Manuel_D

This doesn't necessarily change the dynamic, though. The government has a finite number of lawyers. Diverting them to write subpoena after subpoena to request Flock data is still a hefty opportunity cost relative to what those lawyers could be working on instead.

Paying a lawyer to petition a judge for a subpoena (which the judge may or may not grant) is probably much more expensive than whatever Flock charges.

She was arrested for making an off-topic opinion. Someone delivering a rant about abortion on a city council meeting would likewise be removed.

I don't see a government losing face, I see a bunch of online commenters demonstrating they don't understand that city council meetings have rules.

What part did I forget? Nothing in the First Amendment compels other people to listen to your speech.

My understanding of the story [1] is the CA claimed it was collecting data for psychology research, then turned around and used the data for political consulting.

> Cambridge Analytica then arranged an informed consent process for research in which several hundred thousand Facebook users would agree to complete a survey for payment that was only for academic use.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...

Sunglasses are semi-opaque yes, but they aren't completely opaque with a set of front facing cameras like you're walking around with night vision goggles.

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.

You're entitled to freedom of speech. You're not entitled to an audience.

I thought Meta's approach to AR was pivoting towards transparent glasses with displays in the vein of Ray Ban Display and Orion (I realize that "VR" is in the title, but almost all the images show AR use cases). Their original vision for AR was to have people walking around with quest headsets in passthrough mode. But that's just too weird for the vast majority of people. I can't imaging walking around in public and ordering coffee with my eyes totally obscured behind a device. I saw a couple co-workers walking around wearing headsets like this when I worked at Reality Labs, but it was obvious to me and all my teammates that vanishingly few people would actually do that in public.

I guess the approach here is to shrink down the VR glasses and make them look more like normal glasses from a distance. But I still don't think I'd wear one of these walking around the mall or airport. Reduction in FOV is also a big negative. I'm not really sure where one would use this device over a Quest or the Ray Ban Display. It occupies this awkward middle point where it's not a transparent glass display, but it's also makes a lot of compromises compared to the rest of the VR line.

Getting linux on the Surface laptop series would be amazing. Good battery life on a small laptop running linux is my ideal device.

Uh huh. Regardless of your semantic quibbling about the word "schedule", at the end of the day there was neither the opportunity to make a public comment about abortion nor to make one about ALPRs. If someone went up to this comment section and started to rant about abortion they would be appropriately removed - just like Hyde was.

But that's an injustice! Hyde should get to flout the rules. Because her position is a "correct" one. Because it's wrong for the government to evenly enforce the rules on public comment periods, and instead they ought to selectively enforce the rules to your liking.

There's nothing more to be said here. You're just repeating the same talking points you've said in this comment chain.

As I wrote, the city council did not schedule a public comments period on the issue of ALPRs. I'm not sure why you think anything in your quote contradicts what I wrote in the previous comment.

The context of why she made the off-topic comments is that there was no scheduled public comments period with ALPRs as the topic.

Similarly, there seems to be no scheduled public comments period with abortion as the topic.

Of course, neither of these grants anti-flock or anti-abortion activists the right to make off-topic comments on unrelated meetings. Like I said, apparently it's an injustice when the government evenly applies its rules.

The facts of the article is that Hyder made off-topic comments and was removed accordingly. Just like what would happen if someone made anti-abortion comments during this meeting on sidewalk codes.

What I'm ignoring is that apparently we're supposed to see it as an injustice when the government evenly enforces its rules, instead of selectively enforcing them to permit off-topic comments when those comments express the "correct" views.

Of course you don't want to engage with the hypothetical: it highlights that you selectively condone disregarding the rules and procedures on public comments is based on your support for the person making off-topic comments. Obviously we can't just let anyone make off-topic comments, because then it'll just be a free-for-all of people soapboxing for unrelated topics. But Hyder gets a pass because you agree with her. It's not some principled free speech position, it's just partisanship.

Disregard for procedure and rules sounds fine when it's people you agree with that engage in this behavior. But when you're the one who doesn't get a chance to speak because of people ranting about abortion in the meeting that's supposed to be your opportunity to make your voice heard to the city council I bet your views on procedure will flip 180 degrees!

> Again, your hypothetical is not equivalent because it assumes that the "activists" a. had their own public comments section, and b. they monopolized the entire meeting. Neither of those things happened here.

What do you mean "it assumes that the 'activists' a. had their own public comments section"? In this scenario, neither the anti-flock nor anti-abortion activists appear to have had a public comments section on their respective topics. You're the one assuming that anti-abortion activists did have their own public comments section, which I cannot find any evidence for.

Whether or not they "monopolize" the meeting is just a question of degrees - just assume that the anti-abortion activists dominate the meeting to the same degree as the Flock critics in this scenario.

You can disapprove of the council's actions all you want - I don't really care about how much esteem or lack thereof you have in the city council. The point I'm making is: Hyder's rights are not being "trampled", as the root comment claims, any more than an anti-abortion activist that might have wanted use this comments period on sidewalk codes to voice their feelings on abortion. What happened to Hyder was completely normal: someone tries to abuse the public comments period to soapbox about an unrelated topic, and that person is removed.

The same logic you're using to justify Hyder's action here would also condone anti-abortion activists hijacking meeting after meeting to voice support their cause. But that's obviously an untenable situation. So, what then? Do you want the city council engage in selective application of procedural rules, and let Hyder and other anti-Flock activists take up time while anti-abortion activists are denied that opportunity? That would be an actual speech issue: time, place, and manner restrictions on speech are permissible but they cannot be selectively applied.

Activists are able to speak about Flock and criticize Flock - just not at public comments meeting on unrelated topics. They can still protest in other public spaces, they can organize anti-Flock marches, there are so, so many other opportunities to speak about the city's policy on Flock. The statement that, "the 'activists' in this case were not allowed to speak about the policy in question in the first place" is just not remotely true. Not unless you meant to narrow down this statement to public comments periods, specifically.

> Your hypothetical is not equivalent because the "activists" in this case were not allowed to speak about the policy in question in the first place.

Unless there has been a recent public comments period on abortion, then yes they are equivalent: neither anti-Flock nor anti-abortion activists have had the opportunity to voice their opinions to the city in a public comments period.

No, she was arrested for illegitimate use of her allotment. It doesn't actually matter if there were other people concerned with the sidewalk code, a public comments period is not an opportunity to soapbox about unrelated topics.

If the city doesn't uniformly enforce these restrictions, then when the anti abortion folks try to flood the meeting and get removed they'll complain that they're being selectively targeted.

And? The point remains: freedom of speech is not a guarantee that you'll have an audience. Like it or not, the city council has no obligation to grant an audience to her. That's probably bad for their reelection campaign, though, and like I said she can campaign for a challenger next election.

When was the last time the council held a public comments period on abortion? You seem to operating under the assumption that such a comments period on that topic has taken place recently, but I don't see any evidence of that

Let's assume they have not scheduled any such comments section on that topic. Are the anti abortion activists then justified in flooding the public comments period and depriving people of the opportunity to criticize Flock during that period?

Except allowing people to take up a full two minutes, or however long the allotted time is, discussing unrelated topics deprive people who want to make an on-topic comment of that opportunity.

Let's say the council eventually does schedule a public comment people to discuss Flock. Then anti-abortion activists flood the meeting, and take up all the speaking time ranting about abortion thus preventing anyone from voicing their criticisms of Flock. Is that a good outcome?

You keep ignoring the point that this wasn't the channel for this purpose. This was a public comment period for changes to sidewalk codes.

Let's say the council eventually does schedule a comments section to discuss Flock. But then anti-abortion activists flood the meeting and use up all the time ranting about the evils of abortion. They monopolize the meeting so that people who want to criticize Flock don't get the opportunity to do so. Is that a good outcome?

Countless scenarios!

You can organize a protest in a public space like a park. You can book a space like a library or a church. You can start mailing lists to organize like-minded people.

You're entitled to freedom of speech. You're not entitled to an audience. She can petition her elected representatives elsewhere, just not during a public comments session on sidewalk codes.

If the community is frustrated with the city council's decisions on public comments sections they can vote for different city council members.

You're entitled to freedom of speech. You're not entitled to an audience. If the community is frustrated with the city council's decisions on public comments sections they can vote for different city council members.

People can still dissent and protest - just not in the specific scenario of council meetings on sidewalk codes.

But they're not being denied the ability to speak. Heider can go hold a protest against Flock in public.

She's only being denied the ability to speak in the very specific circumstance of a public comment period on sidewalk codes.

The point of civil disobedience is to be arrested. That's the goal of civil disobedience.

That doesn't make make it permissible to try and use the comments periods on other meetings to talk about Flock. The point remains, she was not removed for simply voicing opposition to Flock cameras. The was arrested and removed for trying to derail an unrelated meeting.

Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.