Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by themaninthedark 9 days ago
This news and the timing of it seems like it is trying to elicit your response. Flock has been getting a lot of bad press recently.

The first batch of firing that happened in GA was not because of Flock safeguards, it was because an internal auditor said let's look at your new system.

If they cared about privacy, they would have had such a system in place not something that is just being rolled out.

Second, these people are getting caught because “The activity identified during the audit revealed that the employees searched their own license plates or those of a family member/acquaintance, and not random members of the public,”

A fair reading of that says it is ok to look up information on random members of the public. I feel better already.

If the bar is set at random people, a friend of a friend looking up the info and getting it back to you would get around the safeguards, back to the old buddy in the department.

1 comments

i always hoped the "buddy" would be the lever that goes "no, that's crossing the line between friendship and ethics, please rethink your request"

something an artificial buddy will happily do anyway when you promise that your grandmother is on the line

> i always hoped the "buddy" would be the lever that goes "no, that's crossing the line between friendship and ethics, please rethink your request"

What percent of law enforcement agents do you think would meet that bar?

It's going to vary by country, state, and "culture".

Here, in my locale, honest LEOs that that have strict ethics run at about 80%.

Interestingly the things that LEOs are strictly ethical about varies by interaction and preconceptions - straight bat with fourth generation farmers, entirely willing to bend the law in bad ways when dealing with indigenous people etc. is not uncommon.

Is that locale in the United States as I assumed based on the conversation being around flock cameras?

If it is, and you are assuming 80% strict ethics then I have a PBA card from my grandfather to pull out to show you how incorrect that is on a statutory basis.

Also your second paragraph

> Interestingly the things that LEOs are strictly ethical about varies by interaction and preconceptions - straight bat with fourth generation farmers, entirely willing to bend the law in bad ways when dealing with indigenous people etc. is not uncommon.

How can you assume they have strict ethics but also understand that they change their ethical stance depending on who they are dealing with. That’s not strict ethics by any definition.

No, and Venn diagrams.

How can you assume the LEOs with variable ethics are in the 80% and not the 20%?

Also, Philippine Basketball Association membership carries no weight here.

PBA = Police Benevolent Association

> How can you assume the LEOs with variable ethics are in the 80% and not the 20%?

Is that a real question? Having strict ethics is a higher bar than variable ethics. How can you assume that more LEO’s are strictly ethical than varying their ethics when you literally brought up

> Interestingly the things that LEOs are strictly ethical about varies by interaction and preconceptions - straight bat with fourth generation farmers, entirely willing to bend the law in bad ways when dealing with indigenous people etc. is not uncommon.

You literally said “…strictly ethical about varies…” you are being inconsistent with terminology if you are trying to claim strict ethics can vary

If you need

Strict[1] Variable[2]

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/strict

[2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/variable