Flock's gunshot detection microphones will start listening for human voices
eff.org
eff.org
Look at "spoken keyword" and "gunshot" for instance
How does keyword detection work?
HALO Smart Sensor listens for preloaded distress keywords and triggers real-time alerts when detected, ensuring quick emergency response without recording conversations.
What keywords can HALO detect?
HALO Smart Sensor comes preloaded with distress keywords and can be updated with additional phrases to fit specific security needs.
Does HALO record conversations?
No, HALO Smart Sensor ensures privacy by only detecting keywords and aggression patterns without recording audio or storing voice data.
I can understand if there were emergency keywords like yelling "Help" or "Call 911" and extremely limited phrases like that. Essentially a voice activated fire alarm. But uploading new keywords and not being explicit of what keywords trigger the thing is really not a good look. If you can upload arbitrary words then there is no meaningful difference between spying. The thing has an occupancy sensor and it's not like it is hard to combine that data with camera data. What are the keywords? If a kid talks about someone else smoking a joint does that trigger the system? Where are kids going to get some safe place to talk about things without fear of surveillance?
The words keywords being hidden just furthers concerns of surveillance. If you can't know what words you can't use then you have to be very cautious with your speech, least you set off false positives and get in trouble. This really is too far.
HOLY FUCK! THEY *SUGGEST* YOU INSTALL THESE THINGS IN BATHROOMS! How is anyone okay with that? It's way more than a smoke detector! https://halodetect.com/blog/school-bathroom-vandalism/
I wouldn't be shocked if in ten years, parents will be getting monthly summaries of their kids' out-of-class activities, complete with the most objectionable things they said out of class, their compliance score, the topics they like to discuss, the kids they associate with. Then we'll see the normalization of things like Flock from this post, followed by endless expansions in what these businesses can do to "keep you safe".
That's the difference between mythos and ethos - they were never the actual values to begin with (profit-driven utilitarianism is exactly American ethos)
That's generous. To me it's just felonious corruption possibly bordering on treason.
> and it makes money
It doesn't make money. Which is why these rent seeking entities attach themselves to the federal and state budgets with onerous contracts that they will defend to the death. If they had to actually compete for private business they would be out of money by end of year.
> of the society we want to build
This isn't directionless either. The people doing this have a vision for your society and they're willing to do almost anything to secure that.
> That’s the world the tech industry is building.
Which is why I find monopoly law enforcement so important. "Too big to fail" has become the norm and it seems to me is a required ingredient in order to achieve these outcomes.
Is something does become so large and critical to the functioning of the nation that means we have either failed to trust bust or it needs to be nationalized and made a public service. If Microsoft for example were to fail tomorrow, no way in hell should we bail them out. Let them fail, let others enter the market and pick up the pieces.
> It doesn't make money.
Honestly, we should treat these people like we would with any other employee wasting money. They need to justify their expenses. I don't mean with just words, I mean data. Words aren't enough. I can claim all day that painting this red dot on a ceiling with my special paint that costs 10 cents to make and $10k to install just right is an effective solution to stopping terrorists, pedophiles, and even cancer but words aren't proof. And except for the utmost security concerns, this data and justifications should be public. Otherwise there is no accountability.
People often say they don't trust politicians. I'd like to see those words be reflected in actions. It seems we only don't trust certain politicians. And it seems we hand over all trust as soon as they claim they are protecting children and fighting terrorists. I'm sorry, but what class of people are we finding in the Epstein list? Last I checked he wasn't hanging around low class people with no political or monetary influence. So why do we let them use that phrase like some cheat code?
It also requires at least two witnesses to the same overt act.
> exactly so people
I imagine they were more concerned with what US attourneys would do. The people have always more broadly defined "treason" outside of the constitutionally narrowed "treason against the United States."
Flock and friends are just the most flagrant tip of the iceberg. This behavior goes all the way down to your goddamn licensed plumber and his stupid trade group that lobbies to make it illegal for anyone unlicensed to install a gas stove, and it's all crap.
> US-based surveillance helps victims and prevents more victims
— Garry Tan, Sept 03, 2025, YC CEO while defending Flock on X.
https://xcancel.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955
I admire Garry but not sure why there can’t be a line that we all agree not to cross. No weapon has ever been made that was not used to harm humanity.
People disagree about this technology. I live in what I believe to be one of the 5 most progressive municipalities in the United States† and I can tell you from recent experience that our community is sharply divided on it.
† (we're a small inner-ring suburb of Chicago; I'm "cheating" in that Chicago as a whole is not one of the most progressive cities in the country, but our 50k person muni is up there with Berkeley and represented by the oldest DSA member in Congress)
That is not the same thing as me saying I think the cameras were a good tradeoff.
The way out is to turn on the rich and produce a more economically equal society.
I served on a jury where a young woman slipped on ice while crossing the street and was run over by a negligent driver who was fleeing what he thought was the police, because he was on probation and not supposed to drive. With private surveillance, red light cameras and some other sources, they were able to track down the vehicle and apprehend the individual within 45 minutes of the event. Prior to that, much more primitive version of that technology being available, there would no chance of that case being solved.
Personally, I think this technology is dangerous, lacks effective governance, is operated without transparency, and is prone to abuse. Events of late highlight how different jurisdictional boundaries at the city, state and federal levels can be in conflict. But the technology is not going away -- imo it's time to govern it and limit the inter-jurisdictional data sharing.
Still, I'm torn whenever I walk to the city center (Bavarian big city that is not Munich) and see how many rental bikes and rental e-scooters can be found thrown into the river that runs through the city. Or public trash cans that were actually put deep into the earth, with concrete too, lie broken with lots of earth and the long metal pipe with concrete attached because some people spent considerable effort to destroy public infrastructure. Or somebody must have jumped hard and repeatably on a weak point of a public bench, which has very thick wood and thick steel screws, but they still managed to destroy it.
I want those people to be found, I'm very angry. This is a frequent occurrence. If that means more surveillance, I would not oppose. I'm tired of seeing this happen again and again and again.
The city had to start using trashcans that look more and more like little war bunkers. They can't do anything for the bikes and scooters though, making them too heavy to lift and throw into the water is obviously not possible. Police do patrol, but they can't be everywhere all the time.
For illustration: Two bikes of a public bike rental service found in the river. They are not old, all of them are new, but this is how they look after a few days or weeks in the river:
https://img.mittelbayerische.de/ezplatform/images/4/4/8/8/40...
Divers are called regularly to retrieve bikes, scooters, and other big items thrown into the city's river: https://images.nordbayern.de/image/contentid/policy:1.132184...
I doubt any more effort will be made against vandalism for a long time that reaquires to increase surveillance. The cameras and microphones will remain, though.
Edit: I live in a dictatorship. State surveillance and policing has helped with vandalism. But the drawbacks are obvious and nefarious. I would take more vandalism in a mediocre democracy any day.
Obviously I pointed to a conflict (of my interests), that's why I said I'm torn. If I want the second (less vandalism) I'll have to give up at least some of the first (freedom from surveillance while in public places).
More cameras doesn't fix this kind of crime.
No, it doesn't necessarily mean surveillance ... or, at least, not automated surveillance.
Your wishes (which I share) can be fulfilled with human bodies (possibly police) on the street deterring these bad actions.
I still remember my last years in school. Around the turn of the millennium, when the country had an economic down turn. The school building was a bunch of containers. Freezing in the winter, sweating in the sommer. Society saw nothing but a burden in us. The teachers constantly said "no one is waiting for you out there!"
Nothing has changed since then. There is no respect for child care. There is no respect for school children. (Walk into a school and try not to drip over "temporary" support beams.) There will be no "Sondervermögen" for Schools.
You can't fix a social problem - that some recent the society they have to live in and lash out via doing dumb thinks - via technology.
I don't doubt that license plate readers are used primarily to solve crimes. But the fact that it is collected and can be made available to anyone essentially strips you of privacy in everyday life. Cops are people too; once the tech is available, it is sometimes abused to spy on spouses, neighbors, journalists critical of the local PD, and so on.
There is also a more general argument: an ever-growing range of human activities is surveilled to root out crime, and we can probably agree that the end state of that would be dystopian: it'd be a place where your every word or even every thought is proactively monitored and flagged for wrongthink. We're ways off, but with every decade, we're getting closer. I'm not saying that Flock-listening-to-conversations is the line we can't cross, but if not this, then what?
It's an invasive surveillance technology that contributes to building the pervasive surveillance day to day reality.
You're muddying the waters asking "why are you against this" without even hinting at an argument why anyone should not be against this.
You can already see the progression. What was sold as "only listens to gunshots" now no longer listens only to gunshots. The deal constantly gets altered.
Whatever else I am, I'm not "muddying the waters". I'm commenting in good faith from actual experience. You're going to find my bona fides here are pretty strong.
And Catholic priests preach. Some things aren't mutually exclusive and a lot of people are capable of holding conflicting ideas in their head.
> I'm commenting in good faith from actual experience.
All good but you didn't say anything. You muddy the water by saying repeatedly how progressive and experienced you are without providing the obvious reasoning that multiple commenters here are missing: why not be against it? This industry in general (and Flock in particular as per the article) have already been shown to continuously escalate things and change the deal to their benefit again and again. Any step they take forward always proved to be an irrecoverable step backward for civil liberties.
You cracked open the door and are looking at someone on the other side opening it wider and wider, and bringing their friends in, and still believe you can close that door whenever you want. Any history book will tell you that's hubris, not qualifications.
What are your bona fides on turkeys voting for Christmas? If you can put together an argument why this isn't a red line given this evidence of escalation, I'll tell you all about my bona fides.
After repeated requests also from others you're still just waltzing around this, pretending you're not answering because you didn't get the question worded the right way.
If you think that's what good faith looks like I've got news for you.
Perhaps others have asked that question. I have not. Rather, I'm asking a different question:
Why should we believe that Flock is operating in good faith?
Especially given the anti-democratic (small 'd') and likely illegal stuff they pulled in Evanston[0].
That's not a rhetorical question.
I really don't think the "rhetorical" thing is going to work with me. I have the impression I might be the one person on this thread who has actually done any policy with with ALPRs.
And discussions of ALPRs and the issues around them are absolutely important.
My point was that the City of Evanston required their contractor (Flock) to remove their equipment from city infrastructure. Flock did so and then promptly reinstalled that equipment on city-owned infrastructure, flouting the will of the legitimate civil authority -- because they wanted to get paid by another government agency, against the express orders of said civil authority.
I don't know where you come from, but that sort of behavior just reeks of bad faith to me.
Feel free to disagree. And if you do, given your significant policy experience why Flock acted in good faith in Evanston. I'd be quite interested in your thoughts.
>I really don't think the "rhetorical" thing is going to work with me.
Huh? a rhetorical question[0] is (often) one that isn't actually trying to elicit information. My question, on the other hand, was specifically attempting to ascertain whether or not you think Flock is acting in good faith given their history.
So no, I wasn't trying to "gotcha" you (as in "when did you stop beating your wife" kind of thing), I genuinely wanted your take. But that doesn't seem to be forthcoming, so I'll back off. Have a good day.
I hope it's worth it.
I’m not even sure why but this sentiment rubs me the wrong way.
Perhaps it’s that what’s resonated most to me about democracy is the premise that it is all “for the people, of the people, by the people.”
There’s something exclusive about that statement.
If you don’t respond to this comment, I’ll assume you agree.
So, we’re losing.
They will happily look the other way when agencies share data that Flock knows they're not meant to be sharing.
They will happily "massage" data when needed to shore up a case (particularly with their gunshot detection).
Their transparency report probably lists only about 2/3 (at most) of the agencies that are actually using the system.
I asked lots of questions about ethics and morality in the recruitment process, got in, and rapidly learned that it was openly mask-off, surveillance state, Minority Report-esque mission.
Would whistleblower protections shield you? Or have you taken this to any reputable journalists?
I'm about 98% certain understands why people are against this; other comments make this more clear, but even sentence right before the one you quoted to suggests this fact ("I understand people not being comfortable with Flock.").
By "I do not understand this idea that it's an obvious red line" he seems to mean that, even if you ignore all authoritarians, there are plenty of smart people who believe the benefits (particularly when well regulated) outweigh the risks.
There are plenty of things that are wrong that are not "an obvious red line," so merely thinking that Flock is bad is not enough to make it "an obvious red line."
His argument for why people should not be against seems to be twofold:
1. If it could be made to work in such a way that isn't invasive, it could be a boon, particularly to the most disadvantaged[0].
2. If all of the places that regulate it well kick it out, then they lose political capital that could constructively be used to encourage their neighbors to also regulate it[1].
We have a technology that keeps evolving to encompass more and more "protections" for the people, that happen to come with more and more control for authorities. Every step in that direction is a red flag. The red flag is the direction in which things are moving. Don't we have enough chapters in the history books about why that is?
> a lot of normal, reasonable people see these cameras as a very good thing
That sums up tptacek's "argumentation". It can be used to justify just about any type of surveillance. I mean does breaking E2EE and monitoring every communication really do any meaningful harm in Oak Park?
It really brings into focus how people who were raised in "good times" just can't wrap their heads around how easily the cookie can crumble into "bad times", and how people who found moderate success in their field believe they can now control everything. The kind of hubris that overrides any history lesson, or boiling frog fable.
And don't even get me started on what self-proclaimed "reasonable people" believe about other topics.
Contrast with the counter-arguments of what lies behind the curtain, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45476100
It was a good way to bring someone down a couple of (dozen) notches in my eyes. Not that it matters, this won't do any meaningful harm in Oak Park.
My snarky retorts:
1. "and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a bicycle"
2. "Let the bad actors do harm but keep an eye on them so others might do the same instead of prevent them from doing harm" is a wild approach to anything that has to ignore so many things it feels like intentional gaslighting. Even at face value it's absurd; why would only zero and partial regulation encourage similar behavior amongst neighbors but not full restriction? Imagine this suggestion for things we currently call crimes like rape and manslaughter and child abuse!
I'm in my "calling it like I see it era" and I'm calling this one. Shills gonna shill.
> 2. If all of the places that regulate it well kick it out, then they lose political capital that could constructively be used to encourage their neighbors to also regulate it[1].
I keep seeing that kind of thinking permeating tech. It is used often to hand-wave away any objections on the thesis that “well, we just have to get it right.”
Dr. Ian Malcolm is instructive here: “you were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you never thought whether or not you should.” (Paraphrased from memory.)
ALPRs are not an obvious red line. Federal police ignoring court orders with microphones on street corners is.
Again I want to be clear that there's a difference between "bad idea" or "bad public policy tradeoff" and "red line". I believe it's pretty clear that when something is a live controversy with no clear winner in a municipality like Oak Park, whatever else it is, it isn't a "red line".
Shouldn't it be the opposite? A thing is tested when it's put under stress. It's a red line because it's not to be crossed even when the temptation to do it increases.
I see your point that something cannot be a red line if it has significant support. Because a red line is something that people universally agree is unacceptable, and if there is even a significant minority who disagree then it's not universal.
Equally, for any horrible thing you will find a minority who support it. Hitler certainl had wide support for deporting Jews, if not worse. Does that mean it can't be a red line? In fact there is no point having red lines that are universally accepted, because they are already, well, universally accepted. There is little point stating that killing babies and eating their flesh whil livestreaming is a red line because no one wants to do it.
I don't have a view on Flock itself.
No? Just those who are decisionally relevant. Most people are incapable of civic action, for example.
And I wouldn't say that's a widely held definition. For example:
> The red line, or "to cross the red line", is a phrase used worldwide to mean a figurative point of no return or line in the sand, or "the fastest, farthest, or highest point or degree considered safe." [0]
If adopting these practices means they stick around and people will always argue for bringing them back if we stop... We've crossed the point of no return.
The practical effect is most of them have national sharing turned on.
For me, the red line was Texas extrajudicially enforcing its abortion laws through Flock. It’s illegal. It’s invasive.
Which was an annoying lift, because Chicago is part of a tri-state area (Wisconsin and Indiana); there are de-facto suburbs of Chicago in other states, and we had to say "no sharing without a phone call authorizing it".
this administration is already making proclamations that are not laws (Executive Orders and National Security Directives), which clearly violate 1st Amendment rights to free speech, and yet are being interpreted by states to go after specific groups (may i introduce you to Texas and Florida).
police already exist as an uncontrollable force within most cities who apply the law as they see fit.
do you think a combination of those two things isn't going to result in a tool like this being abused?
if you do think it will be abused and that isn't a red line, that says something about you.
if you don't think it will be abused despite the evidence that police abuse surveillance and the current administration has no respect for due process and that isn't a red line, that also says something about you.
circling back, i hope you never find yourself on the receiving end of the technology you want others to be on the receiving end of.
combine that with a federal government that increasingly says police can do whatever they want and the 1st, 4th, 6th, and 8th amendments don't apply equally anymore.
so, no, i don't think police should have access to incredible levels of surveillance or military-grade hardware.
Absolutely solid line, and about sums it up. Batting for practices or technologies like this is publicizing your myopia and lack of imagination for seeing it being used against you or your friends/family/property in due time.
> https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...
My birth, as someone who is bi, is now declared to be tantamount to terrorism in the USA. My belief that race shouldn't matter, is now extremism.
The red line, is systems like this, enable those who would happily hunt me down and gut me like a fish. There are preachers in the government, who frequently say that I am not a person. The government is attempting to move to an extrajudicial procedure where it concerns people the government oppose.
We shouldn't gladly be making it easier for a better Dehomag to be put together - that is the red line.
Isn't it getting harder to say this, hearing this kind of rhetoric? "My bombs only kill the bad guys" is either hopelessly ignorant, or willfully malicious.
I am perfectly capable of using this site and not giving a flying shit about the CEO of YCombinator
"I'm on their site so I'm on their team... Of course I back everything they do, I'm on their team."
Similarly (and slightly related) when a big part of your motivation is to see the "other" side upset you've lost the plot.
The point stands i think. It is difficult for someone in his position to offer meaningful commentary about the topic without alienating his customers. As I mentioned in another comment, I’ve see firsthand how this type of tech resulted in a prosecution that would have been impossible without it.
But… there are glaring risks to the public with this tech. Everything from dragnet surveillance to cops stalking their exes. Move fast and break things is a menace in this context, and the gulf between a foreign boogeyman and something closer to home may not be as wide as someone would like it to be.
I don't want to get into an argument about the dangers involved, I agree with Taleb about the fat tails of violence, and how standard statistics breaks down when there is infinite variance. My point is just that Tan's point is reasonable, even if there is risk. You need only look at the CCTV usage in the UK to see how you can have a reasonable society with strong surveillance.
It's not really 'surveillance' as the vast majority of those cameras are privately owned and on private property. The numbers that get thrown around are basically just guesses, given that there are no central records of privately owned CCTV cameras.
That falls apart (and is falling apart) when the cameras are all operated by the same company. Now an agency can just go to that company and request video for an entire town in one go. There’s probably a self-service portal for this because the operator isn’t even based in that town, so has no skin in the game, no need to work out whether they agree this is something the video is needed for.
The UK is a dystopian society, an example on what not to do.
I am not from the UK, I just get forced to work there. I’ve been here for 2 out of the last 7 years.
Good music though
Why?
Pretty bold statement without citing data to back that up. I have already received a speeding warning letter from one of these things. Does that count as a crime Flock solved?
I tire of all this binary thinking. It is true that surveillance helps victims. It is also true that the same surveillance can endanger civil liberties. We should have some say in how much we will allow our liberties to be endangered.
Sounds like someone watched too much Person of Interest
1. I am in San Francisco.
2. Upon further research Flock does not appear to be used by SFPD for ticketing. They have another camera system for that. That does not mean that Flock could not be used for speeding tickets or a host of other things like running red lights, littering etc. Microprocessors and CMOS cameras can do amazing things.
Regardless of what company is doing the surveillance the debate remains the same.
1. Pervasive surveillance has the potential to be used inappropriately by authorities. Discussion is needed.
2. The data collected by a company such as Flock but not necessarily Flock could be used inappropriately or sold for other purposes. Benn Jordan has a good video on the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ&t=21s
3. The claim that Flock is responsible for %10 of solved cases seems dubious but without data it is difficult to know or believe. Given that Flock is in YC's portfolio makes it even more suspect.
Flock or a company like Flock may try and become pervasive and indispensable before a public discussion places any limits on their behavior.
Someone who knows more about how Flock generates that stat could say more.
If you were in one place at 13:00 and 5 miles down the road at 13:10 you must have gone at least 30mph at least once.
Either you think mass surveillance is wrong or not.
Also, what reason do you think China gives for its surveillance? It's the same: "protecting victims", "protecting citizens", "public safety".
I want proponents of this tech to explain something to me. Why has the rate of stochastic terrorism only increased since the NSA and Palantir started spying on all of us? Isn’t the whole point of this to preempt those kinds of things?
This is a bugbear for me. The point of terrorism is that it’s a random act of violence.
Edit: it's got a Wikipedia article, which says it's a particular kind of incitement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism
For example, saying "there is a planned school shooting at a school in $metro_city", even though there is absolutely nobody doing that - that causes terror. Doesn't have to be backed by any actions at all.
Like, with the shooting of UHC CEO, there was no grandiose statements or otherwise causing terror ahead of time. It was 3 bullets and leave.
Just making people afraid is a different thing.
That said, even "random" has so many different interpretations that "random targets" it can still be a misleading shorthand. What happens is something closer to "unpredictably unjust and disproportionate"... but of course nobody wants to keep saying a mouthful like that.
That's absolutely incorrect. Terrorism is violence used to achieve political goals.
>"Terrorism is the calculated use of violence or threat of violence against civilians and property to intimidate or coerce a population or government to achieve political, religious, or ideological goals" - a simple google search
It's not random at all. Random acts of violence are not meant to achieve any goal - they spur-of-the-moment, unplanned, etc. Terrorists have a goal, they typically have a target in mind to achieve a goal, it isn't very random at all. Sure random people might get hurt in the incident, but the incident itself isn't typically random. Terrorists usually prepare for it, for months or years. Was flying two planes into the twin towers random? No, it was not. Was blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City random? No, it was not. These were very carefully selected targets.
We ran a pilot with the cameras in hot spots (the entrances to the village from I-290, etc).
Just on stolen cars alone, roughly half the flags our PD reacted to turned out to be bogus. In Illinois, Flock runs off the Illinois LEADS database (the "hotlist"). As it turns out: LEADS is stale as fuck: cars are listed stolen in LEADS long after they're returned. And, of course, the demography of owners of stolen cars is sharply biased towards Black and Latino owners (statistically, they live in poorer, higher-crime areas), which meant that Flock was consistently requesting the our PD pull over innocent Black drivers.
We recently kicked Flock out (again: I'm not thrilled about this; long story) over the objections of our PD (who wanted to keep the cameras as essentially a better form of closed-circuit investigatory cameras; they'd essentially stopped responding to Flock alerts over a year ago). In making a case for the cameras, our PD was unable to present a single compelling case of the cameras making a difference for us. What they did manage to do was enforce a bunch of failure-to-appear warrants for neighboring munis; mostly, what Flock did to our PD was turn them into debt collectors.
Whatever else you think about the importance of people showing up to court for their speeding tickets, this wasn't a good use our sworn officers' time.
Had we kept the cameras, we'd have some political capital to get our neighboring munis (and like-minded munis in Chicagoland like Schaumberg) to take our ordinances and general orders as models. Now we don't. We're not any safer: our actions don't meaningfully change our residents exposure to ALPRs (and our residents weren't the targets anyways; people transiting through Oak Park were) because of their prevalence outside our borders.
What people don't get about this is that a lot of normal, reasonable people see these cameras as a very good thing. You can be upset about that or you can work with it to accomplish real goals. We got upset about it.
An alternative is you can try to convince those people that, while their desire to reduce crime is perfectly understandable, this might not be the way to do it effectively, to say nothing of the potential avenues for abuse (and in current day America, I'd be very wary of such avenues)
It remains an issue of trust for me. You not only have to trust your police and government(s), but you have to trust Flock too - and that trust has to remain throughout changing governments and owners of that company. I have a healthy distrust of both, particularly lately.
Just as importantly, but more to the point, is still the question of whether they're actually useful. To that end, does not the same logic apply to being able to pressure nearby municipalities to remove the cameras?
In any case, while I remain fundamentally opposed to such surveillance, you raise very good points, and I appreciate you taking the time to explain your position in this thread.
(And you can still pass legislation restricting cameras even when they aren’t in your county…)
Anyway, we'll check back in a year and see: are they actually effective and used responsibly? I would put money on "no"
This played out over years here; I attended all the board meetings, transcribed them, took notes, kept tallies of who was saying what. I was involved in our last election and the two mayoral candidates squared off on this issue (among several others).
Is this related to rental companies reporting cars as "stolen" if they are an hour overdue on their scheduled return?
…is this true? What timespan are we looking at? My understanding was that crime has been on the decline pretty much from the 90s up until 2020. And in 2020 the world changed in a way that kind of made everyone go nuts.
This is a big problem that leads to things like these surveillance measures, because people think crime is really high even when it's the lowest it has ever been, because of the media environment.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mirta-Gordon/publicatio...
Someone will always say "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public", for whatever reason. So someone always has to respond to that, for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know that not everyone agrees with that dismissive assertion.
It isn't "for whatever reason", it is part of the first amendment. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it hasn't been the law for a very long time.
For example, you can't legally photograph people in certain ways in public in some US jurisdictions. (Because "no expectation of privacy" perverts
There are also restrictions on secret audio recording without consent under circumstances that some people would try to claim are public.
For another example, there are restrictions on how you use that "no expectation of privacy", US-wide (e.g., commercial use of photographs, or cyberbullying).
And that's before we get into common decency, or arguable conflicting laws or principles.
But of course, every single time there is an opportunity for some new person to dismiss a good point with "no reasonable expectation of privacy!" such a new person materialize. And so someone else has to spend their time responding.
But yes, recording in public is generally very much allowed, and for good reason. I'm happy that we can film our govenment and dissemenate those recordings when they do something wrong. And that is the same first amendment right that gives government the ability to record too. And there are very few restrictions on recording, so yes, there is no REASONABLE expectation of privacy in public - the situations you outlined are all unreasonable. There are limits to free speech, but that doesn't mean recording in public isn't generally allowed.
And FWIW, citizens have a right to get the footage the government records. You can get any camera footage from any government building, and even personal cellphones of government emplpoyees if they happen to film something with their personal cellphone while on the job.
Besides, the first amendment does not give the government the right to record or to benefit from those recordings. Rather, it prevents the government from restricting speech acts of private citizens. Therefore there should be no conflict with the 1st if a hypothetical law prevents the government from recording or accessing private recordings, even if private recordings are considered protected speech.
- There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in public. Any individual with a camera can record you at any time. (Otherwise the entire genre of street photography basically wouldn't exist, and journalists could get arrested for documenting stories in the public interest.)
- We shouldn't have automated cameras recording all the time and feeding that information into a massive database where people's movements can be correlated and tracked across the country.
Video (and audio) recording isn't even the best way to track someone, everyone has a cellphone these days, and turning them off doesn't always stop the tracking.
It's not recording in public that is the problem - that is a right - the separate problem is mining that data and making connections where there aren't any.
Some people say "both parties are the same", but I disagree. With the current administration, they are all-in on mass surveillance, they love Anduril and Palantir, and any attempt to protest their overreach will be met with force, and they are using these technologies to track protesters. The Democrats on the other hand will respond to protests, and we can push them in the right direction. I guess I'm trying to say, be careful who you vote for.
Anything they are willing to force us to pay for.
(hackers too, to never steal data from them)
Flock's CEO openly says the he intends that "Flock will help eliminate ALL crime", and has shown he has no concerns about how dystopian or Minority Report-esque Flock would need to be to accomplish that mission.
The crime I want eliminated is that of the elite.
You can read meeting minutes from neighborhood and beat meetings to confirm this (there's probably lots of things you can read to confirm it, but the nerdiest way to do it is to get the raw data.)
A shorter way to say all of this: you're expressing a luxury belief.
Will surveillance cameras in low-income areas (if that’s where they’ll put them) mean that the police will be more responsive to crime in those areas? If the police are already not responsive in supposedly high-crime areas, what’s the underlying cause? Would the Black Panthers have felt the need to have armed patrols in their neighborhoods if the police could’ve put up a surveillance system?
The whole thing is silly; it isn't the job of municipal police to investigate price collusion and corruption in the first place. You might just as meaningfully say that the trash collection service should be prioritizing institutional racism.
It's like that old prank where you order pizzas to someone's house that didn't order them. That's how we used to fight against the man. Now we scream, "rape" randomly in public.
What a time to be alive.
* for now
Total surveillance used to be impossible because the government needed people to spy on other people. They needed to find somebody willing and pay them.
Now it can be automated.
The war won't be humans vs an AI controlling robots. It'll be humans vs the government and rich people controlling AI controlling robots.
"Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on," Ellison said, describing what he sees as the benefits from automated oversight from AI and automated alerts for when crime takes place.
Ellison, Vance, Musk, Thiel, Luckey, Zuckerberg and many of the tech oligarch assholes want us to live in their surveillance state.
They're currently making good progress. What will you do to help stop them?
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnip...
Recording isn't enough you also need follow-up and if there's anything we've learned over the years is that the police are going to follow up on somebody throwing their soda can into Ellison's yard but not breaking your front door.
These people live in fantasyland bubbles, powered by their unshakeable belief in their own intelligence and "hyper rational" nonsense.
People already film themselves committing crimes. There are a great many people who, over and over again, make decisions in the present that will have strongly negative consequences in their own futures.
"If we watch people they won't do bad things." Sure, in some other universe maybe.
It's not just about who owns the means of production anymore, it's about who owns the means of surveillance (the so called AI).
Two thousand years and humans have learned nothing. Power and money still lead to more power and money which lead to abuse, which after decades gets so bad it leads to revolution. Except this time they want to make revolutions impossible. So they _have_ learned but common people have not.
- Support https://eff.org, https://fsf.org
- Use GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone)
- Use https://qubes-os.org on desktop.
Remember kids, if the invasive tracking is done by the government and a couple of companies, then it's the good kind of dystopia! /s
[0]: https://news.ucsc.edu/2025/09/pulse-fi-wifi-heart-rate/
"officers we're just rehearsing a play in a public space ... " or something like that
2. I will start screaming at the Flock cameras
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/plain_view_doctrine_0
might apply, though IANAL
2 weeks from now: Google and Apple remove AntiFlock apps; developers arrested
(Only slightly sarcastic. We should be talking about ways of making these things useless, as well as illegal)
At least nobody actually says "The founding engineers knew everything, our job is protect their original technical decisions, because otherwise our great company will fall."
Regulate guns and all these problems go away. As a bonus, you'll find out they were neither necessary nor useful for defending your rights.
The non-American mind simply can't comprehend, and that's okay.
Firearms are regulated in the United States. Quite heavily, in fact. This goes back to the National Firearm Act of 1934, carries through the Gun Control Act of 1968, then loops in the Firearm Owners' Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986 (which included the famous Volkmer-McClure amendment that all but outlawed fully automatic weapons for civilians) and runs through at least the Brady Act of 1993. And that's without getting into the smorgasbord of state, county, and municipal laws that also apply.
The idea that the US is still living in the Wild West era with regards to firearms is a complete myth.
> As a bonus, you'll find out they were neither necessary nor useful for defending your rights.
That's not an experiment I'm willing to indulge in personally. As the old saying goes "I'd rather have my guns and not need them, than need them and not have them."
And gun owners do a really shit job of defending their fetish. Because honestly that's all it is. None of these clowns are "defending democracy" or whatever other bullshit they spew about why gun ownership is "sO nEcEsSaRy"! And they lie constantly about what gun control is. They always frame it as "they are taking all of our guns away from us!" yet even in the most gun controlled countries there are paths to gun ownership for hunting and sport. It a group of very disingenuous and whiny people who do a lot of damage to our country.
Compared to every other country in the world, including those with private firearm ownership, the US very much is still in the Wild West.
>That's not an experiment I'm willing to indulge in personally.
You're indulging in it now. Your rights are being eroded and nullified daily by an increasingly militarized police force, an ever more pervasive surveillance state and an authoritarian government going off the rails. How are your guns helping?
I meant the experiment of further restricting firearms ownership.
> Your rights are being eroded and nullified daily by an increasingly militarized police force, an ever more pervasive surveillance state and an authoritarian government going off the rails.
On that we can agree, at least.
> How are your guns helping?
There's really no way to answer that, except in retrospective. I'll leave the final word on that to the historians who will come along well after I'm gone.
That said, I will note that it's very possible (but probably impossible to prove one way or the other) that the knowledge of how heavily armed the US populace is has in fact at least slowed the erosion of our rights, as the leaders (the ones who aren't brain dead stupid) fear the prospect of an outright shooting civil war.
And even short of a full fledged war, we have already seen cases where armed civilians confronted the government, and the government eventually backed down - even though they could have easily squashed the resisters in terms of absolute power. That is presumably again because they knew that doing that squashing would just lead to further escalation and Bad Things happening. I'm referring here to the "Bundy Cattle Standoff" or whatever they dubbed it, back in 2014.[1]
[1]: It's not my intent here to say that Bundy and his crew were in the right. Merely pointing out that being armed and willing to point guns at agents of the government ultimately led to a outcome other than them all being slaughtered. And I think they got their cattle back, or whatever it was they were trying to accomplish.