Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed

https://ipvm.com/reports/police-chiefs-track

by jhonovich • 1 month ago

646 333 1 month ago

ipvm.com

josefritzishere• 1 month ago

As far as I can tell from the news, Flock is only used to commit crimes.

downrightmike3• 1 month ago

They silently stole $46 million secretly from Canada

willis9364• 1 month ago

Check your town's website for correspondence with your state's chapter of the ACLU in regards to Flock cameras. If your police chief (not an elected official) is installing them then contact your local ACLU chapter about it. These are 4th amendment violations.

Manuel_D31• 1 month ago

To the contrary, little of what Flock does would be restricted by the 4th amendment. The cameras are in public, and neither the government nor individual citizens need authorization to film people in public.

Many Flock cameras are also privately owned, too.

reactordev2• 1 month ago

All flock cameras are privately owned, by flock. They install them at a charge per the jurisdiction that orders them and pays the subscription costs… those subscription fees allow Mr Local Law Abuser to lookup any license plate it has read, when, where, with a picture of the vehicle.

https://deflock.org

You’d be surprised how many there are.

hilariously2• 1 month ago

https://www.wired.com/story/carpenter-v-united-states-suprem... https://www.eff.org/cases/us-v-jones There has been plenty of past rulings that indicate long term collection of data is not something that the fourth amendment had baked in.

qmr4• 1 month ago

Wrong. See Carpenter v US.

mingus884• 1 month ago

The year is 2026 and the 4th amendment only means what the currently sitting justices say that it means, and the executive branch was literally given a pass to violate any law on the books that they want.

devindotcom• 1 month ago

it's not about filming in public. it's about systematic data collection by law enforcement, using private infrastructure present by its nature in public. that's why the Carpenter decision is relevant.

downrightmike3• 1 month ago

The government may not purchase services for acts it is not allowed to do itself: Pinkerton Act.

assimpleaspossi4• 1 month ago

Yes. Let's restrict police and take away every possible tool they can use to solve and fight crime. Not all criminals are bad criminals. They don't use Flock to spy on their ex-girlfriends but every cop in America has done it.

At least according to the internet which knows everything.

willis9364• 1 month ago

Don't misrepresent what others say. The 4th amendment should not be violated. I can only interpret your response as "the 4th amendment should be violated".

Planktonne2• 30 days ago

take away every possible tool they can use to solve and fight crime

Flock is a new tool, with a string of related abuses already and an unconvincing record of successes. Removing it is in no way tantamount to taking away every possible tool.

qmr4• 1 month ago

So glad we got them kicked out of Mountain View.

throwaway85825• 1 month ago

When flock data was FOIAd the state just exempted the data from FOIA.

Avshalom5• 1 month ago

>Flock and law enforcement regularly cite documented cases where LPR helped solve violent crimes, recover stolen vehicles, and locate missing persons. Those outcomes are real.

My opposition wouldn't change regardless but are those outcomes real?

apothegm• 1 month ago

The AI slop in that quote sure is real.

Manuel_D31• 1 month ago

In Seattle at least, the majority of homicide cases are solved with the assistance of surveillance cameras (though what % of said cameras are specifically Flock, I'm not sure): https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2026/03/05/new-analysis-rtcc-...

asveikau3• 1 month ago

Cops can politely ask owners of private cameras for access for things like murder investigation. If the polite answer is no (most people will say yes), they can go to court for a subpoena. This has happened for a long time. This is how it should work. If the cops are too lazy or chicken to ask a judge while investigating a murder, they don't deserve the footage.

Avshalom5• 1 month ago

That's not what that says though.

technology and professional analysts with helping detectives make arrests in 53%

"technology and analysts" "help" "make arrests" not surveillance, not convictions and only the implication that they wouldn't have made the arrest otherwise.

Like look at the example: somebody calls in an OD and a guy sees that the dude ODing matches (the clothing of) a suspect in some other crime and so they arrest him.

Once again an arrest is not a conviction but also what part of that needed/used pervasive surveillance?

ALSO a conviction is not the same thing as truth.

ALSO ALSO by basic subtraction the panopticon wasn't even helpful 47% of the time.

lazyasciiart3• 1 month ago

The wording he used was that it helped make arrests in 53% of cases. Nothing about whether those cases were solved, or whether the arrests were correct, or whether he's counting times where the cameras see police making an arrest and count it as 'helping'.

Computer0• 1 month ago

Historically Seattle's surveillance has been fulfilled via Axon.

mingus884• 1 month ago

I have no doubt that provided a vast camera network covering every ingress and egress into a city, and every major intersection, plus a database of when and where a license plate was last seen, cops can find their suspect

It used to be that news articles would claim that the police used “CCTV from local businesses” to catch a crook. Even back then I knew this was cover for Ring, Flock and who knows what else. they just didn’t want the bad press.

At this point you don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to understand that parallel construction happens all the time. They have more tools that we know about, and they want to keep it that way.

Everyone should throw some money to 404 media. They are independent and doing the best work right now to keep these things in the public eye.

Avshalom5• 1 month ago

That's the thing though, I do doubt that. Surveillance that you don't need a warrant to put in front of a jury is a perfect thing to use for the ostensibly-legal construction in parallel construction.

rolph3• 1 month ago

guess what prolific career criminals do with crime cars?

they look for a car that is very similar if not exact make and model of thier stolen vehicle, then they "clone" the victims license plate with a sheet of embossment copper and a stylus, apply paint at thier shop and affix the imposter to the crime vehicle. that buggers the whole LPR thing.

they can replicate dozens of plates in a day and offer the service for contras.

Avshalom5• 1 month ago

That seems like a lot of effort when you can just take the license plate off and if you're really worried print off a convincing temporary license and tape in the back window.

Gigachad5• 1 month ago

Not really because it flags an anomaly where the same plate is found in two places that are impossibly far to reach in the time span. Then police can just pull over that plate when they see it with a 50/50 chance it's the stolen car.

The more cameras in the network the faster and more likely a duplicated plate will be spotted.

next_xibalba• 30 days ago

Sure. But if we have enough surveillance cameras, we can just trace the full path of the car from the moment of theft to now. I'm reminded of Gorgon Stare [1]. Stolen cars suck. But how about murders? I'm sure all of the people who've had loved ones murdered in, say, South Chicago, might have a more positive opinion of such a system. Especially since it wouldn't have to rely on witnesses who are cowed by the threat of reprisal and anti-snitch culture.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare

FireBeyond6• 1 month ago

Flock's position, statistically, is that if during the course of an investigation into a crime, a detective queries Flock, and the crime is later solved, that Flock "helped solve a crime", regardless of the merit or value of the query. "Saw a vehicle, look it up, "nope, unrelated", but still "helped solve".

Avshalom5• 1 month ago

Right, that's more or less my suspicion.

BrenBarn4• 30 days ago

So stalking your ex-girlfriend's ex-boyfriend is actually a public service as long as you solve some crimes along the way!

wil4213• 1 month ago

Yes. Prior to flock, my city trialed LPRs attached to the local power company’s poles. In the first month, they recovered more stolen cars than any prior years total recoveries. I’ve got mixed feelings about Flock, LPRs, and what it allows people and governments to do.

I’m 100% sold on the results.

conception• 1 month ago

Imagine if the police had the names and faces of every marcher in every protest. They too would be (are) 100% sold on the results.

Gigachad5• 1 month ago

The problem imo is the usage and laws rather than the technology. Security cameras used for public good is good. But it needs to be heavily limited to preventing crime, with strict access logs and penalties for misuse.

MadnessASAP• 30 days ago

Nobody is questioning the value of unconstrained mass surveillance on solving crimes.

Unfortunately it also enables a good deal of more heinous crimes against the people its supposed to protect, by the people who are supposed to be protecting them.

superultra• 30 days ago

So, ends justifies the means. Got it.

I guess I’m old enough to remember when 99.9% of us on hacker news were…well, hackers. We valued privacy and freedom over surveillance and “results.”

I miss those days.

FireBeyond6• 30 days ago

Part of that is cops also doing their jobs in the first place versus "not giving a shit". Like when shown an eBay page of the person who sold my stolen phone. Nearly a hundred iPhones, all "activation locked", "no charger", same for Mac laptops, "no chargers, no accessories, may be locked".

Cops: "Well he probably didn't steal them himself."

Me: "Even so, knowingly selling stolen property is a crime too, no?"

Cops: "..."

cdrnsf• 1 month ago

Regular reminder that their CEO called Deflock a terrorist organization. I hope they go out of business and their cameras end up as e-waste.

Ancapistani4• 30 days ago

If I'm a terrorist, I've not been a very good one to this point.

npunt• 1 month ago

Important subject
Uses slop AI art

Fastest way to make something into a farce.

pixel_popping• 1 month ago

It's genuinely triggering rage to see this on a "serious" article.

zhivota2• 30 days ago

It's not even that hard to make AI output images that don't look like AI slop either, just have to use some "in the style of" or "as if it was taken with a film camera" types of modifiers. This is what confuses me about AI slop, not only did you use the lowest effort method, you didn't even put a minimal amount of effort into making it work well.

hiccuphippo• 30 days ago

Sure but use a real photo and someone will come with a copyright claim. The AI photo is the safest option.

xigoi8• 29 days ago

How about not using a photo at all if it’s not relevant to the article?

arjie3• 1 month ago

Ultimately, there’s a sort of homeostasis in people’s tolerance for crime. If you need video evidence for prosecution, those who want it prosecuted will produce video cameras. If you make warrants impossible to produce in a timely manner, the camera search will be warrant exempted.

Attempts to damage state power to ensure crime isn’t prosecuted will be likely met with methods that are immune to them.

Given the constraints we operate under, the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero. So being informed that either is non-zero is not of use to decision making in my opinion.

lazyasciiart3• 1 month ago

And if you need confessions, confessions will be made.

arjie3• 30 days ago

Precisely! Illustrates the problem perfectly.

pinkmuffinere2• 30 days ago

the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero

I feel this is an _extremely_ good point, the kind that seems obvious only once you hear it. But i feel there’s an implication that could be made explicit here — we should be looking at the distribution of both apparatus-enabled-crimes and unsolved-crimes when we’re discussing this sort of thing. And if those metrics aren’t tabulated for easy access, they probably should be.

arjie3• 30 days ago

And if those metrics aren’t tabulated for easy access, they probably should be.

I couldn't agree more. They're two different error rates for our society and measuring them accurately would help us go to where we should be on the curve.

TZubiri2• 30 days ago

I think there's a bias in public discussion towards idealism, because most discussions will start by the argument that we need to reduce X, or we need to reduce Y. If there is a conflict and there needs to be a trade off, very few discussions and points will be about the tradeoff, but there will be a whole bunch of discussions about just plain reducing X or reducing Y.

alexpotato2• 30 days ago

To use a corporate example:

People act like the only options are:

- make it so hard to log in that no one can use a system

- just give everyone root access

You can build systems of approval that are fast, obvious who should be approving and are auditable.

evilduck• 30 days ago

You can also build systems that require secondary approvals without needing approval escalation up the chain. Creeping on women is a lot less likely if you need a peer or even a subordinate to review what you're doing.

bigbadfeline• 30 days ago

Given the constraints we operate under, the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero.

That statement doesn't make any sense. What's the ideal number? +Infinity? "Not zero" includes that too. There has to be a way to place a ceiling on the number, asking for a non-zero "ideal" doesn't do that, on the contrary, it hides the all important question of what will keep the numbers low enough.

Using this case an example, if the offender wasn't abusing the system hundreds of times in the span of 1.5 years, he would've never been caught. So, we don't even know the real, "non-zero", number of such cases. That's a big problem.

gavinsyancey• 30 days ago

The point the poster is trying to make by "the ideal number ... is not zero" is:

There is a trade-off where a more complete and accessible surveillance apparatus could allow crimes to be solved but invites the system to be abused by police. So when we think about how much of a surveillance system we as a society want to allow, it is probably somewhere between "nothing" and "everything". Therefore,

- It is worth allowing some crimes to go unsolved in order to prevent abuse of the surveillance state. ("The ideal amount of unsolved crime is not zero")

- It might be worth allowing enough surveillance that it will inevitably be abused to some degree in order to help solve crime. ("The ideal amount of abuse of surveillance is not zero")

Thus instead of centering discussions around "thing bad", it's probably more productive to talk about how we can get as much as possible of the upside while reigning in a use, and considering where we want the tradeoff to be.

Given the power dynamics at play I'm not convinced I agree -- Flock is closely associated with Peter Thiel who is explicitly anti-democracy, and police are notorious for covering up crimes committed by fellow police. But I suppose it is worth considering that safe ethical surveillance (if it existed) could have some value, while keeping in mind that what we are getting is very far from that.

AnthonyMouse• 30 days ago

If you need video evidence for prosecution, those who want it prosecuted will produce video cameras. If you make warrants impossible to produce in a timely manner, the camera search will be warrant exempted.

That's the legislator's fallacy. "Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do this."

Suppose you address the problem in other ways, e.g. improve the economy and reduce poverty so there is less crime, or reform the laws so that we're not providing violent gangs with funding sources by criminalizing the consensual behavior of adults.

Warrantless surveillance is not the only option and it's a bad one.

Attempts to damage state power to ensure crime isn’t prosecuted will be likely met with methods that are immune to them.

This has the same shape as "attempts to enforce the law will be likely met with methods that are immune to it".

Government agencies are going to buck attempts to hold them accountable for abuse. The goal is to make their attempts ineffective, not to throw up our hands because doing it right isn't easy.

Or let's turn your reasoning against itself: We have a law against the police misusing surveillance, so then all the cameras should be destroyed as the backlash against the police violating the law, right? Either your argument is sound and we should get on with destroying all the cameras because the police are breaking the law and we'll just have to use other means to deal with other people breaking other laws, or people are actually willing to tolerate a significant amount of lawbreaking, and then we should get on with destroying all the cameras because they're dangerous and the claim that we can't because people won't tolerate the law going unenforced is empirically deficient.

xigoi8• 29 days ago

Suppose you address the problem in other ways, e.g. improve the economy and reduce poverty so there is less crime

The idea that reducing poverty will entirely eliminate crime is laughable.

kelnos2• 30 days ago

An unsolved crime is much less serious than a crime committed using state apparatus, though.

gattr• 1 month ago

Remember that scene from "Men in Black" where K watches surveillance video feed of his ex? In the movie it was meant to be wistful and cute, I guess. Now that such systems are getting closer to reality, you realize the potential for abuse in enormous.

Ancapistani4• 30 days ago

More like his widow than his ex - he was unable to ever contact her, which is what made it cute rather than creepy.

usrnm• 30 days ago

Someone stalking you is not cute even if they don't try to talk to you

FireBeyond6• 30 days ago

I mean at least in that situation, K was forbidden from ever making contact with his ex, with far greater consequences.

shaftway• 29 days ago

You mean the ex that he actually did make contact with?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czp6cXAsHj8

gigel822• 1 month ago

Can I set up my own camera on the side of the road (in a public place) to scan people's faces and license plates, link them up to one of the many data brokers (or leaks) and use a big display to show the drivers' pictures and something like "Hey Rick Larsen, it's the 24th time we've seen you this week. We'll let our clients know there's no one home at 2930 Wetmore Avenue, Everett most weekdays between 8 and 4!", and then place them somewhere like oh, I don't know, in close proximity to a capitol building?

We can pay the regular fees that advertisers pay to have billboards up.

And if we're not allowed to do that, why is Flock?

Manuel_D31• 1 month ago

Yes, you are allowed to set up a camera, as long as you own the land you're putting the camera on or you have permission from the landowner.

Again, I'm surprised by how many people don't realize that it's legal to film people in public.

etchalon4• 1 month ago

You can probably do that, so long as you're doing it on property you own.

assimpleaspossi4• 1 month ago

No one has the right to privacy in a public setting. That's why street photographers can roam around and take photos of anyone and publish them. Whether you can publish personally identifiable information based on that, I don't know.

ckrusk3• 29 days ago

first - yes, as others have noted, very easy to set this up and I encourage you to try! you could have a mini flock set up for your neighborhood or apartment in no time (not to mention ring cameras - look up the super bowl ad that went south quick).

second - five eyes (i think?) treaties allow tons of mass surveillance, the only rule is that you can't spy on your own country, but trading the data is above board

xigoi8• 29 days ago

Since when is Flock publicizing private information obtained through data leaks?

gigel822• 29 days ago

Since forever, that's literally their business model. My (and your) private information was leaked (unconsensually), including timestamped location, travel companions, photographs from inside your vehicle, what you're wearing, etc. all leaked / stolen and then publicized to all kinds of people (criminals with badges, Palantir, the secretaries in the city council, etc.).

connort4592• 1 month ago

The fact police can go in and just look at camera footage without warrant proves your point precisely, officers have used it to stalk family members, etc.

jimt1234• 1 month ago

This type of thing is definitely real. A friend of mine went on a date with an NYPD cop back in the 90s. She refused a second date, and the stalking began. It wasn't 'tech stalking', like today, but the cop started asking interrogating questions to her landlord and co-workers; she started getting weird/false parking tickets, etc. The only way she made it stop was that her cousin was a veteran with NYPD, and well, he had a little chat with the young, stalking cop. But who knows where it all would've ended up if her cousin wasn't also a cop???

connort4592• 1 month ago

Yeah what in the world, now imagine that nowadays with FLOCK cameras. I see that going nowhere good

BLKNSLVR• 30 days ago

Young stalking cop should have been charged and kicked off the force. Already proved they're incapable of handling even basic adult responsibilities, so police powers should be kept well it off such a person's reach.

I doubt any of that happened though.

picofarad9• 29 days ago

Imagine what would happen if the NYC attorney actually prosecuted cops that stalked.

ckrusk3• 29 days ago

Is this much different than a doctor/sw/nurse/admin looking up patient records? I know that doctors are not the government, so no 4th amendment rights, but folks in the medical community have the basically the same level of access to much more sensitive information.

also, since there has been a lot of talk of warrantless searches, 4th a, etc.... is there an expectation to privacy when out in public when one would be captured on a flock camera? like red light cameras already exist and some non-sworn pd admin is looking through your file to send you a ticket...

throwaway74628• 1 month ago

Nit: the police chief was also stalking and harassing at least one man

xigoi8• 29 days ago

But crimes against men don’t matter because by being a man, he is responsible for all crimes committed by men. /s

kittikitti• 1 month ago

Random people at your workplace likely know others with access and use it to spy on their own coworkers. I know of cases where they report the smallest details to Human Resources.

xnx• 1 month ago

This problem is 99% cops and 1% flock.

parl_match• 1 month ago

verkada (a building access systems company), had multiple incidents of stalking of employees by other employees, using their own installation in their own hq

none of them were cops

orthecreedence2• 30 days ago

No? A mass surveillance apparatus is a pretty enormous problem.

justin66• 30 days ago

It's sort of 50/50.

largbae• 1 month ago

Yes this is how freedoms are restored. Next we need a story of flock tracking a reporter or political figure. Put that 4th amendment into sharp focus.

nkrisc2• 1 month ago

He characterizes the behavior as rare. He simultaneously identifies it as the most common form of abuse. The tension between those two statements is the problem Flock has left unaddressed.

I don’t see how there’s any tension between these statements. The overall occurrence of abuse can be rare while the most common form of the abuse that does occur is of officers tracking people they know.

rose-knuckle172• 30 days ago

The tension is that the abuse is far more likely than any value these cameras bring.

And what is commonly rare in a country of 342 million? Prairie Grove, Illinois has 1930 people and he did this to at least 3 people according to the report. .15% of the population. If you extrapolate that out to the national population, its roughly 520k people. Or, the entire population of Sacramento, Ca, being victimized by law enforcement with a surveillance power they should never have been allowed to have.

mc32• 30 days ago

In a community of 20 people you have one person who commits robbery, that's 5% of the pop being a robbers. One _could_ extrapolate that but we'd fall victim to the law of small numbers.

nkrisc2• 29 days ago

I agree but I don’t think that was the point, or I’ve misunderstood the statement about the tension between those other two statements.

makeitdouble• 30 days ago

You're right both can be logically true. Now the tension doesn't reside in the logic, but in the intent of the statements.

First statement minimizes the problem's impact, second argues it's still worth tackling.

glitcher• 30 days ago

Rare in comparison to what, the total number of searches across the platform?

But even that is the wrong focus. One could make the same case for rejecting police body cams because incidents of police abuse are rare, relatively speaking.

The real issue is that the platform isn't completely locked down by default with strict access control grants, monitoring, auditing, etc. Shoot I have way less access at my work to data and systems which do not have that level of sensitivity and have to go through multiple approval steps to be granted anything new.

But I guess those things don't help the sales pitches. To be fair policing the police isn't flock's job and doesn't make them money. Laws and regulations are the only real vehicles of change.

FireBeyond6• 30 days ago

Yeah, in fact they're very nudge nudge wink wink.

Sell to a LE agency in a state that doesn't allow data sharing in certain ways? Flock certainly won't disable it. They'll even still train you in how to use it.

Garrett is very much a believer in Minority Report.

rose-knuckle172• 1 month ago

Imagine what Musk can do with all the SSA and Tax data he stole in the most blatant and underreported data heist in history.

normalaccess3• 1 month ago

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Cardinal Richelieu

Privacy protects personal dignity, not just illicit behavior. We close bathroom doors, keep journals, and have intimate conversations not because we are breaking the law, but because we value personal modesty and boundaries.

We are quickly approaching a time when we are all guilty until proven innocent by voyeuristic power-hungry psychopathic megalomaniacs who cry the old cry of "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

SapporoChris• 30 days ago

I do not disagree with the intentions of the quote, however it is disputed.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu#Disputed

xigoi8• 29 days ago

Nobody is installing surveillance cameras in you bathroom.

tencentshill• 29 days ago

They would really, really like to. Kids at school vape in there, people do drugs in public ones.

normalaccess3• 28 days ago

Nobody is installing surveillance cameras in you bathroom yet.

aussieguy1234• 30 days ago

Statistically, police officers are much more likely than your average person to be a perpetrator of domestic abuse

TZubiri2• 30 days ago

Big fan of court ordered warrants as a way to limit law enforcement here.

That said, warrants protect law enforcement like searching someone's house. It seems that some less intrusive powers like running someone's plate has been given to the police with lower controls.

And it makes sense right? If every judge needed to approve every potential plate check, it might be too much for daily operations.

So option A, push towards everything being protected under warrants.

Sure, option B, how about protection mechanisms that sit somewhere in the middle? For example, what if some powers were audited (sounds like they are logged already) on a probabilistic basis. What if judges could inspect some fraction of searches after the fact, and ask for justification afterwards. Of course this would have no effect on the actual search, but it would have long term effects on future searches.

Even if 1% of lesser searches are audited, I'm sure most policemen would be much more weary about using them for personal matters like stalking women.

BrenBarn4• 30 days ago

There are other options. One is to allow them to be audited not just by judges but by various "watchdog" groups which themselves go through some kind of vetting process. If you think police would be wary if they knew judges were watching 1% of their videos, imagine how they'd feel if they knew the ACLU had the option of watching every single one.

The other side of it, though, is enforcement, and to me this seems like what's mostly lacking. It remains to be seen what will happen with this case but the article mentions a variety of actions over a period of time

1. he tracked six separate people

2. he ran license plates for these people 140 times

2. he searched the database while off duty

3. he called the ex-boyfriend

4. he said "This is the only time I'm going to be nice about this" which pretty clearly is threatening statement

For this he was charged with. . . two Illinois class-3 felonies, which from what I see online means each charge can get you 2-5 years in prison. So he's looking at 10 years max, if he gets convicted with the charges as they stand.

What each individual misuse of the tracking was charged as a separate offense? What if the standard of proof for officer misconduct was drastically lowered, so that, for instance, they could be fired or incur significant financial penalties with a much quicker process? And if the full criminal process does go through, as far as I'm concerned, a police officer who misuses their position in this manner should probably be wearing an ankle monitor for the rest of their life and/or have to register in a manner similar to sex offenders. We are way too lenient with the punishments for misuse of authority.

ckrusk3• 29 days ago

I am sure an automated report to the chief/captain would solve most of this and making sure that every query/report had an associated case/complaint number too. real crimes attached to real searches.

Jzush• 30 days ago

Not sure how much warrants are going to help when a judge will see a stack of requests from a police chief and just rubber stamp them all without looking. This is already a problem in places where warrants are required.

chaps• 30 days ago

With a search warrant, I can submit FOIA requests or go to the courthouse.

With flock searches, I (usually) can't because Illinois law exempts ALPR records. Here's the most egregious example I've seen: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/waukegan-11153/flock-safety-alp...

alexpotato2• 30 days ago

Scott Adams' had a great line:

"Whenever people have the opportunity to commit fraud and there is no monitoring, you can assume they are committing fraud."

btrettel• 30 days ago

Are you loosely paraphrasing here? The closest thing I could find by Scott Adams was "Whenever you have a lot of money in play, combined with the ability to hide misbehavior behind complexity, you should expect widespread fraud to happen."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10213582-whenever-you-have-...

(I didn't check the book, though.)

ZeroGravitas• 30 days ago

I sometimes think of this from the other direction.

Don't put people in situations of great temptation, like access to company cash with no oversight. They'll often fall for the temptation and ruin their lives in the process.

It's a slightly different framing from the "evil people will take advantage and get away with it" but they both lead to putting some kind of process in place to prevent abuse.

AndrewOMartin• 30 days ago

This is like when store-bought locks are able to be picked by a novice, or broken with a hammer, or bypassed with a magnet. The phrase used is "it keeps good people honest", rather than "it keeps absolutely all bad guys out".

picofarad9• 29 days ago

Adam Carolla says that people aren't evil, but if you wave some money in front of them, they'll do things they wouldn't normally

nullc• 30 days ago

No it shows why mass surveillance systems should be outlawed.

boring_twenties4• 30 days ago

This shouldn't be hard to understand. Don't talk to the police, without your attorney present, under any circumstances whatsoever.

Dating the police is just such an astoundingly egregious violation of this principle that I can only wonder what, if anything, those people are thinking.

Anyway, the key takeaway seems to don't date anyone who dates the police. Firstly, because it directly puts your own safety at risk, as this article exemplifies. Secondly, because it demonstrates terrible judgment; it seems reasonable to assume they are likely to make other terrible decisions in the future.

ultrarunner2• 30 days ago

Dating the police is just such an astoundingly egregious violation of this principle

There are still quite a few people who think the police are the friendly government-provided customer service agents of life, although I've watched this viewpoint decline markedly over the last twenty years at least.

Locally, a woman went on a hiking date with a Phoenix cop and wound up dead [0]. Notably, the woman was from New England, while the cop was local and absolutely should have known better how dangerous conditions would be. The police, of course, investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong.

[0] https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/hiker-recalls-seeing-woman...

kakacik• 30 days ago

A female high on meth gets disoriented and dies from heat exposure in the mountains. As per article she willingly separated from the guy whom she sent to the top of the peak "to continue to get pic for social media". He probably should have know better and just go down with her and call it a day, or not getting high on meth in dangerous environment in the first place but thats about it.

Unless you have a better article on that, that really ain't evidence of anything.

mlrtime2• 30 days ago

IDK, In my town that is what they are, they come when called, they are respectful, they live in the town they service.

I only see problems with police [generally speaking] in two scenarios.

1) Very large cities like NYC where police don't [cannot afford] to live in the area they work in.

2) Very small citie where the mayor, judge and sherrif are all related.

goda90• 30 days ago

Best hope you don't catch the eye of an officer even. Things can go poorly without a relationship, or even without a direct rejection.

tptacek10• 30 days ago

This is an extremely online belief. Oak Park, IL, the inner-ring suburb of Chicago where I live, is almost certainly one of the 10 most progressive and left-leaning municipalities in the country. Oak Parkers (not me) have the opposite concern: we're below our threshold number of sworn officers, and desperate to add more. The median Oak Parker has very positive views of the police (and also all the standard progressive concerns about abuses.)

Lots of political beliefs are like this! There are plenty of things people believe very strongly, and get near universal reinforcement on in their communities, that don't survive contact with actual living grass. The median American has an extraordinarily high opinion of Amazon, for instance, something you'd never know unless you sought out polling (or, you know, took a walk down a residential block and looked at the stoops.)

duld• 30 days ago

To clarify, you're stating that "Don't talk to the police" is an "extremely online belief"? Or were you referencing the dating portion of the comment?

rexpop• 30 days ago

Everything you believe about the police you gleaned from children's cartoons as a toddler.

Eufrat• 30 days ago

Oak Park. Home to Frank Lloyd Wright’s original studio/home and multiple works designed by him? Birthplace and hometown of Ernest Hemingway?

A municipality comparable to Berkeley, California or New Rochelle, New York?

What?

I agree with you that a blanket statement of not talking to the police is ridiculous, but arguing that Oak Park is a good representation outside of affluent America is not to be taken seriously.

M95D2• 30 days ago

Don't talk to the police - advice given to university students by a lawyer and then by a cop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

If this isn't trustworthy, I don't know what is.

kstenerud• 30 days ago

Wow. I've heard some pretty egregious victim blaming before, but this really takes the cake.

qmr4• 30 days ago

If I pivot to law enforcement does my wife have to stop talking to me?

She's a permanent resident and has already been given the do not talk to the police speech and role play practice from me.

lukan4• 30 days ago

"Don't talk to the police, without your attorney present, under any circumstances whatsoever."

Oh but I did. Multiple times, without a lawyer ever, how shocking:

"Hey, my bicycle was stolen, I need to file it so I get insurance payout"

"Hey, this demonstration and the roadblock of yours for guarding it, will it be around for much longer?"

"Hey, nice weather, isn't it?"

(Misdirecting small talk, while they were searching for drugs on the road to a festival, but then didn't really check me)

"Yes I know I have to have a light with a bicycle, but the battery went out and it was a emergency now to go anyway"

(Did not had to pay a fine)

And countless other examples like this.

Also more serious ones.

"Yes, it was those neonazis who beat up my friend"

So .. I never cared much for this online advice, but then again I also don't live in the US. Maybe there they shoot and arrest anyone approaching them on general principle?

Well in my world, that was actually shaped a lot by anarchistic anti establishment people, I found that one can talk to cops as inhuman cops, then they will act like one, or you talk to them as humans and might be surprised that they reply as humans.

That doesn't mean, that there ain't lots of assholes on a power trip in uniforms, but the "never talk to them advice" assumes they all are. And this is just wrong and act as a self fullfilling prophecy.

ceejayoz3• 30 days ago

I also don't live in the US

“Don’t talk to the cops” is not global advice. In some countries it harms your defense in court. In others it gets you beaten.

Most times you hear it it’s an American talking to Americans.

throwawayqqq11• 30 days ago

In all your cases, you wanted something from LE. The advice to stay shut is mainly for the other way around.

FatherOfCurses• 29 days ago

The key statement here is "I don't live in the US"

I grew up outside of the US and immigrated here in 1995. US police are on a completely different level.

joquarky3• 29 days ago

but then again I also don't live in the US

You could have said that up front and we would immediately know to skip the rest, as the advice is founded on the behavior of police in the US.

boring_twenties4• 29 days ago

but the "never talk to them advice" assumes they all are

No, it doesn't, that's absurd. Does wearing a seatbelt assume that you're going to crash every single time you drive?

jillesvangurp• 30 days ago

Warrants are needed, and much more transparency. These platforms should be monitored and policed aggressively to keep everybody honest. There's a precedent for this with for example body cam footage means it's now much easier to audit police conduct.

Surveillance technology potentially enables a lot of abuse if used without checks and balances. But the same technology also enables monitoring for abuse. Use of surveillance technology should be actively monitored and supervised. There should be auditable logs, footage, etc. with very long retention periods and active spot checks. In case of conflicts/abuse, there should be ample evidence.

Gud• 30 days ago

These platforms shouldn't exist to begin with... "land of the free" LOL!

INTPenis• 30 days ago

It should go without saying that all humans are flawed, regardless of their training, their uniform, their position in society.

The local pedohunters group dumpen.se in Sweden actually caught a cop trying to meet a fictional 14 year old, and the cop used his access to public CCTV to check the meeting point before going there.

zombot• 30 days ago

Ubiquitous surveillance + no oversight: What could possibly go wrong.

raxxorraxor2• 30 days ago

No, it shows that we have a destructive, trust undermining security industry that sells abusive surveillance software that by spirit of the law would be clearly illegal in any country that pretends to be a free and open society and has a constitution in the direction.

tiahura3• 29 days ago

Freedom to take pictures of public spaces?

KyleTheDev3• 29 days ago

Freedom to use a network of cameras to take pictures of random people and track their behaviors and location without their consent?

jfengel• 29 days ago

No, it shows that even trust has been utterly undermined by a police force that cannot control itself. This is just the latest in a long line of abuses, and completely eliminating Flock would not even touch the underlying problem.

abenga• 29 days ago

You shouldn't give them more tools to terrorize the populace though.

tiahura3• 29 days ago

No, it shows that cities need to do a better job of policing their police.

economistbob• 29 days ago

A warrant being required for a GPS tracker but not for nationwide direct visual monitoring seems absurd.

nativeit• 29 days ago

It was not that long ago that i was watching Top Gear UK talk about how much they admired the US for its libertarian ideals, and how Americans don’t tolerate things like speed cameras on a cultural level.

Within a decade, we ushered in CCTV and automated plate readers to a degree that would make the CCP blush.

gradientsrneat• 29 days ago

Misogyny in government is a bellwether for authoritarianism. If a man doesn't respect women, you can bet they won't respect men or minorities either, although they may be less inclined to admit such in public.

mapotofu2• 29 days ago

Would love to see the same attitude extended to everyone, e.g. “respect all people”, but I guess if we don’t put the pussy on a pedestal we’re all authoritarians. If you keep pushing that narrative, you will be disappointed in what happens.

KyleTheDev3• 29 days ago

I'm not sure you understood the parent comment? At least, not in the way that they mean. What they're saying is, those who are likely to not respect women are also likely to not respect other groups. But, they are less likely to voice their lack of respect for other groups because doing so would incur more pushback.

The sexist undertones of your response aside, you seem to have very poor reading comprehension.

bingoMen• 28 days ago

Any man with that kind of power (would) do the same. Not just the police. The problem with patriarchy is that no one even considers the possibility that women and children might be harassed through technology. Because that perspective is missing. Google or Apple lenses, AI (Grok in particular), satellites, etc., etc., there’s no oversight or verification to ensure that this technology isn’t also being abused by men for personal desires, revenge, or whatever else. Maybe because it’s desired that there be no oversight.

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