At the same time though, if a car that's obviously "not from around here" were to do a drive-by looking for open garages to grab some tools or a bike - I'd want that to be recorded and flagged.
I'd get lynched for sharing a thought like this from a non-throwaway account, but: I don't get the ultra-liberal folks obsession with the skid row. For whatever reason they seem to think that low rank criminals should be allowed to continue living however they please. An attempt to clean up crime in Oakland - for example - is met with cries of gentrification! Think of the families! Somehow everyone focuses on the family of the drug dealer and not of the hard working single mom who doesn't want her kids to join a gang. Is seems that only those involved in petty crime are considered to be the valuable members of the local community, and only their values need protecting.
Listening in on city council meetings or even just perusing Nextdoor posts you’ll find there are many proponents for more cameras generally from folks tired of crime.
I don't care about Flock tracking petty criminals, I care about Flock tracking _me_.
Who is "they"?
Flock collects data which is given/sold to police departments or other entities. Regardless of how you feel about law enforcement having this data, how do you feel about Flock being a middle-man who controls the flow of the data? How do you feel about knowing Flock is VC-driven and will be making decisions based on ROI, not societal benefit?
There are already numerous examples of Flock misidentifying citizens as suspects of crimes and them being arrested or otherwise harassed by law enforcement.
You can say that these are individual problems rather than systemic problems, but with the US' gradual descent towards authoritarianism and being a militarized police-state I do not see how this technology will be used to make a positive impact on the lives of everyday citizens (which IMO has been happening since the 80s at least before you just imply I don't like the current administration).
I am personally willing to incur a higher risk of being the victim of a crime if it means government/police/private companies/etc. are not able to violate my privacy every waking moment of my life.
There are many many many examples of abuse, both in the short term (flock gymnastics pedophiles, cop loveint, cross state abortion suspicion tracking) and long term (the "red scare", the administration performing loyalty tests). There are also plenty of discussions outlining how everyone should support privacy because some need it more than others and we're all on the same team.
Pretending people who are against flock or government illegal surveillance care more about criminals then their families is so bad faith it makes them an asshole (not you but a comment above).
If not - since YC is a for-profit business, what paths to positive RoI might you foresee if they did maintain such stances?