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spongebobstoes

surveillance technology is not going away. we need to mitigate the downsides

what systems could be changed or created to prevent abuse of power?

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Surveillance tech very much can be and is going away in plenty of places

321 down, Dallas: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/6065838-dallas-police-...

150 down, El Paso: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/public-safe...

ALL on state roadways, Florida: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/state/2026/09/01/whic...

A dozen agencies cancelling Flock in Wisconsin https://www.fox6now.com/news/flock-camera-pushback-fond-du-l...

A good question to ask is if those locations are just switching to an alternative ALPR system.

I know if you douse these cameras with flammable liquids they burn up pretty well. I’m in support of the same for the people pushing these Flock cameras. Because if you’ve elevated yourself above the rest of us, well then we don’t need you anymore. Tie whomever voted for these cameras to the mast and light them the fuck up.

Anything can be made to go away.

Look at the rights of Us citizens when confronted by ICE.

We need an actual democracy(not rich people's puppets). In this country almost 75% of voting population are against the war in Iran and yet most of congress supports that war.

They are being removed from hundreds of municipalities, what do you mean?

we have some pushback against Flock, but technology does not regress

there are many people who want to use surveillance to deter and catch criminals

surveillance also helps combat certain abuses of power, like cops shooting black people

we should build an accountability system to balance against additional state power and surveillance. defense in depth. the best of both worlds?

Maybe have something on the plate that prevents reading from certain angles? There was a ticket dismissed in Quebec a few years ago for an "unreadable plate" because the car had a bike rack hiding the plate but the ticket had the plate number on it so it was not unreadable

Why is it not going away?

Human nature itself.

not installing them. Voting out anyone that does

Not enough. Preemptively passing laws that forbid this kind of mass surveillance. Like in Switzerland and other nice places.

Making the possession of data this either illegal or too horribly cumbersome.

Flock is just an iteration, and getting rid of that brand won't fix it. And camera tracking of normal citizens is just an iteration -- not the underlying systemic issue that isn't being addressed.

The EU has GDPR. At this point, I want something stronger than that.

Still not enough. What you suggest does not prevent the government of possessing the data. Technical means of collection needs to be preemptively banned.

Video is useful in keeping people safe. Including from the cops. It’s about remaking the system to require court permission every time they access it, process and transparency.

Give me freedom or give me death.

Police wearing body cameras has nothing to do with universal mass surveillance devices.

No big deal is it was just video. It's really about the data that can be extracted from the video such as who you meet, when you are home or not and who is at your house, etc. all in realtime.

Yes that should all require a court warrant based on probable cause.

Because that will never be abused.

I hope sarcasm is working well for you. To clarify: it would be abused without systems, therefore add court warrants to access any personal information. Criminals are already abusing society by knowing that most of their crime will never be caught.

Is there evidence these systems reduce crime?

There is evidence that systems reduce crime, yes. A system is probably the only thing which has ever meaningfully reduced crime. A law. A strategy. A process. I think you're meaning digital systems though. I'd say digital systems are part of every system now.

You are conflating extremely different things, and that is dangerous.

Somehow we went from:

1. People can see and hear your in public

2. Therefore public places are not private

3. Therefore people can record you

4. Therefore it's okay to build a network of cameras that can track and query every place you have ever been

The problem has always been on step 2. The assumption that "public places are not private" anymore just because everyone can record you and post it on TikTok. In reality before smartphones public places were extremely private compared to being broadcast to the entire planet.

This. I don't understand why something can only be used in the wrong way. Either

A. there is nothing a good person needs to hide (including cops, at least good ones), therefore it should be openly public to everyone and all usage logged and public (to catch abuse), or

B. privacy is important so it should be protected, and while data is collectible, nonetheless cannot be shared without consent or a court order. And none of this fake content that companies claim you gave by walking outside, setting up your phone/account/etc after buying it and being forced to sign so you didn't just buy an expensive brick, etc.

Hmm, I wonder if, as a plaintiff that wished to file a complaint against a police department, would the records be gone by the time I got far enough through the courts to force evidence discovery. All of the Flock-lovers I talk to love to bring up the short-lived nature of the data (7 or 30 days depending on who you talk to).

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