[toomuchtodo]

I have not vandalized any Ring cameras, but I have paid to replace those installed by friends and family and have those replaced shredded as part of an electronics recycling waste stream. "Think globally, act locally" sort of thing.

[dirasieb]

i don't think the people destroying flock cameras are open to the idea of going through the legal process to replace them with alternatives that have better privacy, something (maybe the fact that they currently are vandalizing them) tells me that they are just interested in vandalizing them

[toomuchtodo]

Flock cameras are different, they take advantage of laws that have not kept pace with technology while being colocated and operated in public spaces, to where you are forced to live in a corporate surveillance state for Flock Group's enterprise value and potential shareholder returns. And so, destruction of the devices is all that is left available to them (if their jurisdiction opts to not remove them, as many have done [1]). Somewhat silly to blame humans who want privacy (arguably a human right [2]) just so the CEO of Flock can get wealthy (and YC can get liquidity) at IPO, no?

The human is doing what you would expect the human to do when faced with limited options in an operating environment that is not favorable to them. Crime has been trending down for some time [3], Flock cameras are a business driven on fear like Shotspotter, where the results are questionable at best and you're selling to the unsophisticated.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/02/17/nx-s1-5612825/flock-contracts...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy

[3] https://time.com/7357500/crime-homicide-rate-violent-propert... | https://archive.today/vMACL

[dirasieb]

i've never found this type of "humans were left with no alternative" argument in defense of destruction of property convincing, some of the things that separates humans from other animals is the concept of private/public property, rule of law, etc, you know? there are alternatives, contrary to the alarmism found online the US is very far from actual dictatorships where people have close to 0 way of achieving change through the legal system, immediately jumping to violence without an imminent threat is something i'd expect from lower primates, not from homo sapiens.

[anigbrowl]

How are they 'immediately jumping to violence'? This surveillance debate has been going on for years.

[toomuchtodo]

You're free to your opinion. Property is just property, it is nothing special. Rule of law is highly dynamic and a shared delusion. Damaging or destruction of property is not violence, it is a property crime at best. In the scope of Flock, it is well documented as having been misused, illegally in many cases, by law enforcement and those with access to its systems [1] [2] [3].

> there are alternatives

This does not consistently appear to be the case in the US unfortunately.

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/effs-investigations-ex...

[2] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup

[3] https://www.google.com/search?q=flock+misuse

[dirasieb]

> Damaging or destruction of property is not violence.

you wouldn't consider someone vandalizing your home or the infrastructure in your neighborhood to be violence? of course it is violence, an attack on the place i live (whether that's limited to just my home or to the larger community i live in) is an attack on me

is it not violence to, for example, burn down a business where people work in if you do it at a time where no one is around to get immediately hurt as a consequence? can i not call the financial damage caused both to the workers and the owners of that place violence?

[jacquesm]

I fail to see the equivalence between taking out a surveillance camera that is violating people's privacy with the other things that you list. Arguing like that is simply not going to work.

[fc417fc802]

> you wouldn't consider someone vandalizing your home or the infrastructure in your neighborhood to be violence?

Very obviously not. Words have meaning. You are misusing words to garner emotional support for your preferred political position.

Burning down anything (including a business) is arson. Not violence. It only becomes violence if people are present and at imminent risk of physical harm.

Financial damage is not violence. Speech is not violence. Please take your doublespeak back to reddit; it doesn't belong on HN.

[toomuchtodo]

> you wouldn't consider someone vandalizing your home or the infrastructure in your neighborhood to be violence? of course it is violence, an attack on the place i live (whether that's limited to just my home or to the larger community i live in) is an attack on me

No, I file an insurance claim and move on with my life. It is just property, and almost all property can be trivially replaced. Your property is not you. It is just property. We simply see the world differently, that's all. Good luck to you.