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Comment by Rover222 | Hacker News Reader

I find it ironic that in the US, there's this social movement against Flock cameras - which have shown real results in tracking down criminals - while everyone walks around all the time with a personal tracking device in the form of a smart phone. That's wayyyy more invasive than cameras along roads.

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Phone data requires some actual process to access. It should be more restrictive than it is, but I don’t believe the information is made available to random police officers who can search for whatever they want with no real justification.

The problem with Flock isn’t the cameras, it’s the system built on them that gives panopticon powers to any random law enforcement officer.

No argument with that, agreed.

Stop posting this bullshit argument. the people arguing against Flock are the same people who argue for privacy rights around cellular phone data, availability of encrypted messaging etc. It's thanks to them that the government still needs to get a warrant instead of just doing a search.

Anyone making this argument of yours is also smart enough to be aware of the privacy efforts. Pretending not to know about them is bullshit.

Or uh yeah they're just cameras on public roads, and provide a net benefit to society. I'm sure you weren't triggered by these cameras a few years ago, when it wasn't part of the current "thing to be mad about".

Don’t be That Guy please. This tired talking point gets walked out in every privacy discussion. Both things can be (and are) bad at once, but just because one problem exists doesn’t mean that others aren’t worth solving.

In any case this article is about the whole spectrum of mass surveillance, not one specific company.

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