The inaccuracy of our omniscient AI surveillance network isn't why I'm against it. The conclusion of this article is that we need more humans in the loop for a successful police state.
Virtually everyone is, including those who oversimplify and go too far with words like "abolish". The problem we have right now is that "successful policing" is currently defined in such a way that there's almost zero accountability for those who enforce the law.
I'm not for “successful policing”: the term is way too ambiguous and I know that many people would have definitions in mind that I would find repugnant.
Should they? There's lots of things that are currently crimes that I don't believe should be crimes, so I have no reason to support policing in at least those cases.
Sure, if anyone could agree on a definition of success. Police forces don't even obey legislative bodies where their definition of success and the public's definition of success differs.
Why should I be in favor of 100% successful policing? I don't accept the premise that all de facto law should be in line with de jure law. That sort of society is unprecedented
“Sir, we are coming by today because we are concerned you are insufficiently supportive of our public servants in uniform. It has come to our attention that you have been disparaging some members of our law enforcement divisions publicly. This is part of our new thought policing initiatives, we need everyone to support our policing efforts!”
Why did they need to have guns drawn and that many cops, even if the flag had been correct? A car involved in a homicide investigation doesn't mean it's even being driven by the suspect. It's not a positive ID at all
Same reason why so called "Swatting" is largely a non-issue outside the US: Police in the US are trained to respond to the hilt by default, and then lower their heavy-handed response later if they warrant it. Contrast that with most other countries, where police are trained to respond and only escalate based on the findings/as the situation unfolds.
This training is supposedly for "officer safety." But being a police officer in the US isn't even in the top-10 most dangerous fields, and the vast majority of deaths are from traffic accidents or health issues while on the job (e.g. heart attack/stroke), not gun-related. So it is more likely a cultural issue within the profession.
Devils advocate here but your argument is that they should change their safety policy because the job has great safety statistics? What if they change tactics and danger goes up?
Most police in the US don't overreact to the presence of a weapon during traffic stops or pther routine interactions. Many states could have around 10% of people carrying a gun, making armed interactions quite common.
Yes and in the meantime, respond with all available resources?
(pretending my parents, wife, children are police officers and posting from that perspective, but do not like taste of boot nor Flock - just thinking logical on the ground procedure accounting for broken larger system)
Try pretending your wife and children are in a car being pulled over for a drug inspection and think from that perspective. Or to have their papers checked to make sure they're not illegal aliens, whichever you prefer.
Yes, firearms themselves present a clear and present danger by themselves. I'm sure once you make laws to control them, the firearms learn to stop being dangerous.
I am currently in the countryside, outside of the USA.
I speak to folks about the USA sometimes, and guns come up. We are known for that. They think they want them. I get it... they do sound cool.
I try to explain that in the USA, the ratio of guns to people is far above 1:1. Therefore, if I was a police officer approaching any car, I would assume that the driver had a gun. That reality increases the chances of bad things happening due to human factors. "Do you really want every speeding pull-over to become a twitchy wild-west situation? Maybe your kids are in the car!"
Sometimes, this seems to wake people up to the reality of ubiquitous firearms. Please note, I am not making judgements here. These just seem like facts.
> "Do you really want every speeding pull-over to become a wild-west situation? Maybe your kids are in the car!"
Why would every speeding pull-over become a wild-west situation? If possessing a gun is a right, then mere possession is no reason to suspect criminality is afoot.
In general cops err on the side of protecting themselves from danger and I can't fault them for that. How would you approach a car whose driver is suspected of homicide?
Obviously someone made a mistake here but I'm not sure this has anything to do with Flock. The car had an "APB" out. We want cops to pull over "wanted" cars, right?
I think the police should especially have guns drawn if they are pulling over a car owned by a murder suspect. It is reasonable enough to assume the driver is the suspect. If they PID the driver as not the suspect, holster up, no problem. Police always have guns drawn for any felony stop as an officer safety precaution, no reason to not when you have a high risk suspect.
No this is bad logic. Flock is absolutely responsible and they should not be releasing or selling products that are this poorly made.
Saying that the responsibility is only on the user is extremely myopic. It's also dismissing the role Flock has in how they make and design their software.
If they can't handle this maybe they should be disbanded as a company or nationalized for better public control.
Like many things in American policing, this could easily be fixed by ensuring real consequences and penalties for fuckups like this. Incentives guide actions, and there is no incentive not to keep repeating the same negligent mistake.
What officer in Milwaukee left a dead notice in the system even after there was one false positive, and what happened to him (I would be willing to bet actual money that the answer is nothing). Who set up the system in Brookfield that allows them to accidentally pull a gun on someone innocent for the exact same reason they pulled a gun on that exact same person a few days earlier.
There is no other profession where you can get away with repeated identical negligence like this. The reason for that is in almost every other profession, negligence is a liability for the parties involved. In policing it is a liability, but not for the negligent person or department.
The outrage level and desire to stop tech being used this way ought to be reaching a fever pitch rather than being a kind of unfortunate documentary of how it isn't working right.
The institution of police has run its course and is time to deprecate.
Flock cameras... I mean, look: our society, without any central organization at all, has the capacity to record nearly every crime that occurs, just by dint of our camera phones and private surveillance systems. So Flock really just gives the police more information, creating a an asymmetry with the rest of society.
Given that we can already record all that we need to, and call for help from each other at a moment's notice, what good can police do for the next few centuries? And what possible hope is there that it will outweigh the bad?
I just spoke at my county commission meeting this morning, against these cameras, as they're debating putting 50% more cameras up across the county. The original set went up without any news coverage or fanfare.
Looks like I have two serious opponents to privacy on the commission to deal with, and the commissioner seems to at least want to end the contract. I have no idea where the other two members sit.
1) I love your argument, and I'm really impressed you were able to step up and do this. 2) That's crazy that you, and everyone else, broadcasts your addresses on live cam, while also arguing against the surveillance state.
Also, my sheriff's department isn't exactly known for respecting constitutional boundaries. We had the whole whole predictive policing national story a few years ago.
Hell, go for a stroll on Google maps in my neighborhood and maybe 1/4 of the neighbors are cops.
Find their campaign donors, that’s almost always a fun reveal. Downballot candidates don’t really expect many people to look into their funding so it’s sometimes less opaque than big name campaigns.
Way too much money gets spent on local elections in this area, and just about everybody there is a legacy name of one sort or another. I'm also in the middle of my second startup, with a toddler. I can raise some hell though.
When's the next election for county commissioners, where are candidates running against them likely to come from, and is there any local vibe on the issue?
Running yourself would be a whole lotta work. Fear that they'll soon be out of office should be ample incentive for the anti-privacy commissioners to suffer sudden changes of heart. Or if not - are there any energetic local reporters, who might dig up some evidence of Flock greasing palms?
> Technology is supposed to make police work faster and safer.
Not sure I agree with the premise...
> Most of the time it does.
Citation needed
> But every so often, a computer system hiccups, and an ordinary person ends up staring down the barrel of a gun for no reason at all.
"Aww shucks, you know, bugs happen and sometimes guns get pointed at people because of them". Pardon my language but: What the actual fuck? How does a site write that with a straight face?
Just absolutely trash reporting and the site doesn't allow for copy/paste to top it off.
EDIT: And after reading further I can confirm this publication and author are not good at their jobs. The ending paragraph is absolutely absurd.
This isn't reporting, this is just saying what the police and the victim said while throwing in line at the end saying maybe we need more oversight.
This is bottom-of-the-barrel reporting and it make my blood boil for them to just shrug this off and make excuses for how the police acted here.
>> But every so often, a computer system hiccups, and an ordinary person ends up staring down the barrel of a gun for no reason at all.
> "Aww shucks, you know, bugs happen and sometimes guns get pointed at people because of them". Pardon my language but: What the actual fuck? How does a site write that with a straight face?
At the end of the day, the worst bug I could write might delete an object from a bucket. No bug I create will ever cause physical harm or death to the end user or anyone. No bug I create will ever cause a medical device to give erroneous results causing a patient to be misdiagnosed. This is by design. I don't want to ever be responsible for anything like that. Do people working on these kinds of products just dissociate their work from the potential negative effect their work could have?
This is the most damning part of the ALPR rollout for me. If cops were successfully using this technology they'd be beating that drum loud and proud at all hours.
> If cops were successfully using this technology they'd be beating that drum loud and proud at all hours.
See also anti-terrorism efforts. "Supporters" will argue they keep quiet about their successes for opsec-type reasons or to hide their methods. But we are perfectly happy to publicise blowing fishing boats out of the water so I don't believe that for a second. These people can't help but brag.
No, these cameras are used to erode our rights and let police stalk their ex's/women/etc without consequences.
I used to know some govvies who were FBI analysts. There are more foiled terrorism plots than get reported for sure. That is the word at least at the FBI as of maybe 15 years ago.
“Sir, we are coming by today because we are concerned you are insufficiently supportive of our public servants in uniform. It has come to our attention that you have been disparaging some members of our law enforcement divisions publicly. This is part of our new thought policing initiatives, we need everyone to support our policing efforts!”
This training is supposedly for "officer safety." But being a police officer in the US isn't even in the top-10 most dangerous fields, and the vast majority of deaths are from traffic accidents or health issues while on the job (e.g. heart attack/stroke), not gun-related. So it is more likely a cultural issue within the profession.
Citation needed.
(pretending my parents, wife, children are police officers and posting from that perspective, but do not like taste of boot nor Flock - just thinking logical on the ground procedure accounting for broken larger system)
I speak to folks about the USA sometimes, and guns come up. We are known for that. They think they want them. I get it... they do sound cool.
I try to explain that in the USA, the ratio of guns to people is far above 1:1. Therefore, if I was a police officer approaching any car, I would assume that the driver had a gun. That reality increases the chances of bad things happening due to human factors. "Do you really want every speeding pull-over to become a twitchy wild-west situation? Maybe your kids are in the car!"
Sometimes, this seems to wake people up to the reality of ubiquitous firearms. Please note, I am not making judgements here. These just seem like facts.
Why would every speeding pull-over become a wild-west situation? If possessing a gun is a right, then mere possession is no reason to suspect criminality is afoot.
In general cops err on the side of protecting themselves from danger and I can't fault them for that. How would you approach a car whose driver is suspected of homicide?
Obviously someone made a mistake here but I'm not sure this has anything to do with Flock. The car had an "APB" out. We want cops to pull over "wanted" cars, right?
The woman probably has a good case for damages from the police department for doing it twice. That's sloppy police work.
Saying that the responsibility is only on the user is extremely myopic. It's also dismissing the role Flock has in how they make and design their software.
If they can't handle this maybe they should be disbanded as a company or nationalized for better public control.
What officer in Milwaukee left a dead notice in the system even after there was one false positive, and what happened to him (I would be willing to bet actual money that the answer is nothing). Who set up the system in Brookfield that allows them to accidentally pull a gun on someone innocent for the exact same reason they pulled a gun on that exact same person a few days earlier.
There is no other profession where you can get away with repeated identical negligence like this. The reason for that is in almost every other profession, negligence is a liability for the parties involved. In policing it is a liability, but not for the negligent person or department.
Flock cameras... I mean, look: our society, without any central organization at all, has the capacity to record nearly every crime that occurs, just by dint of our camera phones and private surveillance systems. So Flock really just gives the police more information, creating a an asymmetry with the rest of society.
Given that we can already record all that we need to, and call for help from each other at a moment's notice, what good can police do for the next few centuries? And what possible hope is there that it will outweigh the bad?
And? That's all? This is why no one wants the gov't. to run things.
https://www.youtube.com/live/1OmEmpL-7qY?t=720&is=z_mb9ZEVCs...
Looks like I have two serious opponents to privacy on the commission to deal with, and the commissioner seems to at least want to end the contract. I have no idea where the other two members sit.
Also, my sheriff's department isn't exactly known for respecting constitutional boundaries. We had the whole whole predictive policing national story a few years ago.
Hell, go for a stroll on Google maps in my neighborhood and maybe 1/4 of the neighbors are cops.
Is what it is.
Running yourself would be a whole lotta work. Fear that they'll soon be out of office should be ample incentive for the anti-privacy commissioners to suffer sudden changes of heart. Or if not - are there any energetic local reporters, who might dig up some evidence of Flock greasing palms?
Not sure I agree with the premise...
> Most of the time it does.
Citation needed
> But every so often, a computer system hiccups, and an ordinary person ends up staring down the barrel of a gun for no reason at all.
"Aww shucks, you know, bugs happen and sometimes guns get pointed at people because of them". Pardon my language but: What the actual fuck? How does a site write that with a straight face?
Just absolutely trash reporting and the site doesn't allow for copy/paste to top it off.
EDIT: And after reading further I can confirm this publication and author are not good at their jobs. The ending paragraph is absolutely absurd.
This isn't reporting, this is just saying what the police and the victim said while throwing in line at the end saying maybe we need more oversight.
This is bottom-of-the-barrel reporting and it make my blood boil for them to just shrug this off and make excuses for how the police acted here.
> "Aww shucks, you know, bugs happen and sometimes guns get pointed at people because of them". Pardon my language but: What the actual fuck? How does a site write that with a straight face?
At the end of the day, the worst bug I could write might delete an object from a bucket. No bug I create will ever cause physical harm or death to the end user or anyone. No bug I create will ever cause a medical device to give erroneous results causing a patient to be misdiagnosed. This is by design. I don't want to ever be responsible for anything like that. Do people working on these kinds of products just dissociate their work from the potential negative effect their work could have?
> Citation needed
This is the most damning part of the ALPR rollout for me. If cops were successfully using this technology they'd be beating that drum loud and proud at all hours.
See also anti-terrorism efforts. "Supporters" will argue they keep quiet about their successes for opsec-type reasons or to hide their methods. But we are perfectly happy to publicise blowing fishing boats out of the water so I don't believe that for a second. These people can't help but brag.
No, these cameras are used to erode our rights and let police stalk their ex's/women/etc without consequences.