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Federal judge calls Flock 'indiscriminate mass surveillance'

483 points · 267 comments · sbulaev

  1. JKCalhoun · · focus · HN ↗
    License plate reader?

    So the device should require very specific license plates to scan for—not the current dragnet. The software should only "ping" when there is a confident match with said license plate(s)—and merely log which license plate, time stamp a single photo, and note the confidence level of it being a match.

    The frame buffer should be the only place (a frame of) video is ever stored at all (excepting the high-confidence match indicated above).

    The only issue remaining would be whether we trust the device/software to have complied (and not have a backdoor) and of course there needs to be a legal warrant for every license plate uploaded (and it should expire fairly frequently, likely requiring a new warrant to continue canning for the plate).

    1. kennywinker · · focus · HN ↗
      That is a technical solution to a problem that has a far cheaper, and less easily abused solution: don't put up cameras at all.

      Building a system with "safeguards" in place that require constant oversight is destined for either regulatory capture of the oversight, or slow dismantling of the oversight.

      E.g. warrants -> fisa court warrants -> Xkeyscore

      1. JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
        > don't put up cameras at all

        There seems to be a real reduction in property crime in some places with cameras. I don’t think it’s realistic to take these down everywhere. (I was in the camp that they should go down everywhere. I’ve relaxed that position recently.)

        1. porkshoe · · focus · HN ↗
          You're conflating "any camera" with cameras that are attached to a centralized data aggregation system.

          Do you have any evidence that the massive centralized aggregation has had a real reduction in crime versus cameras that are locally controlled?

          or are you just spewing poorly thought out horseshit in defense of the destruction of our liberty?

          (though even this is through the borderline insane, and staunchly anti-american lens that a reduction in property crime definitively warrants the destruction of privacy and liberty)

          1. PorciiVorbesc · · focus · HN ↗
            >but real Americans are not like you. Real Americans value liberty

            Liberty also means living in an area free of crime, not in constant fear of it. What exactly is the better solution to handling areas plagued by high crime rates? If cameras in those public areas now means those residents living there can walk safely in public without fear of getting robbed or mugged, then good for them, it's a positive development.

            Also, the part where you added what "real Americans" value, reads like a satire skit on SNL. I was expecting you'd add V8 big-blocks, AR-15s and grilled steaks halfway through reading it.

            1. mmooss · · focus · HN ↗
              > Liberty also means living in an area free of crime

              That is not in the definition of liberty. It's unfortunately common double-speak used by the enemies of liberty in order to justify reducing it. So is saying, 'I should be free of things that offend or alarm me, such as (group of people who are different)'. Liberty is not 'free of' things; it's self-determination, freedom to think and say and do as you choose.

              Freedom and safety are often offset, as a trade-off. The over-used quote, 'Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety' portrays them as a trade-off.

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