[Manuel_D]

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]

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.

[__MatrixMan__]

So when I put a bag over the camera, it's up to flock to remove it? I haven't stuck around to find out who shows up. Sometimes it takes a week or so, other times it's next day.

[hilariously]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[caconym_]

> 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.

This is false. While there is no strongly established precedent yet, there are certainly serious and plausible legal arguments being made that unlimited collection and collation/cross-referencing/etc. of "public" information can under certain circumstances constitute a search. It will most certainly not "escape scrutiny moving forward".

e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_theory_of_the_Fourth_Am...

[Manuel_D]

The legality of automated license plate readers has gone all the way up to the United States Court of Appeals. That's the second highest court in the country, superseded only by the Supreme Court.

This is as strong as precedent gets, short of a SCOTUS decision.

[jollyllama]

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]

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]

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.

[devindotcom]

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]

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.

[mingus88]

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]

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]

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.

[Hnrobert42]

I believe they would all argue that they haven't. They would argue that the current administration is operating within the law towards ends supported, repeatedly, by their constituents.

I disagree with them, but that isn't relevant.

[qmr]

Wrong. See Carpenter v US.

[Manuel_D]

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

[fc417fc802]

I feel like you haven't properly thought this through. Cell towers are monitoring a public broadcast from a beacon you voluntarily carry on your person. For some reason querying that dataset requires a warrant but querying a broadly analogous dataset from the operator of a network of cameras doesn't?

More generally you're confidently making wild extrapolations from the current very limited case law without regard for either its limitations or the general temperature that can be inferred from the full opinions.

[Manuel_D]

> Cell towers are monitoring a public broadcast from a beacon you voluntarily carry on your person.

It's an encrypted broadcast, not a public broadcast. This is why the police needed to ask the mobile service providers for this data. It is not public.

> For some reason querying that dataset requires a warrant but querying a broadly analogous dataset from the operator of a network of cameras doesn't?

The data is not broadly analogous. One is encrypted radio traffic. The other is unencrypted, and you can record it yourself with a pen, paper, and the Mk I eyeball. This is why the "plain view" doctrine applies.

Again, the courts have already ruled on the use of ALPRs. The defense tried to use US vs Carpenter in US vs Yang, and the courts did not accept that argument that ALPRs are analogous to cell phone location data.

[downrightmike]

The government may not purchase services for acts it is not allowed to do itself: Pinkerton Act.