[cyanydeez]

I don't think third party access matters in the reason it's being scrutinized. Flock is the tip of the commercial security state offloaded by the government to it can "sanewash" it as a input into government surveillance.

I don't care who operates flock; it's being used to do government surveillance at scale to avoid privacy laws.

[prophesi]

The government is a third-party as well. Leveraging Flock to skirt privacy laws is two sides of the same coin; commercial entities are doing this too.

[cyanydeez]

So, that's an interesting semantic. I think we're often dealing with the same philsophical argument about the FBI 'finding" terrorists versus 'inciting' terrorists via entrapment.

I'd argue Flock doesn't exist if the government for private surveillance didn't exist.

[prophesi]

I'd agree with that to an extent. The USA is in a corporatocracy, so I'd argue it's the private corporate entities lobbying for the government to utilize their private surveillance. In general I try not to grant conspiratorial competency which could be better explained by the exchange of money.