Thankfully the supreme court seems to agree here in two ways:

1) Just because a third party (Google in Chatrie case but Flock here) collects the data and the government requests it from them, doesn't mean that that isn't a 'search' which requires a warrant ("obtaining someone's cell-phone location history from Google constitutes a Fourth Amendment search.")

2) Delegating "searches" to a private party isn't permitted if they are acting as an "instrument or agent of the Government" (Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Association (1989) - also cited in Chatrie).

In the Google case, users have a private relationship with Google where they elect to let Google track them and retain their information... but when the Police ask for that information it's a 'search' and requires a specific warrant.

In the Flock case the entire REASON the cameras are there is the the government (Police or local municipality) has contracted Flock to surveil the public. Asking flock for the whereabouts of a specific person seems like it should likewise require a warrant. That's inherently different than a crime being reported and then going to dig up a video from the area from Flock - which is different than seeing someone in that video and asking Flock to find every time they've been captured by any Flock camera anywhere... that would seem to be a 'search' and would require a warrant (which in this scenario would probably be easy to get).

1. An erase-me feature if they gained over say some X unique/active users.

2. Disclose to their best legal abilities on warrants served in the countries that allow such disclosure. Allow for strong whistle blower protection if warrantless wiretapping becomes a thing.

Palantir, Anduril, telcos, and more are contributing to the erosion of our privacy.

It’s been 2 decades since we learned about the secret NSA room at AT&T. 13 years since the Snowden revelations. This is not new and we need to be vigilant.

"they're tying to build a prison -- for you and me to live in, for you and me to live in"

DEF CON 34 - ESP32 as counter-surveillance platform - Cybertiger, Colonel Panic, The Wrew

I wonder if we can win that battle as a society over the decades. A "traditional" human-only surveillance state is bad enough, but with LLMs involved it's just a nightmare. It would be extremely cheap to now have full automated surveillance over cameras, phone lines, etc. "Computer, send me a scored list of any dissident violations conducted on any channel under surveillance in District 14 over the past two weeks. Cut off their credit cards and send a notice to appear in Civilian Oversight Court".

However, I'd be interested to see if opponents of mass surveillance could draft good legislation to curb potential abuses. For example, the laws around who owns/controls data from cameras could be changed/redefined, as could the process of accessing that data.

Most everyone can understand the utility of monitoring their own doorstep. They might even think it useful to start tracking the patterns of traffic on their doorstep. I expect that most people could not articulate the line between acceptable and unacceptable surveillance.

Second test, please ignore me

https://briff.site/s/flock-wants-a-closely-surveilled-b8et

"We Care About Your Privacy. We, and our 229 partners use cookies and similar methods to recognize visitors and remember their preferences...."

229 "partners".

Oh the irony.

Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...

Imagine a shooting took place in the downtown area of a major city next week that lacked cameras. Do you think people would praise that city's respect for their citizens' privacy? Or would people blame the city leaders for not keeping the citizens safe?

I think the Americans should push for a constitutional amendment that protects one's right to privacy.

Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on

- Larry Ellison

https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-ellison-ai-surveillanc...

Now, let's hope you agree with Larry Ellison's definition of what constitutes best behavior or they will soon be sending drones after you.

"You just have a drone follow the car," Ellison said. "It's very simple in the age of autonomous drones."

San Francisco has turned the tide on smash and grab crime through license plate readers and drone response. New Hampshire requires law enforcement agencies to delete unflagged license plate data within three minutes of collection. These two conditions can exist at the same time, in the same place, if we don’t allow the narrative to be pulled toward either extreme. Unfortunately that’s very tough to accomplish in today’s political climate in the US.

It's almost as if they want to convince their audience that the practice is justified. The article spends an inordinate amount of time on flocks history from the point of view of the perpetrators of the practice rather than how it's harming society. This is a typical tactic the establishment uses to keep the focus on an evil scapegoat so the practice can be slipping in under the radar by another less well know contractor.

https://urban-privacy.com/pages/anti-surveillance-clothing

fock flock

YC has been working on this for a decade.

The company, which has six trackers monitoring access to a single web page, frames privacy as a worthwhile trade-off for reading an article for free, echoing the language of the social media industry.

They'll present them like that. Not my idea, but from [0].

0. https://www.novelupdates.com/series/accel-world/

Perhaps they could try a different market. The UK seems more amicable to such things.

Unless our judiciary gets serious about what started with 9/11, authoritarianism is inevitable.

This actually is my primary candidate for the great filter.

AI isn't an answer because that really means whoever is running, training, and prompting the AI.

Which is to say I will never, ever be on board with mass surveillance, because those in or of power are conveniently left out of its dragnet.

YC is your villain.

Local governments are banning them, and/or cutting deals with investors

I'd be curious to see if Mamdani or someone similar employing Flock or an equivalent would yield the same firestorm; if not, then it's not a principled stand against surveillance, rather just another form of political warfare. Perhaps Antifa wants to not be tracked in certain locales, is less concerned in other politically favorable locales because they know they won't be prosecuted anyway?

There is no “government” it’s companies - lobbying exists.

The cameras are for ads.

HN is complicit in this propaganda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMox8qeMvlY

I'd rather have the cameras than have family members die to drugged up drivers, or robbers get away with their crimes.

1. Privacy is not secrecy. Your neighbours know what you are doing, they just politely don’t mention it, or try to sell you something on the back of it.

2. Almost everything we do we do in public, with our face uncovered for the world to see.

3. The benefits of a mass surveilled world are enormous - epidemiology is gonna rock in 20 years. New medical insights as well as simple stuff like “how many passengers take the train regularly” (not how many passenger journeys but how many individual people will get inconvenienced if we shut this line down.

4. The problem is not you thought your life was secret, it never has been, the problem is what will we as society allow people to do with this new information. At some basic level treat it like HIPPA or medical data - keep it well managed and use in the best interests of the individual. (I disagree with the Chinese justification of “best interests of society - that can be warped so easily)

In short society is like your grandfathers financial advice - look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves