S.F. Democratic Party stands behind Flock surveillance cameras in vote | Hacker News Reader

S.F. Democratic Party stands behind Flock surveillance cameras in vote

missionlocal.org

38 pointsmikhael33 comments

> Both sides acknowledged that the city’s Flock camera data was illegally accessed more than 1.6 million times in 2024 and 2025, with lots of those searches reaching out-of-state agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And, more recently the San Francisco Police Department admitted around 300 out-of-state illegal searches had happened in the last year.

If the abolition movement wants progress we should start throwing white collar criminals that allow this to happen in prison. See how quickly those with power will start considering transformative/restorative justice alternatives

We already have laws making a lot of what Flock does illegal. We just don't enforce them

> in prison.

Personally I think people should start taking them personally to court via class action lawsuits. Prison would be a bonus, but crushing them financially would be the most effective.

Both? Both is good.

I don't think we need to throw people in prison.

What we do need is the death penalty to corporations. Reap them, take their cash and tell shareholders to do their due diligence when investing in criminal activities.

Why we keep protecting corporations just because there's a piece of paper that claims to do XYZ is such a bizarre world.

How will a corporate death penalty address illegal behavior by police?

They have charters just the same.

There’s an argument that a private citizen operating a Flock-like device is exercising a constitutionally protected right to gather news and observe public events, and sharing those observations is constitutionally protected free speech. And, unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment is worded to restrict government invasion of privacy, not citizen invasion of privacy.

I expect the Supreme Court to eventually rule on the constitutionality of mass surveillance of public places, at least by the government. Maybe also by random citizens.

I'm generalizing the political groups involved, but I don't understand how anyone who is conscious and/or cautious of AI safety, perhaps to the point of regulation, would then support the usage of AI-assisted surveillance.

It boggles my mind that Dorsey is even welcome in the SF Dem Party space after he posted on Twitter that mass amounts of civilians in Gaza welcome being killed by missiles:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Daf9d_7mh22/?img_index=2

I know SF supervising has 0 to do with the Middle East. But if he thinks like this about groups he doesn't like, what about when one of his constituents is part of a group he doesn't like?

Also crazy that 2 of the 20-ish members were employees of Flock and allowed to vote on this

> Two Democratic committee members work for Flock, but were allowed to vote regardless

The only appropriate response to this is "What the fuck?"

Lily Ho and Trevor Chandler

> Last month, the San Francisco Standard reported that a prior version of Mar’s resolution was removed from the party’s agenda by a subcommittee chaired by Ho.

> The committee does not have rules related to conflicts of interest for issues like this one, Tung told Mar. They then proceeded to count both Ho and Chandler’s votes.

Incredible goof for the head of public affairs at Flock Safety to not abstain from even an internal party vote.

seems like par for that course

> 31 members — 13 of whom were absent

Dammit

In protest?

Probably supported it but didn't want it on their record they supported such an unpopular surveillance apparatus and corporation

Why does anyone working in tech still even live in SF? I left during covid and have never looked back.

"no one lives in SF anymore, it's too crowded"

Yes, San Francisco still has a massive tech scene. Especially during the AI boom in the last few years. It's true that NYC recently eclipsed SF in terms of the raw number of tech workers, but considering the roughly order-of-magnitude difference in population that demonstrates just how tech-heavy SF still is.

During COVID I considered moving away from SF but decided to stay. I couldn't find another place that works better for me.

They seem to have solved the car break-in problem since you left. Overall the city feels much safer and cleaner than it did 10 years ago, although the character of the city has also changed.

Probably because their employers require it and getting a new remote job with a good salary right now is quite hard?

I'm a recent transplant. I really like it here.

Voting for flock cameras right now though? That seems impossibly tone deaf to me.

I would have thought the politico playbook would be to stay quiet on the issue, then sneakily swap in a flock alternative AI camera company while loudly heralding how awesome you are for removing the flock menace. Boiled frogs applaud. On to the next 15 seconds of outrage (datacenters I assume :) )

Am I the only one here who doesnt really care that the government is watching me all the time? London effectively eliminated violent crime by watching everyone all the time, doesnt seem to bad to me.

London eliminated crime?

Doesn't seem like it: https://abcnews.com/International/report-london-safer-cctv-c...

Pretty much yea. Knifing per capita is down like 75% since they installed the cameras and homicide per capita is down 50%

Proof for these stats? They contradict the article

Didn't they have that whole thing a year or two ago where criminals were snatching phones out of peoples hands? Where the police response was to blame the victims and tell them to just pay more attention to their surroundings next time?

Robbery has fallen from 10 per 1000 to around 6. There are definitely a lot of confounders so Im not trying to claim is was 100% the surveillance but I do think the surveillance contributed to lower violent crime rates.

I don't know how these terms are defined exactly, but the BBC claims 71k reported stolen phones in 2025 vs a population of 9.2 million which gives a rate of 7.7 per 1000. There has definitely been improvement but that's obviously above 6. Maybe phone theft isn't counted as robbery?

In any case, recovery rate is the other important metric here especially for justifying a surveillance state, and that has been absolutely terrible.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx4762znr6o

No, they are usually different things.

Robbery is theft using force or the immediate threat of force. The article you linked to says that much of the phone theft is done by pickpocketing.

Oh then of course robbery is down, why bother sticking someone up for pocket change no one carries when you can just steal their phone and escape on an ebike?

Yes, most people care about multiple issues, and crime is not the #1 issue for many in tech

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