full maps. Those maps might not be perfect, but they'll only ever be wrong once if they're part of a system, which is what's being proposed here.
To be clear, I'm matching your tone here. Normally I'd try to be a little more understanding and tempered.
Public access to object recognition models may be important.
a) laypeople aren't usually moved by privacy violations more abstract than someone physically watching you do something.
b) most people aren't willing to don practical accessories that noticably change the perception of your face unless it emphasizes qualities considered sexy.
c) safety gear generally isn't considered sexy
I think that this stuff would be perceived like wearing a physical bike helmet for your data privacy with all the cachet of Google Glass.
Ironic related story in the news:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2024/08/29/passport-ph...
My sense is that facial recognition is a stop-gap and soon to be superseded, because the tech is there for more holistic 'reads' of a person - And that those subtle things that we humans can't see are actually plain as day and as clear as a fingerprint.
If we cover our face, then the data collected on gait etc. will be more than enough. If we adopt a different gait, then the data on other foibles and styles will then give us away. Etc. (we can't hope to disguise all of these at once)
No idea if that's true or overblown, but it doesnt seem unlikely that such technology becomes possible in the future.
Trying to camouflage seems like a losing battle.
or outside or alongside hoodies, these can be seen as socially acceptable (mostly) ; https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/07/mask-of-your-own-fa...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-lawsuit-challen...
Perhaps in the urban setting but the majority of this country is not contained within cities. Even then are you planning on banning motorcycles and RVs?
> because they will consider it their right to drive themselves
Until a law is passed otherwise they are absolutely correct.
> the right-to-drive-oneself into the state constitution.
I doubt it. The real fight is likely to be whether we continue using mixed vehicle and pedestrian infrastructure or if we force pedestrians off the roadway entirely. Then we'll have a "right to walk" constitutional crisis.
83% of USA population live in urban areas, and that proportion is still steadily growing. The same trends apply everywhere else in the world as well.
In 2020, the census lists 2,611 urban areas, including areas with a few thousand people.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...
Shouldn’t be too hard to break this down with a more colloquial definition (say, areas over 500k or 750k people). I’m just not at a real computer :)
If you combine dense urban areas with suburbs. It's about 33% in dense areas and 55% in suburban areas. Which actually doesn't improve the driving situation.
> and that proportion is still steadily growing
Which is why I specifically mentioned motorcycles. In areas of the world with even greater urban density than the USA there are a lot of these on the road.
> The same trends apply everywhere else in the world as well.
These trends are influenced by economic policy and socioeconomic mobility of the population, which are not similar everywhere, so expectations do need to be tailored to them.
Editing to add, I actually think we'll see a new class of Drivers License, one that allows you to operate semi autonomous vehicles, and one that allows you to operate fully manual vehicles with a higher level of continuous written and on the road testing required to hold it. Which is a reasonable and non discriminatory solution to the problem.
As for urban vs. rural, I feel like rural will benefit just as much from self-driving as urban. I won't detail why, but it's pretty much the same reasons as urban. Economics will have to be better if it's going to be corporate-controlled cars, but, really, if Elon's right (huge if) and you can successfully have autonomy with a Model 3-level of hardware, then rural America may very well have widespread autonomous car access in the next couple of years.
Motorcyles? Great point. Not sure how that will shake out. RV's? Seems like a fantastic opportunity for autonomy. Sit in the captain's seat, beer in hand, actually watch the scenery as you drive on by. In fact I think the market for RV's will grow if folks don't have to drive them themselves because there are likely many people who wouldn't be comfortable driving an RV due to its size, but if it drives itself it could open up a whole new audience.
As for pedestrians, do you think pedestrians are being restricted more and more as the years go on? I see the opposite in both urban and rural areas in the US. Genuinely curious how your experience is different and where. I tend to think autonomous cars will make walking more pleasant. No more worrying about a car clipping you making a right turn, or a car driving unnecessarily fast and losing control, or a drunk driver losing control. All of those things may go away with autonomy (I say "may" because we're millions if not billions of miles away from anyone saying definitively that self-driving is safer/better/etc. In my limited experience riding in Waymos, though, I am incredibly optimistic about the technology. And I really look forward to us figuring out the privacy implications and other negatives that could come along with it because I think the benefits are so enormous that it'll be a massive shame if the tech does not work out long term).
Once that happens insurance companies will start charging more for people that drive themselves compared to people that let the car drive.
I can see some states outlawing that practice. Then it’s left to see who is still underwriting insurance in those states.
I think this is a long way away and will vary geographically.
For a long time, self driving cars will be more expensive because they’ll have expensive sensors on it. Not many people will want a $100K self driving car instead of a $30k Camry. This means the cost-per-mile goes up unless utilization rate goes up. The most effective way to do that is make it a Taxi.
The natural result of self-driving-taxis is that the people least likely to take a taxi but most dependent on a car (rural Americans) will drive themselves still and those cars will be cheaper because they’re sensor free. That will never be a luxury product.
In urban environments though, the poorest people will continue to own cars but be slowly priced out by insurance. But maybe insurance won’t go up for manual cars, but down for self driving cars. They’ve already priced the cost of manual driving, which won’t get more dangerous as less cars are human. States might try to protect them, but I think politicians and citizens will be persuaded by “safety” over “poor people need to afford transportation”.
What you said is true, but does not reflect reality.
Today The Model 3 is ~$40k, and once self driving is "solved", there is no reason a ~$40k car won't be capable of it.
The only way in which I can see a surcharge on manual happening is if it becomes so incredibly rare that it becomes a niche product, or if there ends up being a bias e.g. it turns out that the pool of manual drivers is now biased towards people who like to drive in a risky manner.
If anything, in a competitive market that is able to price individual risk appropriately, the cost of manual insurance for you or I should be lower in the self driving world, because most other drivers are now "superhuman" and thus we should get into fewer accidents.
Look at the 2020 covid vaccines. The freedom crowd said this was going to have massive privacy implications, there was a propaganda machine pushing those people as being crazy antivaxers (maybe many were, let's talk about the large subset who just had privacy concerns), and the net result is that most US citizens have their names, addresses, preferred vaccination locations, preferred vaccination times, propensity for following local regulations, ..., recorded in a database so broken it's basically public.
The freedom crowd didn't have a lot of power against a propaganda machine turning their neighbors against them. Tack in a few dozens of billions from Tesla or Google claiming their cars are safer than the average driver (in well-studied, dry, daylight, slow streets) and using that to push anyone unwilling to roll that tech out globally as a road-raged Luddite, and I'm not sure the freedom crowd are going to be able to do much to slow down our corporate overlords.
> left/right
Yes, many people care about freedom
> going to have a hard time accepting self-driving cars
I'm usually optimistic, but I don't think public sentiment matters here. To the extent it does, it'll be some sort of Faustian bargain, where the law says your car must have a backup camera (arguably useful) and as a byproduct brings in unwanted, undisclosed tracking and also remote takeover capabilities through radio bugs (buffer overflows plus poorly designed canbus access). However self-driving inflicts itself on the masses, it'll be in a series of small enough steps that the freedom crowd can't appropriately fight back.
I can already today add functionality to cars with after-market hardware: https://comma.ai/?
If even a small subset of users did this, and insurers did something with this information, it would substantially disincentivize driving like a complete maniac.
Are insurers unable to use this information? Are they afraid of the backlash from being the first to accept this information? Is there some legal reason this isn't doable?
Obviously you capture some craziness on the margin that you want to capture, but also on the margin is the fudging that makes the whole thing work at all.
I agree that brief minor parking infringements may occasionally make people’s lives more efficient; but I can’t think of any examples where traffic lights and speed limits need to be routinely disregarded?
I assume a way for any civilian to activate those laws against any other civilian would result in the legal code being cleaned up quite quickly.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-64386371
https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/driving-1/2021-02/one-in-f...
The obvious answer to this proposal is that I believe that I have a right to not be monitored and penalized by autonomous algorithms, and I'm not ready to compromise on that right just because some people drive dangerously. All of the same arguments HN will reliably raise against algorithmic anything apply here, but apparently that all goes out the window when cars become involved.
I'd word it more like drivers who put me and others around me in danger should be punished for driving recklessly.
And to make roads safer.
The real money would be in giving civilians whose footage leads to a successful prosecution for moving violations a percentage of the fine. NYC already has something like this for people who catch too-long idling trucks and photograph/video record it.
I don't know where you live, but around me, the police are so disinterested in traffic safety that roads have turned into a Mad Max free-for-all. Red light running, stop sign running, lack of signaling, weaving in and out of lanes, and general belligerence on the road. That and 90% of drivers are playing on their smartphones. Police departments could get infinite money by just opening their eyes and pulling nearly anyone over.
I've heard lots of talk of civil war in this country, but this is the first serious plan I've seen for how to start one.
This is 200% in the wrong direction.
We should be removing the incentive for the justice system to benefit from collected money at all let alone expanding it.
"Incentivized" justice is gigantic moral hazard. The system will invent "crimes" in order to keep the money flowing.
Also. Nothing is stopping Karen's from reporting things right now. So what if they do? If you've done nothing wrong then the reviewer would just trash it. And probably put Karen's reports in the "immediately discard" pile in the future if she sends in frivolous claims all the time.
That's an argument for automating the system, taking the biased human actor out of the process.
When people started getting higher insurance rates because a vigilante dashcam operator caught them driving 68 in a 65 three different times or because they only slowed to 1MPH instead of 0MPH at a 4-way stop, then it wouldn't seem like such a good idea any more.
For every mistake you get a point and with enough point a punishment.
Sounds familiar.
How you think this is the same as “being naughty while walking outside” is hilarious to me.
There's a million reasons why a dystopic snitch on your neighbours program isn't practical, as others have highlighted. I love the idea that insurance companies would be afraid of backlash lol. There's also easier options like I imagine asking car manufacturers to hand over data collected on driver behaviour would be. Don't US insurers already collect data like that from willing customers? Why not get that data from all customers regardless of consent? We've seen time and time again that most car manufacturers will throw all the data they can at whichever corporation asks for it. Even lower tech than that, speed and red light cameras have existed for a long time and they work on vehicles regardless of how many touchscreen tablets have been glued into it. Stupid(er) comment time: even lower tech again, the potential threat of gun violence in road rage incidents doesn't seem to disincentivise driving like a homicidal maniac, judging by how much worse US dash cam captured accidents seem to be compared to those from Europe or Australia. Maybe that's more to do with how many giant yank tanks there are on US roads and how much more effective they are at obliterating other road users and the sense of safety that comes with driving such huge things?
Jokes aside, road safety is a complex problem and insurance companies have other ways to protect their interests with significantly less effort.
- elasticity of laws. If all of a sudden every well-to-do law-abiding doctor, engineer and lawyer gets a fine on their daily commute for speeding 5 mph over the limit, there's going to instantly be a lot of pressure to change the speed limit to something reasonable.
- the amount of absolutely insane, dangerous behavior on the highways (people weaving in and out at 100 mph, etc.). It may be tough for an insurance company to act on a tip that someone changed lanes without using their blinkers, it certainly won't be tough if there's video evidence of them going 100 mph.
- the fact that insurance companies (presumably) do not need to know the identity of the driver to raise rates. If your car is regularly being driven by your brother at 100mph, it's still your insurance that's going to pay if he gets in an accident.
- while the police sound like they've given up on enforcing any traffic laws, it's in the insurance company's financial interest not to insure dangerous drivers. (And while that's sad, maybe private sousveillance is better than anarchy. People can have differing opinions.)
Not if your brother isn't listed as an insured party on your insurance. The insurance company will tell you to pound sand in that case. And if your brother is on your insurance, and you're paying for it and giving him a free ride, that's on you.
> And while that's sad, maybe private sousveillance is better than anarchy. People can have differing opinions.
::raises hand:: We shouldn't accept either. Private surveillance is not the solution to anarchically poor enforcement.
It's really the job of police forces to act on maniac drivers. And they stopped doing so in 2020 for the same reason.
Do you really think everyone is just insured because it's the law? If so, you're fairly naive. Try leaving the bubble you live in now and then. Oakland cops stopping responding to anything less than murder at lot sooner than 2020 lmao.
Probably the letter should be more specific, include pictures, and it should not be entirely anonymous. You should be able to find out if someone is trying to make trouble for you.
It might not even be legally possible anyway. Insurance companies have a lot of regulation.
You are presuming that the manics are otherwise legally entitled to drive and have valid insurance. It should be no surprise to learn that they, very largely, do not.
They already don't care about your incentive system.
There is nothing stopping them.
Which is why a privacy amendment must be passed and enforced with ruthless abandon if we don't want to pave the way for – and eventually become – an Orwellian panopticon in the service of authoritarians.
People who drive like complete maniacs aren't doing so rationally. It's called "road rage" not "road reason."
So this might be an effective (and cheap, compared to fiery auto crashes and arrests) way to discourage that behavior.
And if someone does not respond to the initial incentive, their insurance rates would continue to climb, so at some point in time they either end up uninsured (in which case, this sousveillance really ought to just inform the cops, but anyway, the opinion in this thread is that cops are useless, so YMMV) or fix their behavior.
Running ML on public footage of people who did not consent is a huge no-no.
Dashcams are already a problem and technically illegal although tolerated. The footage can't generally be used on court.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driv...
What has stopped you from doing that personally?
It took a while though. Maybe 10 minutes in total to pull the dashcam clip and upload it to YouTube.
In my country, most police forces accept dashcam evidence from other road users, and will prosecute on it. It’s seen be the police as a great road safety tool.
GM is already doing this, look it up.
I think you'll find too that a lot of people think laws are for other people. My speeding is totally justified.
[0] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a61793292/ford-cop-cars-sp...
In the US, I could totally see that happening.
Even better, not only notify insurance companies, but notify other drivers that the idiot in front of them is dangerous so they can react.
I can immediately think of half a dozen ways this would be abused.
The clique of brats in their daddies' Teslas at Sammamish High School bully the unpopular kid.
Black guy who drives through predominately white neighborhoods in the deep south.
Prius with a Harris/Walz bumper sticker in eastern Idaho.
Need I go on?
I wonder if folks could wear an emitter mask to prevent identification of their face? (like a hockey mask but covered in bright IR LEDs to confuse cameras)
The police don't want to enforce the laws that are written. They don't even pull over drivers without license plates.
I was a big believer of police reform, but realized the whole system was broken and police are just a symptom. And most actors are actually behaving somewhat rationally.
The sad part is criminals are finally realizing this. I have a cousin who hangs with a “crowd” and it’s amazing how prolific and bold some are. And how many people know about the crimes and no one really says anything. And apparently police know about a lot of it too, but apparently a case that prosecutors will take is an exceptionally high bar.
What interested me is that they make a habit of connecting their personal phone to the entertainment systems of vehicles they steal. They then use the large list of connected devices in their phone to brag about their stature as criminals.
Which is hilarious because it's not only evidence that connects them to a rash of vehicle thefts, but it also means every stolen vehicle retains evidence of who _precisely_ stole that vehicle.
The police don't seem to have a clue. The criminals surely don't.
That’s literally their job, which they get paid for. But anyway, my comment was more referring to the fact that if they had done their job, I’d be more open to keeping my Sentry mode on.
> That’s literally their job, which they get paid for.
It's literally not.
Their job is to do a variety of things, including investigation, according to the priorities of the higher, within the financial constraints they are given and according to the priorities of the authority placed over them (which in many cases is the top leadership of the police department themselves, because lots of times they are given a broad degree of structural independence from the local government they are associated with.)
What you say may be what you'd like their job to be, but it is not literally what their job is.
That's the majority of people who don't have a lien on their title. Liability insurance covers what you do, it doesn't cover what someone does to you. So having evidence of who caused the accident is important when everyone just has liability coverage.
In California, though, I really do recommend you have the "Uninsured and Underinsured Counterparty" option on your insurance. It's usually far cheaper than the alternatives and it just covers you with no effort on your part.
This is part of the protection of free speech and press. You cannot use the footage gathered for commercial purposes without permission of people you filmed. Journalism for pay, and art for pay are not considered commercial purposes.
The law here isn’t about filming but regulation of surveillance, and is only about installing equipment that films public spaces without permit. For example: a ring doorbell can film my driveway and porch but not the street.
The thing about the Tesla is that it counts the same as mounting a camera on a house filming a public street corner, and not as a person filming the same street corner with their smartphone.
I don’t see the connection to freedom of speech since the act of recording anything is unrelated to if and how you can use that recording (which would be when it becomes speech).
When I had a model 3 it also had an absurd amount of drain over night, 4-5% battery when it was just sitting there (without overheat A/C)
Leaving for vacation before I had a home charger was always fraught.
The Tesla has to run the cameras and run computer vision algorithms to determine if something is happening.
Source: MYP 22 Intel based
From the perspective of a sentry mode: very similar design goals.
It's a bit like climate change. Slow, invisible poison.
Public cameras should only be decrypted for evidence to support litigation of crimes, not for police to search for violay, because the current gigantic book of laws has an implicit assumption of a difficulty to enforce.
If suddenly police could use AI to fully prosecute all violations of law then we have all the laws necessary for worse than totalitarian existence.
Every mile you drove in a car will be 10 violations of law. Laugh loud? Violation disturbance of peace. Stand looking at your email too long? Loitering. Cross a park? Dozens of environmental violations.
Are you sure those are organic?
‘The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.’
Now, our extended family is prosperous in the US, Australia and Ireland. We’re taller, healthier and mostly in professional or skilled trade jobs.
The past is often seen through a sepia tinted idealized slant. The past was full of suffering and brutality. Even warfare was just as brutal - in ancient times, Caesar slaughtered 1-2% of the global population in Gaul. In the 17th century, marauding armies picked regions cleaned and left thousands to starve.
Yes, there are negatives to the Industrial Revolution we have to overcome. But it’s a net positive for everyone.
You’re welcome to fantasize being someone’s slave. I’m not.
I do not want to stop tech progress, but I do want to stop social regress. Give it another 20-30 years and we will have same shit problems with freedoms as China, Russia, insert your fav scapegoat here.
The idea that the west are the “good guys” hasn’t been true for a long time, if ever. China is just better at technology and large scale coordination than the US, so they are way better at building and deploying and operating large scale surveillance systems. The US will catch up in a few decades.
I believe this is inevitable. There is no meaningful opposition to pervasive surveillance in US government and there is no useful political action that can be undertaken by the public to turn this tide.
There was tech to watch for what things you pick up and put back or dwell on in stores with cameras and heat maps and loyalty card tracking before 2005. it's not far off to get a person some computer thinks should be investigated based on patterns and data out there publicly.
No plans to upgrade or get new vehicles unless a dire need. For instance if Sprinter or Tacoma die, drive the not-dead one. (Sprinter is technially an RV, but used for business).
Because, if not, this is about as "creepy" as those nerdy guys sitting in their bedrooms and basements, tinkering with their silly computers all day, meaning: Non-conformist and something you might just not be ready to think about straight.
Whenever I see people seriously argue against statistics by leaning on stories, it tends to be complicated and sinister. If you are that afraid of your government, if you deem your government to be that irresponsible and also out of your control, that on average you would rather not default support it when fighting crime, then I think you are you confused about what battle you should actually be fighting.
I would be mich more concerned with regulatory capture by the spying corporations or laws passed by a minority seeking to impose a religious based set of laws than car cameras.
As you point out, you can be arrested for being gay without all those cameras, but the possibility of making laws to protect the right to be gay is also doable.
And if you don't think any sort of consumer right to own your data law will be lobbied against by Google and Meta lobbiests, well I think you are wrong.
I Should be able to FOIA-LiveStream #OfficerBadge_Num
For #1  Rights? Maybe #2
#If Warrant granted, then enable FOIA-Cam_Footage = 1
Why don't the cops get a search warrant for that USB drive and take that rather than confiscating the entire vehicle of innocent people?
But in general, this isn't really much new. If you have home cameras, and police can obtain a search warrant, then you can be compelled to provide the video, or they can seize any device (such as entire computer, your server closet, etc) that could reasonably contain the video.
Yes but the police can't start occupying my house or deny me access to it because I wasn't home to let them in.
With a search warrant, they can. You can be kept out of your home until they complete the search and seizing of the items named in the warrant. Depending on what is being searched for (excavating your basement looking for bodies?) that could take quite some time.
So the Tesla situation getting press isn't because the precedent is new, it's because most Americans (many in this thread included) don't understand what the law has already been since long before Teslas ever existed, and are surprised at what they find.
That would require a search warrant, something the comment you're replying to already mentioned. Search warrants typically specify the means of access.
I would have thought this was the path of least resistance (as well as doing less harm to the car owner) since they're getting a search warrant anyway.
But if that doesn't work, then preserving evidence is considered to be very important. For example, it would be a problem if the car owner deleted the video.
I agree with you that this ubiquitous surveillance is detestable, but that's a whole different discussion.
This argument was invented in modern times to justify stripping the anonymity of the crowd from the general populace and is destroying the freedom from constant surveillance we once took for granted.
If you are somewhere where you might expect that people could see you, don’t pretend that they are supposed to not see you, or to forget what they saw. Thinking ypeopleshould have that kind of control over other people’s memories, even if stored in their stuff, seems dystopian.
This is in no way equivalent to video recording.
My brother once had his vehicle stolen, he traced it, found it, and because the police wasn't motivated to show up, he acted over the phone as if he were about to get into a life/death confrontation with the thief. Then they sent someone.
Search warrants specifically exist to give police the "legal right to access/take people's private property", and are widely accepted to be constitutional.
The protection against "unreasonable" search and seizure comes in the form of the fact the requesting party has to convince the court (usually the registry) that there is reasonable grounds before they will issue a subpoena.
As an investigative matter (prior to any charges, court listings, and subpoenas), it is possible to get a search warrant including for evidence held by 3rd parties who aren't suspected of anything. Again, police don't have carte blanche. They need to convince a judicial officer of some sort that there is reasonable grounds before a warrant will be issued.
There are ways to challenge a warrant/subpoena. Sometimes a successful challenge only serves to make the evidence inadmissible but doesn't prevent the search in the first place (aka "you can beat the ticket but you can't beat the ride).
All that said, some judges / courts tend to practically be a rubber stamp for whatever warrant / subpoena the police want. Others actually do their job. It ain't perfect, but if you can think of a better system, I'd love to hear it.
Sure, it could be helpful. But at what cost?
From the article:
>Therriault said he and other officers now frequently seek video from bystander Teslas, and usually get the owners’ consent to download it without having to serve a warrant. Still, he said, tows are sometimes necessary, if police can’t locate a Tesla owner and need the video “to pursue all leads.”
They're not towing cars at first opportunity.
There's a lot of people saying that search warrants have always allowed intrusion & seizure. But the fact that all these devices (cars, cameras, phones) are now potentially interesting data-rich objects to be seized, mined for ever larger total information awareness by the state seems like a massive defect & flaw of the system to me.
I dont want old laws + new technology to automatically result in the state's eye of sauron (palantir) getting to better observe us.
This ever expanding invasiveness delegitimizes the state. Physical security is a positive, only when the power itself is used respectably & virtuously. Pursuing enemies at all cost makes you a bad state, that can't be believed in. Some balance is required. Some limit to intrusion is necessary, and to me, this violates the sovereign rights of the citizens, to have so much of our lives repurposeable & cooptable by the state with ever increasing scope and haste.
1 - vehicle wasn't involved and was about to be towed for footage as the article implies (owner came by and gave them footage during tow process)
2 - tesla was towed along with 2 other vehicles from a shootout in the parking lot (probably the cars were shot or had other evidence on them)
3 - the crime happened inside the tesla (was going to be towed regardless)
Which is definitely something that shouldn't happen and is a violation of constitutional rights.
(aside from the serious crime stuff like in the article)
Plus the time to go down to the station to pick your car up, because you know they're not going to courier it back to you.
Plus any accidental damage done to the vehicle because an officer/towing company/whoever damages your vehicle during the tow/seizure of your property.
I doubt it.
Tesla should respond by making it harder/impossible for law enforcement to retrieve the data off the drive - maybe encryption at rest only unlockable with your tesla keyfob or phone connection, etc. etc.
What if someone misses work and is fired? They had to leave for a trip and missed their flight? Missed a wedding? We’re a surgeon and the delay getting to the hospital led to a death? Had to pick up kids, and had no way to get them? Medication they need was in the car and without it they get extremely ill or die?
If the owner actually committed the crime, I wouldn’t have much sympathy. However, when the driver’s only crime is owning a car with camera and parking it somewhere, that’s not good.
Hah. No. Police have kicked in the wrong door (wrong house, number didn't match the warrant, wasn't the correct house), set off flash bangs, shot dogs, destroyed property...
... and when the owner (who was uninvolved in whatever the warrant was about, and it wasn't even meant to be his house searched) has requested reparations or repair work from the Police Department, they've laughed...
... and when the owner has subsequently sued the Police Department, the courts have ruled that they have no obligation to pay for any damage done, including by negligence.
Reform requires reform of both the government and industry. Industry will happily gather the data and the state will then buy it from industry as a means to circumvent the 4th amendment.
https://reason.com/2024/08/20/how-the-feds-buy-their-way-aro...
If we’re going to use proper nouns, we need to use them properly.
The police are getting warrants for the video.
So, penalising the poors who are not as poor as the other poors.
Towing someone's car on the off chance it had video surveillance of a crime the police bother working on is insane overreach when they won't even investigate crimes to that owner's car in the first place.
This anecdote does squat all for main point in the clickbait article. It is not even remotely an example of an uninvolved Tesla being towed just for its incidental surveillance data.
> The [Canadian tourist] permitted officers to download the footage without taking away the car, sparing him a visit to the police station.
Not an example of an uninvolved car being towed for data.
> The police obtained a search warrant to tow three vehicles – including a Tesla Model X – and gathered CCTV footage from a nearby market. The evidence led to two arrests for murder and other felonies – although it’s not clear if any of it came from the Tesla.
Ditto.
Not a single example of a confirmed tow of a Tesla for its data.
If I was driving in my car near a crime scene and discovered my dash cam recorded something that could be used as evidence, personally, I would call the local police and ask them if they were interested. However, to have the police discover my vehicle was in close proximity to the crime, and me not realizing my dash cam had recorded anything of value, and then the police try to impound my vehicle in a parking lot without my knowledge is outrageous!
The above situation is the result of two major realities: once again technology has emerged without adequate laws to deal with the consequences.(I realize this is usually the norm, law makers MUST speed up the process to protect citizens.) Second, police reform has to bring local law enforcement up to date with current reality. (The seizing of a vehicle based on possible crime info isn't protecting citizens, it's theft. Contacting the vehicle owner and requesting the info is serving the citizens, if they're not willing there is a court system.)
We already have cameras on many of our homes, so it should be roughly the same process.
Towing sounds ridiculous. No one should be penalized for a crime someone else did. But taking away one’s car is a major penalty.
Have a 24 hour wiping cycle
Not without a judge.
People be crazy.
It works if the people in power align with your values, but the moment it doesn’t it becomes a problem
There is epic fear in the US about the government. That is the actual problem. Now the US gov is a shady piece of shit, so a lot of that is well founded, but that is the root of the problem. Solve that problem and actually trust the people who are supposed to be responsible and in charge to do the right thing and this data problem stops becoming as much of an issue. And no, building some kind of philosophical zero trust system is not going to solve anything, it is a prison you'll end up living in.
Encourage transparency in Police forces and Government with strong legislation and strong support for whistleblowers and punishment of infractions and you have yourself a system that people can begin to trust.
The US is not Iceland, a simple fix that would just make people trust the police is impossible. Also as an aside, the police isn't your only problem. Tesla, Google & co are paving the way normalizing these mobile surveillance units. We'll have millions of them driving around everywhere with HD cameras, microphones, in some cases even LiDAR and radar. Recording constantly. Of course there's a bit of an issue if you are not a fan of mass surveillance. Even if corporations are the only ones in charge of that data. I know for example that the Tesla video feed can be accessed online, because owners can remotely view it with their app. And if they can do this, so can others in theory. All you need is a bug or Tesla servers getting hacked.