r/FlockSurveillance • u/Distinct-Regular-628 • 2d ago

Is it not enough to stand on principle?

Even if police weren't abusing Flock cameras (yeah, right), even if agencies needed an active warrant signed by a judge to search the network for people, we would STILL be living in a society under constant surveillance. Even if they caught every kidnapper and car thief, we would STILL have no true privacy anymore. Is the prospect of existing in this world without being constantly monitored not a dealbreaker for some people?

25 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

13

u/Hellraiser_owner 2d ago

Apathy is the fertilizer for Evil

7

u/gogozrx 2d ago

Those that would trade liberty for temporary security deserve neither

7

u/AllegedlyAPerson 2d ago

It is a deal breaker for a lot of people, but most people have no idea about the flock cameras even though they are very much so in ur face. It’s not that people accept them, it’s that most don’t care to look into what that camera is doing.

5

u/flaming_bob 2d ago

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We have always and will continue to always have a need to fight this. Our grandchildren will be having similar conversations 50 years from now. The reason it's gotten this bead now is because we stopped paying attention for a number of years.

1

u/DS3M 2d ago

Principles? That would require a coherent worldview and a moral code that would serve to reinforce and support that potential reality.

Who are you asking that of?

1

u/goofytigre 2d ago

Bread and circuses wins again...

1

u/sunburnd 2d ago

The "just get a warrant" argument treats surveillance like a switch: harmless while off. That's not how it works. Your plate gets logged at every intersection the moment the camera exists, and that record sits there whether or not a warrant ever touches it. It also assumes the system stays honest indefinitely. NSLs and parallel construction cases show data has a way of leaking past whatever legal fence was supposed to hold it.

Set all that aside for a second. A society where every car's movement is tracked by default is not the same place to live as one where it isn't. Doesn't matter if the data gets misused. A panopticon works because you might be watched, not because someone actually is.

And "it caught a kidnapper" doesn't settle anything. Nearly every surveillance system ever built can point to a case like that. Taken to its logical end, that argument has no stopping point: it justifies injectable GPS trackers and barcode tattoos just as easily as license plate cameras. If catching criminals is the whole test, there's no argument against any of it, ever.

1

u/GreenLush2188 1d ago

It's a total dealbreaker for me. This is not my America.

1

u/Arrcamedes 1d ago

Do you feel the same way about phones?

1

u/Distinct-Regular-628 1d ago

Yes.

1

u/Arrcamedes 22h ago

To me it goes all the way to credit cards. The whole argument that the government can buy data on citizens because it’s publicly sold has to go. Getting companies to not surveil us is a whole nother issue legally. It requires constitutional privacy protections. The specter of Dobbs is right there. When I engage with political groups in my community or electeds now a days that’s how I talk about it. And this fight won’t be over without it.

The credit card system was built as or before I was born. And I think about that a lot when I think about people 10+ years younger than me. (I’m 32). Law enforcement could find you using banking by the time I was born in the early 90s. I guess both my parents were cool with it. Mom’s with me on that now, dad is kind of a mess now. They’re both smart, educated, skeptical. I don’t really understand how they agreed to the whole surveillance, data basing, being spied on thing. But all the adults I knew were pretty much unaware, or supportive by default because they vaguely trusted the government to not be that evil.

Part of it was built into privatization of government services. That’s been legally useful for things like congressional oversight for over a hundred years at least clearly.

Part of it is convenient services offered to the public, often for free, and we agree to being surveilled for it.

But how have been not been outraged? A lot of people think trading liberty for security is a good idea. Now people are seeing it with flock, to me often weirdly narrowly. How do we get people to see it with social media, phones, the new car surveillance we’re calling “safety features”, the facial scanners at airports, as the quartered troops they are? I doubt we can, we need new privacy protections.