YCombinator's goal is to make a lot of money by causing there to be more startups, and therefore more successor startups. "Make the world a better place" is not one of their success metrics. They're investors, not altruists.
(And yes, I know where I am.)
We should not expect any VC no matter how big or small to care.
i am trying (and failing!) to see any reason the account age matters in this particular case. but i could be missing something.
(i did not make this account just to reply to you)
Did I miss anything?
The issue is that Las Vegas, like most major metros, doesn't appear to have ordinances preventing their police department from deploying cameras without the consent of the city council. That's fixable! There's model ordinances for this.
In Oak Park, Illinois, we ran into a rhyming version of this problem: the only control we had about what technology OPPD deployed was a spending limit ($15K, if I'm remembering right), above which they had to ask the board for an appropriation. Our pilot deployment of Flock cameras easily went underneath that limit.
I'm not reflexively anti-ALPR camera. I don't like them, but I do local politics and know what my neighbors think, and a pretty significant chunk of my neighbors --- in what is likely one of the top 10 bluest municipalities in the United States (we're the most progressive in Chicagoland, which is saying something) --- want these cameras as a response to violent crime.
But I do believe you have to run a legit process to get them deployed.
OPPD was surprised when, after attempting to graduate their pilot to a broader deployment, a minor fracas erupted at the board. I'm on Oak Park's information systems commission and, with the help of a trustee and after talking to the Board president, got "what the hell do we do about the cameras" assigned to my commission. In conjunction with our police oversight commission (but, really, just us on the nerd commission), we:
* Got General Orders put in place for Flock usage that limited it exclusively to violent crime.
* Set up a monthly usage report regime that allowed the Village to get effectiveness metrics that prevented further rollout and ultimately got the cameras shut down.
* Presented to the board and got enacted an ACLU CCOPS ordinance, which requires board approval for anything broadly construed as "surveillance technology" for policing, whether you spend $1, $100,000, or $0 on it.
Especially if you're in a suburb, where the most important units of governance are responsive to like 15,000-50,000 people, this stuff is all pretty doable if you engage in local politics. It's much trickier if you're within the city limits of a major metro (we're adjacent to Chicago, and by rights should be a part of it), but still.
This tells me the population votes based on emotion and vibes rather than critical thinking. With that attitude, presenting a reasoned rebuttal doesn't stand a chance; i.e. it's okay when my team does it.
The money isn't the problem, deploying surveillance measures without Democratic involvement is.
Idk how you come out of the top comment thinking they were or flock.
> Metro funds the project with donor money funneled into a private foundation. It’s an arrangement that allows Metro to avoid soliciting public comment on the surveillance technology
It doesn't matter whether the cameras are a good idea or not, the police should not be able to use a "donation" (from a guy who's going to profit from the donated equipment) to pretend they haven't done anything the public needs to know about.
The money is the main issue here, without it the public would have had a chance to discuss all the things you're talking about, and maybe reject them or put in some limitations. I would object to any secret arrangement like this, even if it was something completely innocuous like pencils for schools. There's no reason for significant acquisitions to be secret, and even if the government is acquiring something good and necessary, I don't want public services to be dependent on the generosity of some random dude without public discussion.
It seems like the main problem you identified in your original comment is "I do believe you have to run a legit process to get them deployed." What is currently preventing this from happening? The only barrier I'm seeing is Ben Horowitz and Flock finding creative ways to temporarily let their customers not pay for their services.
I think maybe one thing that's happening here is that people thing literally the only possible control against unwanted ALPR deployment is expenditure rules. But this is a story about one way a large metro got around expenditure rules. Meanwhile: there are model ordinances you can adopt that completely moot the price/gift issue. Pass them!
The point of my comment is "here is something you can do besides yelling on message boards about how much you don't like surveillance".
Because even $1 for surveillance is too much.
Back in the day when first ALPRs went into operation (I don't remember, was it 10 or 15 years ago) it took about two weeks for the data to appear on darkweb.
Then the same happened to citywide face recognition.
The only way to stop abuse is to not collect the data : ban the systems entirely.
Your mobile provider knows your exact location at any point in time, and the NSA probably has access to most big tech data. Those tell you much more than a license plate reader.
In much of Europe, it is quite normal to see cameras everywhere both for traffic enforcement and for crime prevention. They are generally popular with the public, eg. in the UK with a >80% approval rate. In many cities, essentially every corner has CCTV.
Is it because Flock Safety also markets to private businesses, whereas in Europe CCTV and ANPR are state-run? Or is it a cultural thing, eg. because Americans value freedom or prefer driving over the speed limit, and Flock may end that?
I can choose whether to carry a cell phone. I can control what data I share with big tech (very little here since I use free software and self-host everything).
I cannot do anything (that isn't illegal) if some bureaucrat decides to place a camera down my street to identify me or my car anytime I pass nearby.
zerosizedweasle•1h ago
roysting•34m ago
Just alone note that not a single tyrant of the past could have even dreamt of the power and control over society that even just currently exists, let alone what is in the pipeline.
Do you remember Minority Report? That seems to be approaching things, but even that did not include many things that even already exist. Frankly, I think authors and directors didn’t include many aspects of things, simply because audiences of the past would have probably not found it believable that even just current things existed, because how could they, it would seem so utterly crushing and depressive that it would break the suspense when you can’t see any prospect for survival/success.