Thread

1. nrmitchi · 1790387333 · focus · HN ↗

   > Police didn't care that Lindsey Isaacs' car was the wrong color, and wasn't damaged. They still arrested her because of Flock data.

   This is literally the first sentence of the article.

   You can dislike public surveillance, but statements like "Flock camera data put this woman in jail for 13 days" blatantly ignores the the fact that Flock didn't put anyone in jail, a bunch of cops who very clearly knew that it wasn't her.

   > The Flock camera, meanwhile, had recorded Isaacs’ car and its license plate several miles away from the site of the accident, sometime around the time of the incident.

   Blaming a tool, when the cops in question are clearly willing to grasp to whatever piece of "evidence" makes their job "easier" is a giant cop-out and excuse for the people who are abusing it.

   Any piece of evidence requires some form of critical examination; that is what law enforcement's job is. If you're just going to go with the first theory/piece-of-evidence they find.... they're not doing their job (and violating peoples constitutional rights through sheer laziness).

   1. alistairSH · 1790387631 · focus · HN ↗

      That’s all true. But we’ve known police and prosecutors are like this forever. No need to give them tools to be even lazier and that make it easier for them to abuse us.

      1. nrmitchi · 1790388319 · focus · HN ↗

         Absolutely not all cops and prosecutors, or even the majority of them, are this lazy. Every tool is a tool that lets them "be event lazier" and make it "easier for them to abuse us". Removing any tool that let bad-actors be lazy is not an alternative for removing the bad-actor themselves.

         This situation the equivalent of an eye-witness saying "Ya, I think it might have been this person I know, Tom!" and a cop/prosecutor taking that at face value and arresting Tom (and the system that allowed that to happen).

         The people who make decisions and take action so (grossly) negligently need to be held accountable and face consequences. Blaming the tool (whatever tool it is) is giving the people who have the actual responsibility an escape hatch to avoid accountability.

         1. m4ck_ · 1790392474 · focus · HN ↗

            You'd think with tech being a force multiplier and all it'd be real easy for agencies to shed the supposed few and far between 'bad apples'. They should be able to do more with less bodies, with flock and other tech helping them, right? It seems to me the entire system failed this woman and waiving it away as a single lazy cop gives the system a pass.

            There is no real mechanism for holding them accountable and the consequences of these tools include death (it only takes one perceived wrong move for officers thinking they've bagged a felon to ventilate you. Hell not even that, see that officer who mag dumped his own car after he mistook an acorn for a gunshot.) This lady is quite lucky that it was only 13 days, if she had a career that's probably hosed but it might not be totally life ruining if she has a strong support system.

            1. ninalanyon · 1790419716 · focus · HN ↗

               > , if she had a career that's probably hosed

               Why? She hasn't committed a crime so why should her career be damaged?

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