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

156 pointsposted 3 hours ago
by jhonovich
(ipvm.com)

33 Comments

Avshalom

42 minutes 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?

Manuel_D

21 minutes 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-...

asveikau

9 minutes 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.

Manuel_D

7 minutes ago

Right and what if lots of crime happens in a place where there are not many businesses? Hardly an implausible scenario given that crime is bad for business.

The city can set up its own camera for its own use. Is that really that wild of a proposal?

asveikau

6 minutes ago

What if what if what if?

That whole premise of "what if lots of crime happens" -- already false.

Did you know that most places in America are at historically low crime rates in most of our lifetimes? It is garbage to say this needs deep societal focus right now. I don't give a shit about the hypothetical hurt feelings of small town cops whining that they don't have always-on spy equipment.

rolph

5 minutes ago

[delayed]

mingus88

17 minutes 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.

apothegm

34 minutes ago

The AI slop in that quote sure is real.

arjie

9 minutes 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.

willis936

an hour 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_D

an hour 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.

reactordev

an hour 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.

hilariously

44 minutes 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.

Manuel_D

34 minutes ago

The case you linked isn't about the government filming people in public, though. Carpenter vs. US was a case about the government demanding private information about users' locations from cell service providers. By comparison, the 9th circuit concluded that the plain view doctrine means electronic license plate readers are legal :https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2020/05/04/1...

An officer doesn't need a warrant to sit at a cross section and write down license plate numbers. A device doing the same thing is also legal.

hilariously

29 minutes ago

Of course that's a fair interpretation, I am saying there's some tension between mass surveillance and the fourth just because its "done in public" doesn't mean it automatically escapes scrutiny now or going forward.

Manuel_D

22 minutes ago

No, the fact that it's recording people in public does make it escape scrutiny moving forward. In public you can be filmed by anyone - be they government or private citizens.

I find a lot of people fail to realize this, both in regards to surveillance and otherwise. Recently in my city there was a big uproar about a nudist beach that was at risk of having nudity prohibited. So a bunch of nudists went out and paraded around the beach while disrobed, some of them bringing their children with them. People sailed by and photographed many of the nudists, and put their images online. Many alleged that must be a violation of some privacy law, but no, the law in Washington (and most, perhaps all, of the US) is quite clear: if you're in public, you can be filmed and photographed. If you don't want to be filmed nude, don't go walking around naked in public.

Regardless, back to the topic at hand, the fact that Flock cameras a in public spaces does in fact mean that there's no requirement to get a warrant to use them.

jollyllama

16 minutes ago

So what's the logical conclusion, that there will be a company with a drone following every individual in a public space at all times and that the government will pay for the data?

Manuel_D

11 minutes ago

The logical conclusion is that the US brings itself in line with the rest of the developed world, and realizes video cameras are useful for solving crime.

Flying drones are not required, stationary cameras are more than enough outside of specific scenarios like active pursuit.

b40d-48b2-979e

10 minutes ago

Considering how desperately that user is responding to every comment on this post, it seems they have a vested interest in playing blind for Flock, which makes me think they are paid by Flock.

Manuel_D

4 minutes ago

Lol, I should be getting paid.

But no, I just like to dispel the myths people have about their imaginary right to not be filmed in public. Whether it's by the government or by other private people.

mingus88

16 minutes 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.

Manuel_D

13 minutes ago

The 9th circuit upheld that the police do not need warrants to operate and access data from license plate readers. The 9th Circuit isn't exactly a conservative stronghold.

mingus88

4 minutes ago

That’s really beside the point. It doesn’t matter what the 9th circuit or any other court says.

Our country is no longer a country of laws. Laws are only as good as they are enforced. The SCOTUS, the DOJ, the FBI, and congress have openly abdicated any constitutional responsibility to provide checks and balances to reign in the abuses we see posted to HN every day.

devindotcom

13 minutes 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.

Manuel_D

8 minutes ago

The Carpenter decision was about the US government compelling mobile data providers to hand over private use information. It's really not relevant to flock. That's why the 9th Circuit decided that automated license plate readers don't need a warrant. A cop and stand at an intersection and write down license plate numbers without a warrant. A device can do the same.

qmr

44 minutes ago

Wrong. See Carpenter v US.

Manuel_D

37 minutes ago

That's not applicable to Flock, though. That case pertained to the government requesting that mobile service providers give historical location data on users.

throwaway85825

42 minutes ago

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

qmr

44 minutes ago

So glad we got them kicked out of Mountain View.

cdrnsf

37 minutes 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.

npunt

31 minutes ago

> Important subject

> Uses slop AI art

Fastest way to make something into a farce.

josefritzishere

an hour ago

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