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Woman Arrested, Dragged Away After Speaking About Flock at City Council Meeting

218 points · 261 comments · latexr

  1. _trampeltier · · focus · HN ↗
    As an european guy. Interesting to see things happen from far away. Knowing that crazy country has so much power, makes the near future of the whole world even more scary.
    1. CalRobert · · focus · HN ↗
      Indeed. Though omnipresent surveillance and restricted speech is an issue in some of Europe too.
      1. izacus · · focus · HN ↗
        On the other hand, I see a lot of HackerNewsers and European geeks utterly angry at laws that forbid (blanket) recording of public places and GDPR which controls what the videos can be used for.

        Every EU topic here is filled with people wishing for its destruction and dismantling of such privacy protecting laws.

        1. scottyah · · focus · HN ↗
          Europeans fear corporations more than government, and in the USA it's generally the opposite. The USA doesn't like when any entity gets too powerful.
          1. tavavex · · focus · HN ↗
            > The USA doesn't like when any entity gets too powerful.

            The US seems to broadly have permitted both their government and their corporations to exercise an absurd degree of influence over them in recent years, so this doesn't track. This is a problem in most countries, but the rate of change of the US is unparalleled.

            You're right that some countries are more paranoid about certain kinds of power than others. That just ends up creating blind spots, where some Europeans can barely imagine their a decision of their government being wrong, while some Americans are knee-deep in ideology that decrees that anything private is automatically good, free and moral because only the government has the capacity to be evil and companies can't influence them. This doesn't really apply to the issue here, because it's a perfect collaboration of the world parts of the private and public sectors, so almost no one likes this.

          2. thrance · · focus · HN ↗
            No, Americans don't actually fear their government. Republicans are very much pro-ICE and in favor of expanded police budget (that is used for mass surveillance). And it's the same thing in Europe, the right has always been pro-surveillance and policing. They're just too stupid to understand that you can't only police your political enemies and racial minorities: surveillance impacts everyone.
        2. pesus · · focus · HN ↗
          Those are likely the same people who want to unconsensually force Flock and other mass surveillance on people. Most well socially adjusted people greatly appreciate those protections.
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