> Why would you trust the city more than Flock

Nationally, I trust a system where the data are split up between siloes more than a single, privately-owned database.

Do we genuinely, really need a mass surveillance network? Isn't the expansion of surveillance through increasing prevalence of technology already way too much? Police can real-time track almost anyone if they have a warrant as it is, thanks to the magic of modern cell phones. We didn't even have time to discuss whether that was a good status quo before it became normal. Are we really sure we want to expand this to a massive network of cameras?

I get that it helps solve crimes, but solving crime is not the end-all-be-all of improving society. If anything, it's a highly symptom-oriented solution, and we absolutely have plenty of levers we could be trying to pull if we wanted to prevent crime instead.

Forget whether one global surveillance network is more trustworthy than another global surveillance network for a minute. Do we want this at all?

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JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent [-]

> Do we genuinely, really need a mass surveillance network?

I think that's a fair question for each local jurisdiction to make on its own.

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jchw 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Hmm. Personally, I disagree; I'd prefer to outlaw it explicitly. That's just my opinion, but I think that regulation has failed to keep up with the pace of technology and we've essentially lost the effect of some constitutional protections.

	▲	etdznots 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Sadly this was the entire lesson of Marbury v Madison, and the courts are supposed to be the mechanism that brings the hammer down on things that clearly violate the constitution where legislation has not yet arrived, but the courts are completely failing to protect us from what are obviously 4th amendment violations writ large on the entire nation, absurd.
	▲	saghm 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I don't necessarily disagree, but I also don't think that it makes sense to wait to address the immediate issue of a private company centralizing the surveillance until there's sufficient political will for that (which realistically might not ever happen).

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logancbrown 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The large distribution of silo'ed law enforcement across the US is one of the driving reasons why it can be so hard to solve crimes (murder, vehicular theft, etc). Once any crime has the potential to cross state or even jurisdiction lines, dealing with the inner-bureaucracy of crossed enforcement agencies adds days to weeks to solving urgent crimes. A distributed system without consideration into how to coalesce the data together is no better of a solution vs what we have today.

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macintux 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> A distributed system without consideration into how to coalesce the data together is no better of a solution vs what we have today.

Unless you'd rather prioritize liberty over safety. I want crimes to be harder to solve if the alternative is a panopticon.

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vablings 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I would like to see some evidence of this demonstrated. I feel a large majority of high-profile cases that went unsolved for a long time most often hinged on incompetence or negligence rather than lack of information sharing.

Also, once crime does cross state lines the local FBI gets involved and they have a lot more resources than a small-town police force

	▲	cliglot 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> often hinged on incompetence or negligence rather than lack of information sharing. Or just technology. Almost every “50 year old cold case solved” I see is because advancements in DNA processing .

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throwaway894345 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Agreed, and more than that, those siloes are governed by democratic processes. Of course, democracy doesn't preclude abuse but it's a lot better than private governance.

	▲	sandeepkd 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In other words centralization of the power is most risky end game here