Yet another Hacker News

Lawmakers Introduce Multiple Laws to Curb Flock After 404 Media Coverage

92 points awoodbeck 1 hour ago 34 comments

cebert 1 hour ago | parent

It’s laughable to me that 404 Media is trying to take credit for this.

iAMkenough 1 hour ago | parent

Which media source would you credit for investigating and reporting on Flock antics?

cebert 1 hour ago | parent

Many media outlets have covered this and there’s been considerable citizen activism. It’s laughable that 404 thinks they’re the catalyst.

gravypod 1 hour ago | parent

Weren't many of these reports after 404's reporting?

culi 1 hour ago | parent

Yes but Benn Jordan in collaboration with 404 Media were some of the first to do deep investigative research into them. Many other sources reported on the investigations of Jordan/404. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also did important work in documenting stalking by cops and CBS News kept the Flock CEO in check by fact checking his statistics about crime rates

Sponge5 1 hour ago | parent

Benn Jordan

culi 1 hour ago | parent

Who collaborated with 404 Media in his investigations... 404 Media provided Benn Jordan with investigative resources, legal support, contract analysis, etc

Joseph Cox (the author of this article) is mentioned directly in many of Benn Jordan's videos

karahime 1 hour ago | parent

This is pretty expected from them as a framing. The gossip rag of news media themed after technology reporting.

culi 1 hour ago | parent

404 (in collaboration with Benn Jordan) did a lot of the initial technical breakdowns and investigative research. Ofc many other journalists did a lot of incredibly important journalism around it but I don't think anyone went as deep into the security failures of the cameras as Jordan/404

buellerbueller 1 hour ago | parent

Good luck! If this doesn't get an up/down vote, then there is always De-Flock America night this month. Many ways that the constituency can be heard.

Avicebron 1 hour ago | parent

Hopefully they are broad enough to curb surveillance cameras in general, flock is just one of the many repugnant actors in this space.

joekrill 1 hour ago | parent

They don't usually write the legislation for these types of things targeting a specific brand. In this case it looks like Hawley's legislation targets "automated license plate readers", and some other articles mention "AI-Powered Cameras".

culi 45 minutes ago | parent

Specifically, it would "block federal funding from state and local governments that use the [ALPRs]" and "let Americans sue the federal government for violation of their rights through ALPRs". Also:

> The Stop Flock Abuse Act would require a written approval process for each search; force agencies to delete driver data after ten days, with exceptions for active investigations; and ban ALPR networks from incorporating facial recognition technology

It also seems specifically geared to prevent the recent uses by ICE to document anyone attending No Kings or anti-ICE protests

downrightmike 39 minutes ago | parent

In the hearing with walmart, walmart was shown to be reading shopper's heart rates and temp to gauge if they would buy something.

ChrisArchitect 1 hour ago | parent

Ban Flock Act Proposed in the US Senate

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49947176

louwrentius 1 hour ago | parent

The idea that a for-profit company is allowed to scan licence plates and make this data available and searchable without restrictions seems ludicrous to me.

In The Netherlands, we do have ANPR camera's but they are run by the police and there are strict rules about data retention (no hit on a licence plate means drop the data). ANPR cameras aren't used as dragnet surveillance. The NL situation is not perfect, but it's on a different playing field.

With the absolute unregulated situation in the USA, the outcome has been predictable: cops stalking people and innocent people jailed for weeks due to mistakes.

I love Benn Jordan's work, including the video where they went to a Flock office building, filming employees. They didn't like being filmed, but it did not teach them a lesson unfortunately.

If you (still) work for Flock, don't think of yourself as a moral, decent person.

culi 1 hour ago | parent

How do you ensure privacy laws are being followed by police?

Also do you have any guarantees that national security apparatuses aren't able to access this data if they have the right excuse (e.g. counter-terrorism, narcotics enforcement, etc)

GrinningFool 1 hour ago | parent

Right now, we are pretty much guaranteed that they can access the data. As opposed to no guarantees that they can't.

I'm not clear the point of your post. Is it to say that what we had before is not guaranteed safe, so let's do this worse centralized thing because reasons?

culi 57 minutes ago | parent

The Netherlands situation is not a legal (nor political) possibility in the US. US police is extremely decentralized compared to other nations

Settling for some minor reforms is not the answer to the US's exploding surveillance state problem

josephg 1 hour ago | parent

Nothing is foolproof. But I have far more trust that the police in the Netherlands will make reasonable choices with private data than a US for-profit surveillance company. In a functioning democracy, the police are kept honest via voters. Flock is only beholden to their investors, and their bottom line.

culi 50 minutes ago | parent

Sure, but I don't think we can make the Netherlands police in charge of our largest surveillance network.

Flock is despicable but after all the documented abuses of the system (assuming you don't accept that the entire system is an abuse) were enacted by cops (read: public officials).

I don't think a law making only ICE/FBI/etc able to access the data will do much to slow the rapid expansion of the surveillance state

officeplant 1 hour ago | parent

>In The Netherlands, we do have ANPR camera's but they are run by the police and there are strict rules about data retention (no hit on a licence plate means drop the data). ANPR cameras aren't used as dragnet surveillance.

In my city/state (Southern USA) you often see plain unmarked cars with multiple ALPR cameras mounted to the rear of the car. These are usually private companies patrolling streets & parking lots to build databases for REPO/Towing operations. Wouldn't surprise me if they are selling plate location databases to databrokers & law enforcement.

Plus Axon is already replacing Flock in some areas. Unfortunately there are multiple players in this game and Flock going down is only slowing their spread slightly.

pj_mukh 53 minutes ago | parent

>> "which would prohibit federal agencies from using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs)"

...yup makes sense, no reason for federal governments to have unfettered access to this data.

>> "and block federal funding from state and local governments that use the cameras."

Wait..what? Why put this silly Poison Pill in the bill? So a city can't enforce its own traffic laws without having to put an over-zealous police force in the loop? The same guy that is handling drug dealers is stopping you for traffic tickets and people think nothing should go wrong?

Without cities adopting some massive road diet (fat chance) a reduction in ALPR's will kill people. Traffic deaths are at the same level as gun deaths in the USA.

JoshTriplett 49 minutes ago | parent

It's one of the standard ways of prohibiting states from doing something, in order to enforce individual rights. Within the federal government, it can be harder to say "states may not" and easier to say "we won't give any money to states that". I'm glad to see these cameras prohibited locally, so that Flock and others can't just go shop it around to jurisdictions until they find one scared enough to buy.

pj_mukh 44 minutes ago | parent

ALPR's pre-date Flock. The bill never mentions the brand "Flock". You could trivially mandate some stringent data retention policies, block cross-camera tracking if you really want, but just like his AI bill, a blanket ban is all this wing of the party can think of?

It's DOA, it'll never pass. He has the mandate to actually fix the privacy issue and he's p*ssing it away.

majorchord 25 minutes ago | parent

Hawley is the guy who was tweeting campaign emails during J6 while hiding in the corner... color me surprised.

JoshTriplett 23 minutes ago | parent

> You could trivially mandate some stringent data retention policies, block cross-camera tracking if you really want,

...or ban them. Just ban them. Let's have less surveillance.

The pro surveillance side keeps ratcheting things upwards and moving the Overton window. Let's claw some things back.

pj_mukh 12 minutes ago | parent

ALPR's have been a thing since the 1980's, nobody's been moving any windows, anywhere.

baby_souffle 48 minutes ago | parent

> Why put this silly Poison Pill in the bill?

Because then the states would install the flock cameras and "forget" to block the feds from accessing them:

> ...yup makes sense, no reason for federal governments to have unfettered access to this data.

Legend2440 53 minutes ago | parent

Honestly, this warms my heart a little bit. Maybe American democracy isn't dead. If the citizens make enough noise, lawmakers do listen.

fedpost 44 minutes ago | parent

It only takes the combined weight of the entire free press, a complete social media blitz and hundreds to thousands of citizens risking felonies to just straight up destroy the cameras.

Cider9986 52 minutes ago | parent

The Surveillance Accountability Act is better as it essentially restores the fourth amendment and would cover Flock but it's still amazing to see mainstream support for privacy laws.

https://www.surveillanceaccountability.com