I can take a photograph of your car and/or license plate whenever I please; you are out in public, with no expectation of privacy. If you came over and demanded to see it, I would tell you to walk off a dock, and you wouldn't dare to raise a finger against me.
This neurotic obsession with being observed in public needs to end. 200 years ago, you could be easily identified by the breed and coloring of the horse you rode in on. It was too trivial to even think about.
Being observed is not an issue with any of us. Having our daily movement and electronics inside our vehicles recorded and compiled into a database is an issue. These data are then used to track us…and in the future it can be used to prosecute us for who knows what they’ll invent.
The argument against Flock is that a future tyrannical government could use it against you. I think this is an irrational argument. We live in the most filmed public world ever.
All power will have abuses. Everytime someone was abusing Flock and was caught and fired or prosecuted is a success story for checks and balances on power and authority working.
You have register your car and get tags because it is the law and you can be filmed in public without consent. If you want to make a sovereign citizen argument against having to register your car that is different than being filmed in public.
Your phone is bigger privacy invasion than Flock cameras. Cell phone providers keep what tower you are using and will give it to law enforcement with a warrant. And your actual phone is giving all kinds of data to apps which also can go to law enforcement.
The question you have to ask is if a cop is stalking his ex girlfriend with flock and gets fired is it worth tearing down the system that could catch a murderer or a child kidnapper. If the answer is “yes muh privacy!” I wonder how you would feel if someone you loved was a victim of a crime.
I think that trusting a private company interfacing with government is the real problem.
I don't see a way out of the problem though.
Embracing a crowdsourced public recording solution and making 100% of the content publicly available without any censorship or editing is something I would like more because it should be less corruptible.
We would need something like this anyhow to Audit any results from Flock or similar companies.
I think people would hate that even more than they hate Flock though because it would make the creepiness visible.
I think people accept the creepiness that happens with their phones because it usually isn't "directly visible" to them.
The flock situation is similar to form 4473…and the BATFE taking these records from firearm dealers…they say they don’t use them as a registry…but have them and can use them as a registry.
Taking your argument one step further let’s lobby placing cameras in everyone’s homes. Will allow a gov bureaucrat to monitor your eating and drinking habits, make sure you don’t spank your kids, make sure you don’t surf the web all night so you get decent sleep and can work to pay your taxes tomorrow, and on and on.
Flock cameras and all other similar are wrong, anti American, and unconstitutional.
Crime investigation does not require unconstitutional obtrusive monitoring of everyone.
You mingle two things, or maybe you were not clear. Daily movement "recorded and compiled" and "being observed" are the same thing. Memory is allowed.
Events inside your vehicle are inside your property and should be protected by the 4th Amendment.
How do you know the data is used to track you? So far as I can tell, that is only a fear, not a fact. Reconstructing your past public actions in the pursuit of a criminal investigation is another matter. You don't like cameras, but you are okay with eyewitnesses? Like your neighbor who has a powerful grudge against you?
If anyone wants to go after you, there is no difficulty dreaming up anything and finding you. Read Solzhenitsyn's works to find out how they go about it, 20th century style. (But tapping one's phone is again a violation of the 4th Amendment.)
General surveillance is not particular to any person. And there is no contact with anyone. If my Ring camera captures all the comings and goings of my neighbor, that is just a function of its field of view. The neighbor cannot accuse me of "stalking" when my camera is functioning automatically 24/7 for anything in its field of view. No such lawsuits have been made, to my understanding, or the whole industry would collapse. So, general surveillance is NOT criminal for an individual.
And, post facto investigation of a suspected crime is NOT "normal circumstances."
General surveillance is not particular to any person.
This is not accurate.
I'm not taking issue with 'all' of your comments -- but this one is wrong. This is not 'general surveillance', as in 'a single camera mounted near a restaurant window to catch someone breaking in'. This is different.
Once an investigation is triggered, this certainly becomes equivalent to 'stalking'. The data is filtered, and all the 'generality' of it fades away. The output becomes 'hundreds of pictures of you, across weeks or months, in dozens of locations, at all times of the day or night'. How is that not equivalent to the output of a stalker?
One response could be that this also is the exact output of 'good police work during an active investigation'. But that raises a question -- Does that mean that all of us are constantly under an active police investigation? Because that's the only justification for collecting all this data.
And just to be clear - I think that the ability to conduct a post-facto investigation of a true criminal is useful -- but perhaps not useful enough to put every citizen under active investigation, 24/7.
I would like to think that all 'investigations' would be for noble purposes, but we know they aren't.
Perhaps the (proper) solution is to actually incarcerate the criminals that are caught instead of constantly releasing them and letting them roam free.
The "investigation" consists of interrogating the data record, which is otherwise in oblivious storage. No one is under "constant" investigation, any more than one would be were a police department to look through the field reports of its patrol officers for a special purpose. This is 19th century stuff.
I have no problem with incarcerating criminals. But I would want to first have the means to detect them, track them down, and apprehend them, which is the real problem to solve.
But, really, what is the harm in being under "investigation"? It doesn't violate any of one's rights. I had to be investigated various times over the years to establish and maintain my security clearances. It was all behind the scenes and essentially invisible. No hassles. Of course, I wasn't committing espionage...
I can take a photograph of your car and/or license plate whenever I please; you are out in public, with no expectation of privacy. If you came over and demanded to see it, I would tell you to walk off a dock, and you wouldn't dare to raise a finger against me.
This neurotic obsession with being observed in public needs to end. 200 years ago, you could be easily identified by the breed and coloring of the horse you rode in on. It was too trivial to even think about.
Being observed is not an issue with any of us. Having our daily movement and electronics inside our vehicles recorded and compiled into a database is an issue. These data are then used to track us…and in the future it can be used to prosecute us for who knows what they’ll invent.
The argument against Flock is that a future tyrannical government could use it against you. I think this is an irrational argument. We live in the most filmed public world ever.
All power will have abuses. Everytime someone was abusing Flock and was caught and fired or prosecuted is a success story for checks and balances on power and authority working.
You have register your car and get tags because it is the law and you can be filmed in public without consent. If you want to make a sovereign citizen argument against having to register your car that is different than being filmed in public.
Your phone is bigger privacy invasion than Flock cameras. Cell phone providers keep what tower you are using and will give it to law enforcement with a warrant. And your actual phone is giving all kinds of data to apps which also can go to law enforcement.
The question you have to ask is if a cop is stalking his ex girlfriend with flock and gets fired is it worth tearing down the system that could catch a murderer or a child kidnapper. If the answer is “yes muh privacy!” I wonder how you would feel if someone you loved was a victim of a crime.
I think that trusting a private company interfacing with government is the real problem.
I don't see a way out of the problem though.
Embracing a crowdsourced public recording solution and making 100% of the content publicly available without any censorship or editing is something I would like more because it should be less corruptible.
We would need something like this anyhow to Audit any results from Flock or similar companies.
I think people would hate that even more than they hate Flock though because it would make the creepiness visible.
I think people accept the creepiness that happens with their phones because it usually isn't "directly visible" to them.
Not "could", "would". I guarantee it.
The flock situation is similar to form 4473…and the BATFE taking these records from firearm dealers…they say they don’t use them as a registry…but have them and can use them as a registry.
Taking your argument one step further let’s lobby placing cameras in everyone’s homes. Will allow a gov bureaucrat to monitor your eating and drinking habits, make sure you don’t spank your kids, make sure you don’t surf the web all night so you get decent sleep and can work to pay your taxes tomorrow, and on and on.
Flock cameras and all other similar are wrong, anti American, and unconstitutional.
Crime investigation does not require unconstitutional obtrusive monitoring of everyone.
Driving on a public street is completely different than having a government camera inside your home.
Do you have a right to shop at Walmart and not be filmed?
You mingle two things, or maybe you were not clear. Daily movement "recorded and compiled" and "being observed" are the same thing. Memory is allowed.
Events inside your vehicle are inside your property and should be protected by the 4th Amendment.
How do you know the data is used to track you? So far as I can tell, that is only a fear, not a fact. Reconstructing your past public actions in the pursuit of a criminal investigation is another matter. You don't like cameras, but you are okay with eyewitnesses? Like your neighbor who has a powerful grudge against you?
If anyone wants to go after you, there is no difficulty dreaming up anything and finding you. Read Solzhenitsyn's works to find out how they go about it, 20th century style. (But tapping one's phone is again a violation of the 4th Amendment.)
If an individual tracks my movement and logs it for an extended period of time, that is deemed stalking and is a crime.
If it’s criminal for an individual, it should be criminal for the government under normal circumstances.
General surveillance is not particular to any person. And there is no contact with anyone. If my Ring camera captures all the comings and goings of my neighbor, that is just a function of its field of view. The neighbor cannot accuse me of "stalking" when my camera is functioning automatically 24/7 for anything in its field of view. No such lawsuits have been made, to my understanding, or the whole industry would collapse. So, general surveillance is NOT criminal for an individual.
And, post facto investigation of a suspected crime is NOT "normal circumstances."
This is not accurate.
I'm not taking issue with 'all' of your comments -- but this one is wrong. This is not 'general surveillance', as in 'a single camera mounted near a restaurant window to catch someone breaking in'. This is different.
Once an investigation is triggered, this certainly becomes equivalent to 'stalking'. The data is filtered, and all the 'generality' of it fades away. The output becomes 'hundreds of pictures of you, across weeks or months, in dozens of locations, at all times of the day or night'. How is that not equivalent to the output of a stalker?
One response could be that this also is the exact output of 'good police work during an active investigation'. But that raises a question -- Does that mean that all of us are constantly under an active police investigation? Because that's the only justification for collecting all this data.
And just to be clear - I think that the ability to conduct a post-facto investigation of a true criminal is useful -- but perhaps not useful enough to put every citizen under active investigation, 24/7.
I would like to think that all 'investigations' would be for noble purposes, but we know they aren't.
Perhaps the (proper) solution is to actually incarcerate the criminals that are caught instead of constantly releasing them and letting them roam free.
The "investigation" consists of interrogating the data record, which is otherwise in oblivious storage. No one is under "constant" investigation, any more than one would be were a police department to look through the field reports of its patrol officers for a special purpose. This is 19th century stuff.
I have no problem with incarcerating criminals. But I would want to first have the means to detect them, track them down, and apprehend them, which is the real problem to solve.
But, really, what is the harm in being under "investigation"? It doesn't violate any of one's rights. I had to be investigated various times over the years to establish and maintain my security clearances. It was all behind the scenes and essentially invisible. No hassles. Of course, I wasn't committing espionage...