frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Flock Reports to Police If It Thinks Car Movement Patterns "Suspicious"

https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/surveillance-company-flock-now-using-ai-to-report-us-to-police-if-it-thinks-our-movement-patterns-are-suspicious?initms_aff=nat&initms_chan=pm&utm_medium=pm&initms=nat-dig-pm-awr-int-fb-social_feed-BZ30%2B-nsp-feed_SurveillanceCompanyFlockNow_20250813&utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=nat-dig-pm-awr-int&utm_content=fb-social_feed-BZ30%2B-nsp-feed_SurveillanceCompanyFlockNow_20250813&ms_aff=nat&ms_chan=pm&ms=nat-dig-pm-awr-int-fb-social_feed-BZ30%2B-nsp-feed_SurveillanceCompanyFlockNow_20250813&utm_term=pm-6748111603595-6838690309595&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0BMABhZGlkAAAGOEHIQhsBHntU-vN-zAj7VllTEkKZxwc7W3NxYS6d6L4_XI4idiZnhTYsnLyqFCbuQ6Mo_aem_dWflVIAJNk7sTdRRfrq5mg&utm_id=6544987402995
81•gscott•5mo ago

Comments

FireBeyond•5mo ago
This sadly doesn't surprise me, at all.

Flock's founders vision is that Flock will "eliminate all crime", and as an ex-employee, it's not an aspirational quote - he is quite literal. All of the ethics around data gathering that you heard during recruitment is gone, and it's all about sharing all the data you can, and trying to speed run to a Minority Report style future.

Their data transparency report is ... a lot less than transparent. I'd estimate that a large number of agencies using Flock are not reported on their "Agencies using Flock" page. Just in my county and the next one over, I can name at least half a dozen agencies using Flock (and it's not even an issue on the part of the agency - my local PD and Sheriff will refer to Flock hits on their FB posts multiple times a week with respect to incidents. But "strangely", neither agency is listed as a Flock-using Agency on their transparency site).

SoftTalker•5mo ago
> Flock's founders vision is that Flock will "eliminate all crime"

And he quite possibly genuinely believes it.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

hattmall•5mo ago
Is that even good intentions? "Crime" is mostly how the world progresses.
leobg•5mo ago
Another way to see it is that Flock merely wants to place itself at the top of the crime food chain.
duxup•5mo ago
“Sorry sir, computer says you are suspicious.”

That kind of opaque justification seems ripe for abuse.

FireBeyond•5mo ago
It's intentional. Flock will bend over backwards to help police, whether they should or shouldn't be.
ChrisArchitect•5mo ago
[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44860000
delichon•5mo ago
What would a constitutional amendment that could head off the panopticon look like? How about

  The people shall be secure against surveillance of their persons, data, communications, and movements. No government shall collect, compel, or purchase such information except upon a warrant founded on probable cause. Mass or indiscriminate surveillance is prohibited.
edit: added "or purchase" per comment.
solid_fuel•5mo ago
I believe this wording may leave a loophole, allowing the government to purchase such information from a 3rd party.
DANmode•5mo ago
As it is now.
elevation•5mo ago
In the text above, “Warrant” is used in the colloquial sense (a judicial permission slip) rather than in the literal sense (the extenuating circumstances that prompt or “warrant” the action by law enforcement.)

I recommend replacing the language “warrant founded on probable cause” with a statement more specifically limiting the government. For instance, the fourth amendment allows the government to search and seize ONLY IF it can describe beforehand l specifically the scope of the search.

Such specific language would also benefit this provision.

Show HN: One-click AI employee with its own cloud desktop

https://cloudbot-ai.com
1•fainir•1m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Poddley – Search podcasts by who's speaking

https://poddley.com
1•onesandofgrain•2m ago•0 comments

Same Surface, Different Weight

https://www.robpanico.com/articles/display/?entry_short=same-surface-different-weight
1•retrocog•4m ago•0 comments

The Rise of Spec Driven Development

https://www.dbreunig.com/2026/02/06/the-rise-of-spec-driven-development.html
2•Brajeshwar•9m ago•0 comments

The first good Raspberry Pi Laptop

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/the-first-good-raspberry-pi-laptop/
2•Brajeshwar•9m ago•0 comments

Seas to Rise Around the World – But Not in Greenland

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/greenland-sea-levels-fall
1•Brajeshwar•9m ago•0 comments

Will Future Generations Think We're Gross?

https://chillphysicsenjoyer.substack.com/p/will-future-generations-think-were
1•crescit_eundo•12m ago•0 comments

State Department will delete Xitter posts from before Trump returned to office

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/07/nx-s1-5704785/state-department-trump-posts-x
2•righthand•15m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Verifiable server roundtrip demo for a decision interruption system

https://github.com/veeduzyl-hue/decision-assistant-roundtrip-demo
1•veeduzyl•16m ago•0 comments

Impl Rust – Avro IDL Tool in Rust via Antlr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmKvw73V394
1•todsacerdoti•16m ago•0 comments

Stories from 25 Years of Software Development

https://susam.net/twenty-five-years-of-computing.html
2•vinhnx•17m ago•0 comments

minikeyvalue

https://github.com/commaai/minikeyvalue/tree/prod
3•tosh•22m ago•0 comments

Neomacs: GPU-accelerated Emacs with inline video, WebKit, and terminal via wgpu

https://github.com/eval-exec/neomacs
1•evalexec•27m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Moli P2P – An ephemeral, serverless image gallery (Rust and WebRTC)

https://moli-green.is/
2•ShinyaKoyano•31m ago•1 comments

How I grow my X presence?

https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowthHacking/s/UEc8pAl61b
2•m00dy•32m ago•0 comments

What's the cost of the most expensive Super Bowl ad slot?

https://ballparkguess.com/?id=5b98b1d3-5887-47b9-8a92-43be2ced674b
1•bkls•33m ago•0 comments

What if you just did a startup instead?

https://alexaraki.substack.com/p/what-if-you-just-did-a-startup
5•okaywriting•40m ago•0 comments

Hacking up your own shell completion (2020)

https://www.feltrac.co/environment/2020/01/18/build-your-own-shell-completion.html
2•todsacerdoti•42m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Gorse 0.5 – Open-source recommender system with visual workflow editor

https://github.com/gorse-io/gorse
1•zhenghaoz•43m ago•0 comments

GLM-OCR: Accurate × Fast × Comprehensive

https://github.com/zai-org/GLM-OCR
1•ms7892•44m ago•0 comments

Local Agent Bench: Test 11 small LLMs on tool-calling judgment, on CPU, no GPU

https://github.com/MikeVeerman/tool-calling-benchmark
1•MikeVeerman•45m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AboutMyProject – A public log for developer proof-of-work

https://aboutmyproject.com/
1•Raiplus•45m ago•0 comments

Expertise, AI and Work of Future [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsxWl9iT1XU
1•indiantinker•46m ago•0 comments

So Long to Cheap Books You Could Fit in Your Pocket

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/books/mass-market-paperback-books.html
4•pseudolus•46m ago•2 comments

PID Controller

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional%E2%80%93integral%E2%80%93derivative_controller
1•tosh•50m ago•0 comments

SpaceX Rocket Generates 100GW of Power, or 20% of US Electricity

https://twitter.com/AlecStapp/status/2019932764515234159
2•bkls•50m ago•0 comments

Kubernetes MCP Server

https://github.com/yindia/rootcause
1•yindia•51m ago•0 comments

I Built a Movie Recommendation Agent to Solve Movie Nights with My Wife

https://rokn.io/posts/building-movie-recommendation-agent
4•roknovosel•51m ago•0 comments

What were the first animals? The fierce sponge–jelly battle that just won't end

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00238-z
2•beardyw•1h ago•0 comments

Sidestepping Evaluation Awareness and Anticipating Misalignment

https://alignment.openai.com/prod-evals/
1•taubek•1h ago•0 comments