I Reported on Flock's Cameras. Now I'm One of the System's Mistakes(www.thedrive.com)
37 pointsby CharlesW4 hours ago4 comments
  • thot_experiment2 hours ago
    Systems like flock cannot by their nature be good for the average person unless maybe they are democratically controlled with strict oversight and transparency. Tools to concentrate power are, and will always be used to oppress. Flock is not popular anywhere and that it's being implemented upon us rather than by us should have all of us smashing flock cameras whenever we see them. 1312
    • akudha2 hours ago
      unless maybe they are democratically controlled with strict oversight and transparency

      Lets say it is strictly controlled today. What about in six months? What about next year, 2, 5, 10 years from now? There is no guarantee that strict controls that work today will work tomorrow. The only thing that is guaranteed is it will be abused by someone, at some point, even if it is miraculously tightly controlled today (which itself is not true, as we see from number reports of abuse already).

      The only way to prevent data abuse is not to collect un-necessary data in the first place

  • Sprocklem8 minutes ago
    I mean, it seems pretty obvious to me that flock should be flagging this as a partial match in a very prominent way, so hopefully the police officers take a closer look and don't act recklessly. It is shoking to me that this wasn't included from the start.
  • pastemato2 hours ago
    It should not be lost on anyone that this incident could have easily cost Joel Feder his life, all because of the officer's faith in ultimately faulty OCR results.
    • bluefirebrand2 hours ago
      What's that idiom? The purpose of a system is what it does?

      Seems to me that we should be taking a close look at what law enforcement systems are doing right now. They seem to be producing a lot of fear

  • goatloveran hour ago
    I don't recall ever seeing a vote on this, yet somehow they are cropping up everywhere. When your representatives (local, state, federal) do things they weren't elected to do and didn't ask the public, really makes you reconsider how democratic the system is. Who are their actual constituents beyond getting votes for the next election?
    • foco_tubian hour ago
      Eugene, OR citizens made this point and ended up getting EPD's and neighboring Springfield PD's contracts with Flock cancelled.