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How was there ever any doubt that these cameras and this access would be used in this way? I personally blame the lack of accountability that police have in th

by claaams 13d ago

How was there ever any doubt that these cameras and this access would be used in this way? I personally blame the lack of accountability that police have in the US and the lack of public oversight into how departments operate.

bigyabai 13d ago
I personally blame Y Combinator for looking at Flock and going "Well, there is potential for abuse, but that's a risk we're willing to impose on society to make some money."
- deleted 13d ago
  [deleted]
- solenoid0937 13d ago
  Not enough people blame VCs and the people that fund evil things. They are accessories. They knew this would happen, let's not pretend they didn't. They are just shameless because making money has been canonized as a greater moral good than being a decent human being. We need to bring back name and shame.
  - Jtarii 13d ago
    Blaming people trying to make money is so pointless. Change the law if you don't like what is happening.
    - a2ff6eeb0 13d ago
      You're right. People trying to make money should be held legally accountable for the impact of their investments.
    - lokar 13d ago
      The law is properly a limit on behavior, not a grant for acceptable behavior. It defines in which situations the state will ultimately employ its monopoly on violence to compel compliance. This is a vastly smaller set of situations compared to what a health society would consider acceptable.
    - solenoid0937 13d ago
      > Change the law There is a huge gulf between what the law allows, and what being a decent person requires, and that gulf is called "being a scumbag." We should not alter the law to prohibit everything in that gulf, because it would create an authoritarian society ripe for abuse, relying on controls like mass surveillance and the erasure of civil liberties. However, we can and should name, shame, and socially/commercially outcast people who gleefully engage in the art of being a scumbag. > trying to make money It is indeed possible to make money without funding evil things.
    - catlover76 13d ago
      [dead]
  - 01284a7e 13d ago
    They are the reason these companies exist. When it comes to the creation of large for-profit technology companies, they decide what comes about and what doesn't. The blame is on them.
    - Zigurd 13d ago
      They also fit startup logic in a peculiarly perverted way: try all the nasty stuff compartmentalized into a low stakes stealth mode start up, then become an acquisition target once you've got the perverted PMF of having a benign looking product that hides the evil within. Clean hands for the acquirer.
  - matsemann 13d ago
    Sooo many will tout something along "fiduciary duty to shareholders" to explain why evil must happen. Just search for it in comments here on HN, and you will see it again and again, as if everyone's hands are twisted.
    - eecc 13d ago
      Well, doing the most immoral and reprehensible thing on the edge of what’s lawful is a guaranteed “blue ocean” strategy so it’s inevitable that the most sociopathic will take the opportunity
    - jtbayly 13d ago
      You are confused. Yes, lots of people say that here, but the intention is almost never to justify immoral behavior. Rather the goal is to delegitimize capitalism by blaming it for the immoral behavior.
      - mafuy 13d ago
        No, the parent is exactly right. I've seen it countless times and I am so sick of it. The poor, poor CEO has to be evil, it is his duty.
  - notnullorvoid 13d ago
    They are more than a accessory. You wouldn't say someone who funds a contract killing is merely an accessory to murder. VCs should likewise be considered as principal offenders, unless there is proof that the company was not transparent with the VCs.
  - bigyabai 13d ago
    They're more than accessories, that nearly writes them off as being innocent looped-in bystanders. Y Combinator has a vested stake, they want to encourage a maximalist Flock-centric police force. They directly profit off police that are incapable of doing their job without extreme, abusive tools at their disposal. You could argue that YC has more of a conscience than other investors like A16Z. But I'm not sure how much I believe that seeing Gary Tan's moral indifference towards startups that are the incarnate equivalent of the Torment Nexus.
- bko 13d ago
  Its a camera bro, reading the same license plates your can read with your eyes. If you care about your precincts policies go take it up with them. You may as well go after companies selling firearms to police.
  - patrickmay 13d ago
    There is a massive difference between a human making observations and 120,000 cameras (at last count) coordinated through a single company's computer systems. This surveillance state enablement is as anti-American as it gets.
    - bko 13d ago
      They take pictures of cars in certain intersections and register their license plates and keep them between 0 and 30 days typically (usually 7). It can be queried and logged. So if someone gets kidnapped and they're looking for someone its easy to track them. There have been 1m “cases supported” and helping to locate approximately 10k missing persons. If you don't believe that look at a few real cases. Every example of a bad case is basically cops keeping tabs on ex-girlfiends or wives. Yes, that's bad but I prefer to save kids from kidnapping. Saying its "anti-American" isn't an argument. I think it's very pro-American in that it protects law abiding Americans from criminals. https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/how-effective-is-flock https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/how-effective-is-flock https://www.wbrc.com/2026/09/04/moody-police-woman-charged-with-kidnapping-13-year-old-girl/ https://www.wbrc.com/2026/09/04/moody-police-woman-charged-w... https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/galt-flock-kidnapping-arrest-victim-resuced/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/galt-flock-kidnappin... https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/mitchell-weber-arrest-colorado-road-rage/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/mitchell-weber-arrest-...
      - ipython 13d ago
        Agreed. Which is why I’m in favor of recording all conversations within earshot of any public location. Those can be tagged for keywords related to child endangerment. After all, who would argue against protecting kids? In fact, we should take the pictures from public school districts and feed them into this system. Facial recognition immediately available on any kid that happens to walk on any public street. Why would anyone want to opt out of such a system? (/s if it isn’t obvious)
- ipython 13d ago
  Don’t know why you’re downvoted but this venture funding is exactly what makes the scale and centralization of surveillance possible. You can’t build this sort of system out without the debt financing provided by the vc industry. For example - I don’t have links to substantiate this yet - but I’d bet the same playbook that’s always used was used here as well. Flock cameras were provided to cash strapped police departments at a very low cost - unsustainably low for any other non vc funded company to compete with - in order to juice growth and build the scale/network effect to make the system valuable.
ggreer 13d ago
I'm pretty sure license plate readers and other surveillance tech have been abused constantly in the past, but we see more articles about Flock because they have better logging & auditing compared to smaller competitors or government-owned cameras.
- ipython 13d ago
  Flock also has the advantage of scale and centralization where previous solutions had neither
GymInMeCricket 13d ago
In my opinion, there was never any doubt that there would be over-policing. Rather, people doubt that they would belong to the over-policed parties. I hear similar arguments about NSF funding from my relatives: "yes, funding has been illegally cut, but it will not be cut for the people I know, only for the 'bad' researchers."
- madaxe_again 13d ago
  Leopards, faces, and all that jazz.
- scotty79 13d ago
  Calling fishing for vengance "overpolicing", that says a lot.
  - GymInMeCricket 13d ago
    Appologies, but I don't know what you mean.
    - Hikikomori 13d ago
      Its a fair bit more than overpolicing. If you don't think it is hope that boot is tasty.
    - repeekad 13d ago
      Being anti police is a bit of a wedge in US politics, it's privileged to say we don't need as much police because the poorest communities are often who need it most. Abusing surveillance tools has nothing to do with legitimate policing, so "over-policing" is probably the wrong word.
      - wredcoll 13d ago
        > Being anti police is a bit of a wedge in US politics, it's privileged to say we don't need as much police because the poorest communities are often who need it most. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but it sure sounds bad. Poor communities have frequently suffered the most from police forces, since by and large police are designed and funded by the wealthy to protect their interests.
bediger4000 13d ago
There wasn't for anyone who paid attention. That "logic of surveillance" article a few years ago got it 100% correct: surveillance is immediately used against those who object to its use.
bko 13d ago
There was an audit trail for improper access using the technology and a lawsuit. How is this "lack of accountability" and "lack of public oversight"? Here are the 100 instances: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.114502/gov.uscourts.wied.114502.39.5.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.11...
- Zigurd 13d ago
  Try FOIAing a body cam, and filing a complaint. You might get action before the next Ice Age. Record a cop doing something blatantly illegal and try finding a willing prosecutor. In practice there's no accountability.
  - bko 13d ago
    This guy seemed to do it. I also have better things to do than record police and refuse instructions. > Record a cop doing something blatantly illegal and try finding a willing prosecutor. The cop wasn't doing anything illegal, from the article: While standing in a private parking lot in Sussex, Wisconsin, on May 4, 2025, Napoleon Jones witnessed a traffic stop made by an out-of-county police officer. "It just didn't sit right with me," Yeah dog, "just didn't sit right" doesn't really hold up.
    - ibejoeb 13d ago
      It doesn't hold up? What the implication, then? That the recording was illegal and the post-arrest investigation yielded the wrong result?
    - throwaway894345 13d ago
      > Yeah dog, "just didn't sit right" doesn't really hold up. Can you cite the law that requires more than “it doesn’t sit right” to record police officers in public?
    - hvb2 13d ago
      An out of county police officer, in general, can't conduct a traffic stop? There's a few exceptions but none of those seem to apply?
AtlanticThird 13d ago
Are you aware of any current country or any country throughout history that has granted the government powers like this and hasn't been abused? I think you're mistaken to blame lack of accountability and lack of public oversight. I think it's simply not possible.
- tene80i 13d ago
  To some extent, the U.K. They’ve had flock-style cameras for years, and while there is of course police abuse there’s far greater accountability. Brits are more comfortable with the idea of police having those powers - but of course that’s partly to do with the fact their police don’t have guns, so are generally less terrifying.
  - 2b3a51 13d ago
    UK police officers are not routinely armed, but there armed response units, and under certain circumstances in e.g. railway stations and airports you will see pairs of officers walking about with machine guns on a regular basis. Accountability: misuse of cctv or bodycam footage can lead to disciplinary action of various kinds including being sacked. The link below will give you an idea of the volume of formal complaints and the 'pipeline' from complaint to potential dismissal and criminal proceedings against officers; https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-misconduct-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2025/police-misconduct-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2025 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-misconduct-e... The accountability system is 'under review' (we do this a lot, slows things down nicely and looks like action); https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/end-to-end-review-of-the-police-accountability-system https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/end-to-end-review... It isn't unicorns and rainbows by any means; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66809642 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66809642
  - AtlanticThird 13d ago
    Not at all true for the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/police-accused-widely-misusing-body-worn-video-england-wales https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/police-accus...
tombert 13d ago
I have gotten in arguments about these Flock cameras, because people will use the "if you're not doing anything wrong you got nothing to worry about" defense. Basically the entire point of the fourth Amendment (and sort of the Bill of Right as a whole) seems to be based on the assumption that we cannot trust the government to not abuse its power, so we purposefully limit its power. At least that's the impression I got, IANAL disclaimer I guess. If we cannot safely assume that every cop is above-board, which we obviously cannot, then it's trivial to come up with cases of "if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear" defense. A bad cop could use Flock to stalk an ex-girlfriend. A bad cop could find some unsavory-but-not-illegal behavior from a politician (e.g. visiting a porn shop) and blackmail them. A bad cop could, as demonstrated by this article, simply use a Flock camera to harass someone they don't like. I didn't think this was a controversial opinion, but I do see a lot of Flock/mass-surveillance defenders so I guess it is.
- rvba 13d ago
  A bad cop can sell your location so they can rob your house when you are out or tell the bad guys how to find you
  - tombert 13d ago
    Agreed. I mean, there's really no shortage of terrible scenarios that can happen if we cannot assume that 100% of cops are good.
    - Zigurd 13d ago
      Even cops that are well intended, that most people would call good, are hopelessly under trained regarding civil rights. A lot of have them have delusions of being some kind of detective and being clever about deceiving you into giving up your rights. Then they become belligerent if you don't play along.
- CamperBob2 13d ago
  because people will use the "if you're not doing anything wrong you got nothing to worry about" defense Remind them that whether they're doing something wrong or not is not their call. That sometimes shows signs of sinking in.
hammock 13d ago
> How was there ever any doubt that these cameras and this access would be used in this way? Strawman. I have never heard of one single ingenuous person that believed these would only be used appropriately. The main issue is that our government has too much power as to be unstoppable.

by claaams 13d ago

bigyabai 13d ago

I personally blame Y Combinator for looking at Flock and going "Well, there is potential for abuse, but that's a risk we're willing to impose on society to make some money."

deleted 13d ago
[deleted]
solenoid0937 13d ago
Not enough people blame VCs and the people that fund evil things. They are accessories. They knew this would happen, let's not pretend they didn't. They are just shameless because making money has been canonized as a greater moral good than being a decent human being. We need to bring back name and shame.
- Jtarii 13d ago
  Blaming people trying to make money is so pointless. Change the law if you don't like what is happening.
  - a2ff6eeb0 13d ago
    You're right. People trying to make money should be held legally accountable for the impact of their investments.
  - lokar 13d ago
    The law is properly a limit on behavior, not a grant for acceptable behavior. It defines in which situations the state will ultimately employ its monopoly on violence to compel compliance. This is a vastly smaller set of situations compared to what a health society would consider acceptable.
  - solenoid0937 13d ago
    > Change the law There is a huge gulf between what the law allows, and what being a decent person requires, and that gulf is called "being a scumbag." We should not alter the law to prohibit everything in that gulf, because it would create an authoritarian society ripe for abuse, relying on controls like mass surveillance and the erasure of civil liberties. However, we can and should name, shame, and socially/commercially outcast people who gleefully engage in the art of being a scumbag. > trying to make money It is indeed possible to make money without funding evil things.
  - catlover76 13d ago
    [dead]
- 01284a7e 13d ago
  They are the reason these companies exist. When it comes to the creation of large for-profit technology companies, they decide what comes about and what doesn't. The blame is on them.
  - Zigurd 13d ago
    They also fit startup logic in a peculiarly perverted way: try all the nasty stuff compartmentalized into a low stakes stealth mode start up, then become an acquisition target once you've got the perverted PMF of having a benign looking product that hides the evil within. Clean hands for the acquirer.
- matsemann 13d ago
  Sooo many will tout something along "fiduciary duty to shareholders" to explain why evil must happen. Just search for it in comments here on HN, and you will see it again and again, as if everyone's hands are twisted.
  - eecc 13d ago
    Well, doing the most immoral and reprehensible thing on the edge of what’s lawful is a guaranteed “blue ocean” strategy so it’s inevitable that the most sociopathic will take the opportunity
  - jtbayly 13d ago
    You are confused. Yes, lots of people say that here, but the intention is almost never to justify immoral behavior. Rather the goal is to delegitimize capitalism by blaming it for the immoral behavior.
    - mafuy 13d ago
      No, the parent is exactly right. I've seen it countless times and I am so sick of it. The poor, poor CEO has to be evil, it is his duty.
- notnullorvoid 13d ago
  They are more than a accessory. You wouldn't say someone who funds a contract killing is merely an accessory to murder. VCs should likewise be considered as principal offenders, unless there is proof that the company was not transparent with the VCs.
- bigyabai 13d ago
  They're more than accessories, that nearly writes them off as being innocent looped-in bystanders. Y Combinator has a vested stake, they want to encourage a maximalist Flock-centric police force. They directly profit off police that are incapable of doing their job without extreme, abusive tools at their disposal. You could argue that YC has more of a conscience than other investors like A16Z. But I'm not sure how much I believe that seeing Gary Tan's moral indifference towards startups that are the incarnate equivalent of the Torment Nexus.
bko 13d ago
Its a camera bro, reading the same license plates your can read with your eyes. If you care about your precincts policies go take it up with them. You may as well go after companies selling firearms to police.
- patrickmay 13d ago
  There is a massive difference between a human making observations and 120,000 cameras (at last count) coordinated through a single company's computer systems. This surveillance state enablement is as anti-American as it gets.
  - bko 13d ago
    They take pictures of cars in certain intersections and register their license plates and keep them between 0 and 30 days typically (usually 7). It can be queried and logged. So if someone gets kidnapped and they're looking for someone its easy to track them. There have been 1m “cases supported” and helping to locate approximately 10k missing persons. If you don't believe that look at a few real cases. Every example of a bad case is basically cops keeping tabs on ex-girlfiends or wives. Yes, that's bad but I prefer to save kids from kidnapping. Saying its "anti-American" isn't an argument. I think it's very pro-American in that it protects law abiding Americans from criminals. https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/how-effective-is-flock https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/how-effective-is-flock https://www.wbrc.com/2026/09/04/moody-police-woman-charged-with-kidnapping-13-year-old-girl/ https://www.wbrc.com/2026/09/04/moody-police-woman-charged-w... https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/galt-flock-kidnapping-arrest-victim-resuced/ https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/galt-flock-kidnappin... https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/mitchell-weber-arrest-colorado-road-rage/ https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/mitchell-weber-arrest-...
    - ipython 13d ago
      Agreed. Which is why I’m in favor of recording all conversations within earshot of any public location. Those can be tagged for keywords related to child endangerment. After all, who would argue against protecting kids? In fact, we should take the pictures from public school districts and feed them into this system. Facial recognition immediately available on any kid that happens to walk on any public street. Why would anyone want to opt out of such a system? (/s if it isn’t obvious)
ipython 13d ago
Don’t know why you’re downvoted but this venture funding is exactly what makes the scale and centralization of surveillance possible. You can’t build this sort of system out without the debt financing provided by the vc industry. For example - I don’t have links to substantiate this yet - but I’d bet the same playbook that’s always used was used here as well. Flock cameras were provided to cash strapped police departments at a very low cost - unsustainably low for any other non vc funded company to compete with - in order to juice growth and build the scale/network effect to make the system valuable.

ggreer 13d ago

I'm pretty sure license plate readers and other surveillance tech have been abused constantly in the past, but we see more articles about Flock because they have better logging & auditing compared to smaller competitors or government-owned cameras.

ipython 13d ago
Flock also has the advantage of scale and centralization where previous solutions had neither

GymInMeCricket 13d ago

In my opinion, there was never any doubt that there would be over-policing. Rather, people doubt that they would belong to the over-policed parties. I hear similar arguments about NSF funding from my relatives: "yes, funding has been illegally cut, but it will not be cut for the people I know, only for the 'bad' researchers."

madaxe_again 13d ago
Leopards, faces, and all that jazz.
scotty79 13d ago
Calling fishing for vengance "overpolicing", that says a lot.
- GymInMeCricket 13d ago
  Appologies, but I don't know what you mean.
  - Hikikomori 13d ago
    Its a fair bit more than overpolicing. If you don't think it is hope that boot is tasty.
  - repeekad 13d ago
    Being anti police is a bit of a wedge in US politics, it's privileged to say we don't need as much police because the poorest communities are often who need it most. Abusing surveillance tools has nothing to do with legitimate policing, so "over-policing" is probably the wrong word.
    - wredcoll 13d ago
      > Being anti police is a bit of a wedge in US politics, it's privileged to say we don't need as much police because the poorest communities are often who need it most. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but it sure sounds bad. Poor communities have frequently suffered the most from police forces, since by and large police are designed and funded by the wealthy to protect their interests.

bediger4000 13d ago

There wasn't for anyone who paid attention. That "logic of surveillance" article a few years ago got it 100% correct: surveillance is immediately used against those who object to its use.

bko 13d ago

There was an audit trail for improper access using the technology and a lawsuit. How is this "lack of accountability" and "lack of public oversight"? Here are the 100 instances: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.114502/gov.uscourts.wied.114502.39.5.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wied.11...

Zigurd 13d ago
Try FOIAing a body cam, and filing a complaint. You might get action before the next Ice Age. Record a cop doing something blatantly illegal and try finding a willing prosecutor. In practice there's no accountability.
- bko 13d ago
  This guy seemed to do it. I also have better things to do than record police and refuse instructions. > Record a cop doing something blatantly illegal and try finding a willing prosecutor. The cop wasn't doing anything illegal, from the article: While standing in a private parking lot in Sussex, Wisconsin, on May 4, 2025, Napoleon Jones witnessed a traffic stop made by an out-of-county police officer. "It just didn't sit right with me," Yeah dog, "just didn't sit right" doesn't really hold up.
  - ibejoeb 13d ago
    It doesn't hold up? What the implication, then? That the recording was illegal and the post-arrest investigation yielded the wrong result?
  - throwaway894345 13d ago
    > Yeah dog, "just didn't sit right" doesn't really hold up. Can you cite the law that requires more than “it doesn’t sit right” to record police officers in public?
  - hvb2 13d ago
    An out of county police officer, in general, can't conduct a traffic stop? There's a few exceptions but none of those seem to apply?

AtlanticThird 13d ago

Are you aware of any current country or any country throughout history that has granted the government powers like this and hasn't been abused? I think you're mistaken to blame lack of accountability and lack of public oversight. I think it's simply not possible.

tene80i 13d ago
To some extent, the U.K. They’ve had flock-style cameras for years, and while there is of course police abuse there’s far greater accountability. Brits are more comfortable with the idea of police having those powers - but of course that’s partly to do with the fact their police don’t have guns, so are generally less terrifying.
- 2b3a51 13d ago
  UK police officers are not routinely armed, but there armed response units, and under certain circumstances in e.g. railway stations and airports you will see pairs of officers walking about with machine guns on a regular basis. Accountability: misuse of cctv or bodycam footage can lead to disciplinary action of various kinds including being sacked. The link below will give you an idea of the volume of formal complaints and the 'pipeline' from complaint to potential dismissal and criminal proceedings against officers; https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-misconduct-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2025/police-misconduct-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2025 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-misconduct-e... The accountability system is 'under review' (we do this a lot, slows things down nicely and looks like action); https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/end-to-end-review-of-the-police-accountability-system https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/end-to-end-review... It isn't unicorns and rainbows by any means; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66809642 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66809642
- AtlanticThird 13d ago
  Not at all true for the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/police-accused-widely-misusing-body-worn-video-england-wales https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/sep/28/police-accus...

tombert 13d ago

I have gotten in arguments about these Flock cameras, because people will use the "if you're not doing anything wrong you got nothing to worry about" defense. Basically the entire point of the fourth Amendment (and sort of the Bill of Right as a whole) seems to be based on the assumption that we cannot trust the government to not abuse its power, so we purposefully limit its power. At least that's the impression I got, IANAL disclaimer I guess. If we cannot safely assume that every cop is above-board, which we obviously cannot, then it's trivial to come up with cases of "if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear" defense. A bad cop could use Flock to stalk an ex-girlfriend. A bad cop could find some unsavory-but-not-illegal behavior from a politician (e.g. visiting a porn shop) and blackmail them. A bad cop could, as demonstrated by this article, simply use a Flock camera to harass someone they don't like. I didn't think this was a controversial opinion, but I do see a lot of Flock/mass-surveillance defenders so I guess it is.

rvba 13d ago
A bad cop can sell your location so they can rob your house when you are out or tell the bad guys how to find you
- tombert 13d ago
  Agreed. I mean, there's really no shortage of terrible scenarios that can happen if we cannot assume that 100% of cops are good.
  - Zigurd 13d ago
    Even cops that are well intended, that most people would call good, are hopelessly under trained regarding civil rights. A lot of have them have delusions of being some kind of detective and being clever about deceiving you into giving up your rights. Then they become belligerent if you don't play along.
CamperBob2 13d ago
because people will use the "if you're not doing anything wrong you got nothing to worry about" defense Remind them that whether they're doing something wrong or not is not their call. That sometimes shows signs of sinking in.

hammock 13d ago

> How was there ever any doubt that these cameras and this access would be used in this way? Strawman. I have never heard of one single ingenuous person that believed these would only be used appropriately. The main issue is that our government has too much power as to be unstoppable.