[HN Gopher] Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after IC...
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Redmond, WA, turns off Flock Safety cameras after ICE arrests
Author : dredmorbius
Score : 206 points
Date : 2025-11-10 18:30 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.seattletimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.seattletimes.com)
| dredmorbius wrote:
| NB: Title edited to add "WA" for clarity. I.e., this is the city
| of, not a toponym for another entity.
| focusgroup0 wrote:
| Ironically, there would be little need for surveillance state
| technology if the on-the-books immigration law had been enforced
| for the past few decades.
| throitallaway wrote:
| They'd find a need (or excuse) for it regardless of the state
| of our immigration system.
| willk wrote:
| I don't buy that for a second. Governments always want more
| control, and this is just another way for them to get it.
| ls612 wrote:
| But the sorts of ICE actions that are causing this
| controversy only have political support because the US
| immigration laws have been flouted for 30+ years. Regardless
| of what you or I think of it it's the reality that lots of
| the electorate wants deportations and lots of them and that
| likely isn't true in a world where the laws on the books were
| more strictly enforced in the past.
| uoaei wrote:
| Red herring. Political support is due to mass media
| narrative campaigns, in this day and age groundswell
| politics is simply infeasible with the power that narrative
| has in today's culture.
| ls612 wrote:
| Political support is due to people voting for it, and in
| the US system that is the arbiter of who will get to
| enact their policies.
| defrost wrote:
| This is true.
|
| Hence the importance of controlling the narrative by
| spinning unchecked stories about immigrants eating cats,
| disproportionate rates of murder and crime, ignoring
| revenue from immigrants paying taxes, etc.
|
| The fact that sufficient people will vote on immigration
| as an issue is orthogonal to the realities of laws and
| enforcement rates and entirely predicated upon
| _perception_ of such issues.
| hobs wrote:
| They want deportations because... because someone told them
| that immigration is the cause of all of their personal
| problems, which is a lie.
|
| It doesn't matter about the "support" for it when that
| support is predicated on a complete lie, that immigration
| is bad for America when it demonstrably is good for
| America.
| theultdev wrote:
| You're conflating illegal immigration with immigration.
|
| In no way is illegal immigration "good for America".
| hobs wrote:
| The definition of illegal immigration changes to suit
| those in power, not those fleeing wars.
| ReflectedImage wrote:
| But if they hadn't been flouted, the US would be a dirt
| farm specializing in the farming and production of dirt.
| Hacker news wouldn't even exist.
| rat87 wrote:
| They don't have majority political support. Even many Trump
| voters are against it. Also Trump has repeatedly violated
| immigration law, hell Trump tower wouldn't exist without
| the work of unauthorized Polish workers
| dfxm12 wrote:
| What political support? Is there evidence to back that
| claim? The most recent polls I've seen about this are
| Gallup's polls from July and they suggest that 62% of
| Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling immigration.
| This includes a majority of Dems and Independents. The
| trend is more and more people disapprove of Trump on this
| topic as time moves forward.
| mothballed wrote:
| I don't have any data to back this up, but it is
| conceivable the people that want to deport en masse often
| understand that the perception of such policy is ugly,
| and simultaneously support it while not wanting to
| publicly broadcast it.
|
| If I supported mass deportations, I would simply vote for
| it and never tell anyone so that I could get what I want
| without getting any of the flack from the associates of
| the people who are deported. There's not a lot to gain
| from telling others you want to harm a bunch of your
| neighbors, but there is a lot to gain if you can give
| them the boot and not being perceived as having anything
| to do with their misfortune.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| Not strictly enforcing the speed limit wouldn't justify the use
| of secret police to crack down on that either. But there's no
| xenophobia for speeders, so we don't see this action for them
| and we don't have to see specious takes like this defending it.
| genericone wrote:
| Excessive speeders in the absence of speed-limit enforcement
| just creates neighbors that don't mind their neighborhood
| being consumed by speed bumps/dips, I think there's an
| analogy here in residential areas. And if you have a lot of
| children in your neighborhood, there IS a 'xx-phobia' for
| speeders. But speed bumps and dips are an absolute nuisance
| and sometimes dangerous, so just having cameras identify and
| a system willing to punish speeders would absolutely be the
| preference.
| chris_va wrote:
| Ah, the paper tiger crisis. Clearly the misdemeanor of being in
| the country illegally requires new technology to be developed
| for state surveillance to enforce those laws, police cannot
| possibly be expected to do their job without it /s.
|
| The expectation of privacy and personal freedoms of 350M people
| seems to be an inconvenience for the state wanting deporting a
| few more people per year.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| on the books immigration law has been broken for decades. do
| you expect people across the border wait a decade to get their
| turn for an immigration interview only to be turned down, when
| they can just cross the border?
|
| When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law
| breakers.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| >when they can just cross the border
|
| This is also a choice for the people in charge of the border.
| Enforcing a border is a solved problem for a rich, large-
| population nation.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| It isn't. 2/3rds of illegal immigrants come to the US
| legally (and then overstay). Unless you make it illegal for
| non-citizens to visit the US, you can't stop most illegal
| immigration.
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| We can start with that 1/3rd. Then we remove as many
| economic incentives as possible to make overstaying visas
| that much less attractive to tackle the other 2/3rds.
|
| It's weird to see people (perhaps not you specifically)
| who often support dramatic gun control measures to
| address a tiny percentage of crime among the first to
| trot out the old saw that only a relative fraction of
| illegal migrants got that way by an illegal border
| crossing. 1/3rd is a lot. 1/3rd is a great start.
|
| Addressing that 1/3rd also would address the real edge
| cases (as in there are only a few of them) like
| terrorists and serial criminals.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| employers hiring illegal migrants is also an option for
| them. those employers are not being targeted by ICE. It's
| the DEA arresting drug users but being buddies with drug
| lords all over again.
| seneca wrote:
| > on the books immigration law has been broken for decades.
| do you expect people across the border wait a decade to get
| their turn for an immigration interview only to be turned
| down, when they can just cross the border?
|
| No, I don't expect that at all. However the problem with your
| scenario isn't that they need to wait their turn, it's that
| they can "just cross the border". That fact that that has
| been allowed was an intentional policy decision.
| nailer wrote:
| How? As a migrant to the US I have generally found the rules
| quite reasonable, the UX of the websites is poorer than say
| the UK but the rules seem fine.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| Hundreds of thousands to millions of people have come to the
| US legally each year for the last thirty years.[0] How is
| that impractical? In fact the share of immigrants in the US
| has increased significantly (by 3 times) in the last 50
| years, and is above the level of the EU, and is at the
| highest level in the last 100 years in the US.[1][2] Even if
| legal immigration was set to zero, that shouldn't give people
| the right to come here illegally.
|
| To be clear I am not making an argument that mass
| surveillance is needed to solve any problem.
|
| [0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/green-card-
| holders-a...
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/20/2024... via
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/27/u-s-
| immig...
|
| [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.TOTL.ZS?most_
| rec...
|
| US vs EU vs OECD: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP
| .TOTL.ZS?most_rec... - I'm pretty sure the values here
| include illegal immigration as well, so if you factor that in
| the US may be lower than the EU, but again still at
| historically very high levels.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| The biggest illegal immigration source is the southern
| border. Yes, lots of people have immigrated, but they're a
| tiny fraction of those who wanted to immigrate. H-1B is a
| good example, it counts as immigration but it is really
| not, it is residency contingent on specific employment
| contracts. Those people with H-1B have no way to gain
| permanent residency without their employer sponsoring them,
| which would let them leave the company so employers don't
| tend to do that a lot.
|
| The comparison with EU is not meaningful, especially since
| it isn't even a country. The population growth of the US
| and the world as a hole has also risen by more than that
| factor, even in the past two decades or so it has more than
| doubled.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| >Yes, lots of people have immigrated, but they're a tiny
| fraction of those who wanted to immigrate
|
| What point are you making here specifically? Are you
| saying the law is considered broken unless all or most
| people that want to come to the US can come? If so, the
| citizens (or at least the government) of the country are
| the one's that decide it's laws, not people who want to
| immigrate to that country.
|
| >H-1B is a good example, it counts as immigration but it
| is really not
|
| The fist link I gave only includes green cards issued, it
| doesn't include H-1B vias to begin with. In any case,
| H-1B is not that significant a source of immigration, it
| seems to account for less than 1 million people in the
| US.[0] And it pays better than immigrating illegally in
| 99% of cases, most people would take that. Also by your
| own metric immigrating illegally isn't immigration
| either. I don't see what specific point you are making.
| Are you saying people come here illegally because they
| don't want to come via an H-1B visa, or are you just
| making a general point that immigration is not that high?
|
| >The comparison with EU is not meaningful, especially
| since it isn't even a country
|
| Then why does the worldbank include it? And why use OECD
| as a metric for anything if it isn't a country?
|
| >population growth of the US and the world
|
| The "highest in 100 years" statistic is in terms of
| percentage, so that shouldn't be relevant.
|
| [0] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/re
| ports/U... "As of September 30, 2019, the H-1B
| authorized-to-work population is approximately 583,420."
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| > do you expect people across the border wait a decade to get
| their turn for an immigration interview only to be turned
| down, when they can just cross the border?
|
| Well yes, that's what following the law means. They can't
| complain about it, it's not their country, and they don't
| have a say on the rules.
|
| In a similar vein by your logic, if you are in a hurry, why
| should you obey traffic laws when you can just run a red
| light or a stop sign right?
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| Hierarchy of needs. People want to follow the law, they
| need food,shelter, medicine,etc.. You can punish law
| breakers, but if you don't provide a way to lawfully do the
| thing, you're only breeding law breakers and nothing more.
|
| A missing perspective here might be that even long term
| imprisonment isn't a deterrent for many migrants. The
| disparity in living conditions is just that steep.
| duped wrote:
| If the light never turned green you'd bet your butt that
| plenty of people would run the light.
| zahlman wrote:
| > do you expect people across the border wait a decade to get
| their turn for an immigration interview only to be turned
| down
|
| The backlog isn't a consequence of the law.
|
| Is there a country that doesn't expect people to go through
| some kind of qualification process in order to immigrate
| legally? Here's what it looks like in Canada (where I live),
| for example: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-
| citizenship/se... It's actually quite complex, and depends on
| additional provincial legislation. And then there's
| citizenship on top of that:
| https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-
| citizenship/se...
|
| > when they can just cross the border?
|
| The entire point is that _they legally in fact may not do so_
| , and have only been doing so because of the lack of
| enforcement GP cites.
|
| > When laws become impractical, they create 11 million law
| breakers.
|
| We don't have nearly the same scale of problem in Canada.
| That probably has _much_ more to do with only sharing an
| unsecured land border with a _rich_ country.
| lalaithion wrote:
| This is actually true, since there's no need for it now and
| there would be no need for it in your silly hypothetical too.
| nailer wrote:
| > your silly hypothetical too.
|
| The stats for Southwest Land Border Encounters are available
| at https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-
| enc... and the HN guidelines are available at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I can think of many uses for "surveillance state technology"
| that have nothing to do with immigration: It can be used
| against citizens and legal residents too.
| rat87 wrote:
| They are not being enforced now. In fact the current
| administration is actively trying to circumvent the law. Which
| should not be surprising considering how much Trump has
| violated immigration law in his personal life
| NoraCodes wrote:
| Because American citizens and documented immigrants never
| commit crimes? Nonsense.
| pton_xd wrote:
| What did they think would happen? Installing surveillance systems
| to monitor people is acceptable, as long as they're only used
| against the majority? I don't understand the logic here.
| estearum wrote:
| You don't understand the logic of "there are some crime
| problems we're willing to accept more intrusions to solve than
| other crime problems?"
|
| Seems like something virtually everyone believes, and all that
| changes is where they draw the line of balance between
| intrusion and safety.
| karmakaze wrote:
| The point is that there is no actual line. There's the
| premise which then collects the data.
|
| Then the data can be used for other purposes--no line
| prevents this.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Weird. There's an article _right here_ showing them turning
| off the cameras when the line was crossed and now that data
| _can 't_ be used the way they don't want.
|
| So clearly we're allowed more nuanced takes than you think.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Reactivity isn't proactively protecting what you belief.
| It's reacting to public outcry for the original premise.
| brookst wrote:
| Are you proposing everyone make the optimal decision in
| advance, when outcomes are all speculative, and just be
| sure to get it right so there's no need to learn and
| adapt to circumstances?
| notyourwork wrote:
| I propose we stop letting government do things that are
| revenue based and pretend they are "in our best
| interests".
| giantg2 wrote:
| "There's an article right here showing them turning off
| the cameras when the line was crossed and now that data
| can't be used the way they don't want."
|
| Not exactly true. This happened _after_ the arrests and
| won 't affect those arrests. This also doesn't prevent
| ICE from installing and using Flock cameras on federal
| properties (like the post offices). I would also bet that
| they could still comb the existing data if they wanted
| to, hence the shutdown of the cameras on the fear that
| they can't keep the data safe.
| dpoloncsak wrote:
| "They did the thing and the public got mad so clearly
| they won't do it again"
| expedition32 wrote:
| I would hope so because no we are obviously not turning
| back the clock to a time when cameras did not exist. Most
| people kind of find surveillance cameras reassuring.
|
| They're installing them in my mom's apartment complex
| after a vote.
| mulmen wrote:
| [delayed]
| QuantumFunnel wrote:
| "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a
| little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
| dwattttt wrote:
| "Those (the Penn family) who would give up essential
| Liberty (money & power), to purchase a little temporary
| Safety (a veto over a taxation dispute, trying to raise
| money from the Penn family), deserve neither Liberty (said
| money & power) nor Safety (the defense that said taxed
| money would've bought from the present French & Indian
| wars)"
| zahlman wrote:
| The context of the original quote doesn't prevent others
| from finding it more generally applicable or well-put.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| It's kind of funny if you think about it. Franklin spent
| so many years arguing for liberty, low taxes and limited
| government that when he tried to argue in favor of
| taxation and federal power he unintentionally still
| argued in favor of the former.
| Terr_ wrote:
| A lot of our political discussions and systems these days
| are warped by a failure to understand the ways that
| state-versus-federal differences have changed over time.
|
| Even today, it's not necessarily hypocritical for someone
| to argue that states should do more X while the federal
| government should do less X.
| dwattttt wrote:
| It doesn't, but at that point you're not referencing what
| a person meant, you're saying something they didn't
| intend with their words. You might as well make your
| point with your words, instead of misleadingly quoting
| someone else.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > Those (the Penn family) who would give up essential
| Liberty
|
| No, you've got it half-backwards.
|
| He's saying the _democratic legislature_ shouldn 't
| forever give up the citizens' collective Liberty to tax
| the ultra-mega-rich (Penns) in exchange for a one-time
| Security payment from those rich near-nobles.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-
| famou...
| dwattttt wrote:
| Ironically you're correct, and yet I'm still closer to
| the original meaning than the typical quotation.
| estearum wrote:
| And yet every society makes exactly this trade off.
|
| There is no such thing as avoiding this trade off entirely.
| gmueckl wrote:
| The problem here is that the law and order politicians world
| wide pretty consistently follow a pattern that starts by
| demanding surveillance tools to fight very serious crimes and
| those crimes only. Once they get that, they eventually start
| another campaign to allow use of the tools that they now have
| access to for less serious crimes. After a few cycles of
| this, you get a massive erosion of citicen rights.
|
| This is called "Salamitaktik" in Germany.
| ryoshoe wrote:
| For anyone else interested in reading more:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salami_slicing_tactics
| hitarpetar wrote:
| you don't understand it or you don't agree with it?
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| You don't understand why they may want surveillance to curb or
| investigate violent crime, but not why they oppose surveillance
| used by the Gestapo to kidnap members of their community?
| _Seriously?_
|
| It's like saying I'm hypocritical for loving to write with
| pencils but being offended when someone else stabs me with one.
|
| > Bro, you said you liked pencils, make up your mind!
| brookst wrote:
| If stabbing people is so wrong, why don't we lock up all the
| surgeons?
|
| Of all the poor thinking and rhetorical skills out there, the
| one that drives me the craziest is this insistence that
| ignoring context is not just acceptable but essential.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| No. I'm calling them idiots for giving a bunch of 3rd graders
| piles of newspapers and matches and expecting the eventual
| end result to be anything other than a fire.
|
| This shit was wholly foreseeable but they flew right into the
| sun, not too close to it, right the fuck into it, because
| they just couldn't stop lusting after the idea of sending the
| jackboot after someone for a crime that amounts to petty
| deviance (I'd like to say they were using it to go after
| petty thieves, but we all know they weren't doing that).
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| This is just victim blaming people for assuming they lived
| in a polite society with safeguards for their rights at a
| higher level.
|
| People are allowed to leverage trust in society to make
| tradeoffs. Or should we ban all forms of delivery because
| it _can_ be abused at the extremes of the system to mug the
| drivers? Should every single store have every product
| locked behind glass and armed guards to light up any
| shoplifters, lest it be their fault for being robbed?
|
| You're acting like they should have known the President
| would take complete control of the government and all other
| branches should cede while a Gestapo was deployed against
| the populace. And even then, they would only be buying
| time. The fascists will install their own mass surveillance
| anyway whether you like it or not. They're fascists!
|
| Maybe blame every Republican and Republican voter for
| installing a fascist government instead of a city that had
| the audacity to think they could leverage stability to make
| their lives a little better.
|
| And, for what it's worth, I know folk here like to pretend
| "this is just to spy on you", but that's just your
| rhetoric. The city doesn't care about where you go. But
| this kind of data _is_ used frequently rape and murder
| cases, as traffic cameras are often some of the best
| evidence available. And the analytics collecter can be
| useful for all sorts of civil engineering, policy, and
| architectural decisions.
|
| Now do I _agree_ with the mass surveillance? Do I think the
| motivations were entirely pure? No, not really. But do I
| think you 're being a bit of a drama queen and blaming the
| wrong people? Absolutely.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >This is just victim blaming people for assuming they
| lived in a polite society with safeguards for their
| rights at a higher level.
|
| Karen (I actually have spicier thoughts about exactly
| who's at fault here but "Karen" will have to do) who
| provided the political will to set up the cameras is not
| the victim here.
|
| Her hapless landscaper (or whatever) is the victim.
|
| This was not unforeseeable. This was playing with fire.
| For years we build up the police state's capabilities and
| made it VERY cheap to run (with all these cameras and
| whatnot). Something like this was unenviable. If not the
| feds going whole hog on something that some states didn't
| agree with it would likely have been some states doing
| their own similar thing in some other policy area. Every
| government accountability group, every privacy group,
| they've been screeching for years. It's not like every
| warning wasn't sounded.
|
| >The city doesn't care about where you go. But this kind
| of data is used frequently rape and murder cases, as
| traffic cameras are often some of the best evidence
| available.
|
| This is a BS red herring. "serious" crime has been very
| solvable for years with cell location data, metadata,
| private security cameras, etc. But all that takes "work"
| (read: nontrivial amounts of money and labor the
| expenditure of which must be authorized and somewhat
| justifiable), a single unaccountable bureaucrat can't do
| all the heavy lifting of determining who to dispatch the
| boots on the ground to go after from the comfort of their
| desk
|
| The entire purpose of the government having these systems
| like Flock is exactly what it's being used for. It's so
| that the .gov can still do jackboot things (like round up
| illegals, or whatever) without the oversight of Amazon,
| Verizon, etc, (companies with public images they care
| about) saying "hey man, this is too much, we don't like
| the look for our business" and pushing back. The only
| reason we're even hearing a peep is any strife here is
| because the local governments interests aren't aligned
| with the feds.
|
| The city doesn't care where "I" go until I check the
| right (wrong) boxes and then they'll be waiting for the
| chance to harass me. The government didn't "care" until
| something flipped, and then the .gov was all over them.
| The same is true for you and everyone else.
|
| And yes I'm being sloppy with with my wording and my
| reasoning, I could not be, but I don't really care to
| write to that high a standard.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| > This is a BS red herring.
|
| "I don't respect facts I don't like" is not a very
| respectable point of view and makes me not want to engage
| at all.
|
| > with cell location data, metadata, private security
| cameras, etc
|
| I'm _sure_ you 'd argue that the government should have
| access to all of that data and it could _never_ be used
| for "jackbooting"?
|
| EDIT: Even if you did genuinely support all that, you're
| doing exactly what this city did! Making a subjective
| judgement call about where to put the proverbial line,
| but still giving the government the ability to use this
| data because you value its ability to benefit us /
| provide safety guarantees.
|
| All that data can just as easily be stolen and abused by
| a fascist government.
|
| > It's so that the .gov can still do jackboot things
| (like round up illegals, or whatever)
|
| You are quite literally posting in the context of TFA
| about them turning them off explicitly because they did
| not intend them to be used for "jackboot things". FFS.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| What's there to understand? Property crime has gone up over
| time in the Pacific Northwest region. A lot of it simply goes
| unreported because victims are tired of not seeing consequences
| for criminals, and deductibles make it not worth filing
| insurance claims. The issue is that investigating many types of
| crimes is expensive and takes a lot of people. Cities don't
| have the budget or political will to spend more. These cameras
| make it far more efficient to solve and deter crime, which is a
| huge win for public safety and budgets.
|
| This decision to turn off Flock cameras is simply bad for
| residents. It's the result of a small set of activists
| pressuring an activist city council.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Seattle is in such a tough spot. I lived there from 2001 to
| 2010 and left and then went back in 2018 or so and it looked
| like the homeless population had doubled, or tripled in the
| time since. And then I went back again after COVID and it was
| just sad. The entire downtown area is just homeless camps.
| There used to be a big beautiful Macy's department store on
| 4th Ave that's just all boarded up now. You can't browse
| around outside Westlake Center without being bombarded and
| accosted by aggressive panhandlers. Even the iconic Pike
| Place Market was overrun with druggies.
|
| The entire city is so poorly run they just have no answers,
| and nobody can do anything about it. Pick something. Build
| more housing, do a basic income. Something, anything. But
| they can't. And their politics just let it keep getting worse
| and worse.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| > The entire downtown area is just homeless camps.
|
| This isn't even remotely close to true.
|
| > You can't browse around outside Westlake Center without
| being bombarded and accosted by aggressive panhandlers.
| Even the iconic Pike Place Market was overrun with
| druggies.
|
| I live on Pike Street. There's homeless, but it's not
| "overrun" and for the year+half I've lived here I haven't
| been "accosted by aggressive panhandlers". These are areas
| with constant foot traffic.
|
| Yes 3rd & Pike is bad, but it's improved since then. Late
| at night it's not the best--but it's never been.
|
| If this is truly your experience, I urge you to visit
| again. Seattle is a large and beautiful city with a lot to
| offer.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| This sounds like the perspective of a beat-down Seattlite
| that thinks all the problems are just "normal". I lived
| there for a very long time, and have lived in several
| other major cities since then.
|
| Seattle's problems are not "normal". And they should not
| be normalized by thinking _this is just how it is_. It is
| not that way in other places.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| Deflecting is a fun game, but I won't play it. I'm
| challenging your hyperbole here--on the other hand,
| you're making assumptions about me.
|
| Explain to me how "the entire downtown area is just
| homeless tents". By all means bring some proof of Pike
| Place being "overrun with druggies". Get real.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Walk from Pike Place Market, 1st and Pike, east up Pike
| St toward Capitol Hill. Count the number of homeless
| camps you see sitting on cardboard boxes in the middle of
| the sidewalks. All along Pike St, 3rd Ave, 4th Ave. And
| then count the number of SPD officers you see (ignoring
| the fanny-pack guys handing out naloxone). You'll get it.
| polski-g wrote:
| A single druggie/hobo is unacceptable in a functional
| society. Just enforce trespassing laws.
| EB66 wrote:
| > I lived there for a very long time
|
| It sounds like your last visit was during the COVID-19
| pandemic. Homeless encampment conditions in downtown
| Seattle and throughout the city have much improved since
| then. Today, visible homelessness is effectively the same
| as it was back in ~2005.
| qwerpy wrote:
| In general the homeless problem downtown has gotten
| better but a few hotspots are still bad, notably
| Chinatown/International District. I used to enjoy taking
| visitors there until about 5 years ago when a few Asians
| got their heads bashed in or shot around Chinatown and
| Belltown. It was a politically inconvenient time to
| highlight who exactly was attacking Asians, and the issue
| was swept under the rug. Now we just stay in Bellevue,
| which luckily seems to be getting all the new Asian small
| businesses.
| EB66 wrote:
| I don't know why you're being downvoted. I've lived in
| the area for nearly 20 years and I agree that his
| description is far exaggerated. It was true in the depths
| of the COVID-19 pandemic (when any eviction or forcible
| displacement of people was prohibited), but not since
| then. Today, the visibility of homeless encampments in
| Seattle is roughly the same as it was 20 years ago.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| > The homeless encampment problem in Seattle today is
| roughly now back at the same level of problem we had 20
| years ago.
|
| See, this is wild to me. Seattle has a long-time
| notorious problem with Tent Cities and even now it's just
| completely normal. I remember The Jungle under I-5 at
| Beacon Hill was a big problem. I'm sure it still is.
| oasisbob wrote:
| "The Jungle" isn't at all the same now, and is mostly
| cleared out from its heyday in ca 2018.
|
| The larger problem with "The Jungle" is that nobody can
| agree on what it means, and where it is. I used to live
| on Beacon Hill, and the way journalists used the phrase
| was all over the place. Incidents anywhere from the
| I-90/I-5 interchange to the camps under I-5 all the way
| south to Georgetown, to the camps up in the woods in the
| East Duwamish greenbelt were all called "The Jungle".
| qwerpy wrote:
| I agree with this. As a resident of a neighboring suburb to
| Redmond, I would have welcomed more automated cameras to cut
| down on street racing, package thefts, and car prowls. In
| fact I want all of the suburbs around me to implement this so
| that criminals can't just flee to another jurisdiction and
| escape justice.
| duped wrote:
| Flock is a bad actor and untrustworthy (misleading departments
| and officials about how data is shared/accessed, literally
| reinstalling cameras that cities have demanded to be taken
| down). Regardless of whether the local municipality wants
| surveillance or not, Flock is not a trustworthy company to buy
| it from.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Regardless of whether the local municipality wants
| surveillance or not, Flock is not a trustworthy company to
| buy it from.
|
| That's because the local authorities aren't the final
| customer. The final customer is the federal government, they
| want allllll the data.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| And Garrett, the founder, has what even he calls a quite
| literal, not aspirational/visionary/metaphorical, aim that
| "We want to eliminate all crime."
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Dear God I hate this particular breed of techbros. These
| people don't give a damn about democracy, about human
| rights or anything else other than their stab at entering
| the history books in a "positive" light...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > misleading departments and officials about how data is
| shared/accessed
|
| Many times this isn't misleading, per se, but nudge nudge
| wink wink. "We trust you to follow your own data privacy
| policy. It's not our job to police how access to your data is
| configured." In Washington, for example, there is data that
| LE cannot collect, and LE cannot pay someone to collect
| directly for them to bypass that...
|
| ... but if someone _just so happens to ALREADY be collecting
| it_ , they can pay to _access_ it.
| jajuuka wrote:
| I think this is a case of, tools used to fight one type of
| crime are being used to fight another type of crime that
| disrupting the community. Kind of an unforeseen consequences
| situation.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Kind of an unforeseen consequences situation."
|
| This type of use and expansion of scope was totally
| foreseeable by anyone paying attention to history. It always
| starts as some targeted thing, then it becomes the path of
| least resistance for similar subsequent things as the barrier
| to entry is extremely low.
| christophilus wrote:
| Exactly. Same goes for expansion of presidential powers.
| It's all fun and games as long as your "good" team controls
| the executive, but there will come a time when bad guy
| takes over. A good system of government limits the impact
| any single bad player might have.
| antonvs wrote:
| You have to be covering your eyes, plugging your ears, and
| shutting down your brain to not be able to foresee these
| consequences.
| vkou wrote:
| They are being used to _perform_ another kind of crime. Much
| of ICE behaviour this past year has been highly criminal.
|
| Redmond is under no obligation to assist them.
| mulmen wrote:
| > Kind of an unforeseen consequences situation.
|
| This is the most foreseeable consequence I can imagine. It's
| up there with "When I throw this baseball where will it
| land?". It shouldn't even require conscious thought.
| expedition32 wrote:
| In my country you'd have to get a warrant. You'll get pretty
| much carte blanche for an Amber Alert but the judge isn't
| going to let you hunt down brown people.
|
| But I guess if you elect judges pretty much all bets are off,
| no? Just find yourself a card carrying MAGA judge willing to
| sign off.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| They had never picked up a history book so they didn't realize
| that the systems they envisioned being used to stop the
| jackboot upon people they don't like would eventually be used
| to stomp people they do.
| miohtama wrote:
| If you don't want to read a book, here is a Wikipedia article
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
|
| Back in a day, you did not have cameras yet, so one had to
| hire snitches. Luckily this is not the case anymore, as
| demonstrated by Chinese leading by an example:
|
| https://t.co/Q1xOiQMmZT
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Facts are no match for my ability to use short sighted
| emotion and motivated reasoning to convince myself it'll be
| different this time. /s
|
| Kinda funny if you think about it, the snitches are cut
| from the same cloth as the people clamoring for more
| cameras, more jackboot. If anything they should be pissed
| about being cut out.
| wmf wrote:
| When history is racist, only racists will read history books.
| s3p wrote:
| Who? I don't understand your logic either. I don't think anyone
| said this "is fine as long as it's used against the majority".
| Virtually every large city uses Flock. This is the norm.
| straydusk wrote:
| What kind of innane logic are you using here?! Yes, if the
| systems are installed for a reason approved by the public, and
| then they're used for a different reason, people don't like
| that.
| stonogo wrote:
| It's apparently against Washington state law for local law
| enforcement to assist immigration enforcement:
| https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=10.93.160
|
| Specifically interesting is the section "State and local law
| enforcement agencies may not provide nonpublicly available
| personal information about an individual..." which puts police
| in a bind with Flock data: if the data is public, anyone can
| request it (including ICE) and they have to provide it to all
| comers. If they declare it not to be subject to public records
| request, then they also can't share it with ICE -- which is
| outside their control in practice, since Flock independently
| sells access to AI summaries of the data. In the face of this
| contradiction, turning the things off seems to be the only way
| to stay legal until the courts get done chewing on this.
| cipehr wrote:
| A little annoyed, this seems like is has _nothing to do with the
| ICE arrests_...
|
| > The city suspended its Flock system because city officials
| could not guarantee they wouldn't be forced to release data
| collected by those devices someday, she said.
|
| Key part is " _someday_ ". Seems like the article is implying
| that flock _may_ have shared this data with ICE which led to the
| arrests... but there is no proof supporting this...
|
| > On Thursday, a Skagit County Superior Court judge ruled that
| pictures taken by Flock cameras in the cities of Sedro-Woolley
| and Stanwood qualify as public records, and therefore must be
| released as required by the state's Public Records Act, court
| records show.
|
| This is the more likely reason. What do folks here think about
| this ruling?
|
| IMO it seems obvious that this should be public records/data, but
| would love to hear alternative positions to this.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| I think we need to revise our understanding of expectation of
| privacy. The 'you have no expectation of privacy when you are
| outside' bit was formed before we had everything recording us
| and before face recognition could track us.
|
| At the very least I think any kind of face recognition should
| require probable cause.
| cipehr wrote:
| Its an interesting question indeed. You're saying there might
| be some expectation of privacy _even in public?_
|
| The line here is a little different. I could point a camera
| out my window and record every license plate that drives by
| my house, and that would be allowed because its recording
| public activities, and the data I collect would be private--
| its mine from my camera.
|
| The question here is if a public/government agency pays a
| private company to setup cameras in public, _for the benefit
| of the public_ , then should that data collected by those
| cameras not also be public?
|
| The courts seem to agree that it should be public, and I fail
| to see why it shouldn't be. Maybe I should read the
| opposition briefs on it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > The question here is if a public/government agency pays a
| private company to setup cameras in public, for the benefit
| of the public, then should that data collected by those
| cameras not also be public?
|
| This is how NASA operates with the data/images collected
| from the tax payer funded operations it runs. There is a
| period of exclusivity allowed for some projects to allow
| the people to work with the data, but anybody can go down
| load high res imagery once it has been released.
| cipehr wrote:
| Awesome, thank you for the input. I suspected NASA was
| operating this way, but I had no idea there was a period
| of exclusivity. In the case of NASA, the private
| companies are those like JPL and the sorts I guess?
|
| I assume it is/was similar with other data collected,
| like weather data/radar, oceanic current/buoy data, etc?
| dylan604 wrote:
| I read about this regarding Hubble imagery, but pretty
| sure it applies to all missions funded by tax payers. The
| teams requesting time from the platforms are granted
| exclusive time to work out what they need so they can
| publish their papers for credit and what not.
|
| One of the great things here is that most of the teams
| are so focused on their specific criteria in the data,
| they sort of lose the forest in the tree. Once that data
| has been released to the public, more and more
| interesting things are being found in the existing data
| rather than requiring new observations. It's space, so
| most things only need to be imaged once per sensor. It's
| not like setting up a trap camera hoping to see big foot
| the one time he strolls past. The universe changes on a
| much slower scale so the data is still relevant for much
| longer.
| cipehr wrote:
| Fascinating thank you.
|
| > Once that data has been released to the public, more
| and more interesting things are being found in the
| existing data rather than requiring new observations.
|
| Really highlights the value of the data being public,
| which I feel is often overlooked now a days. Hard to tie
| KPIs to value that comes like this.
| brookst wrote:
| There is certainly some expectation of privacy in public.
| California at least has anti-paparazzi laws covering some
| of this.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| If your neighbors were across the street and had their
| blinds open could you point your camera at their window and
| take pictures?
|
| License plates were designed to be read and visible and
| they show that the vehicle is registered, but what about
| inside the vehicle? Do we have privacy in there?
|
| What exactly does 'in public' mean? And why shouldn't
| someone have privacy from being recorded and their
| movements tracked even if they are in public?
|
| None of these things are a given. The rights we have are
| because we decided they were important. There is no reason
| we can't revisit the question as situations change.
| mothballed wrote:
| Might make sense to revisit the constitutionality of
| license plates, rather than try to attack public
| recording.
|
| They're demanding you show your "papers" registration at
| all times without articulable suspicion you've committed
| a crime/infraction. The fourth amendment arguably
| protects us from the government requiring us to show us
| our papers at all times when we're travelling in the most
| common form of conveyance.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| > I could point a camera out my window and record every
| license plate that drives by my house, and that would be
| allowed because its recording public activities, and the
| data I collect would be private--its mine from my camera.
|
| Maybe you shouldn't be allowed to do that. Permanent
| persistent recording of the public feels _very different_
| than taking a photo every once in a while, and I feel it's
| an infringement of privacy even when a single person does
| it.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Feels way different when it's one rando doing it than
| when it's a government or BigCo with government
| integration doing it.
| mothballed wrote:
| Feels more like stalking to me when the government does
| it. The intent is to intimidate and put the observed
| parties in imminent fear of imprisonment if they do
| something those in power do not like. Coupling this with
| intentionally following them around, with the specific
| goal of en masse systematic targeting of those in
| transit, albeit with stationary cameras strategically
| replaced, has a lot of parallels to criminal stalking.
|
| If you put up cameras on all the intersections on the way
| of say an ex went to work, and started logging when they
| were coming and going, it's hard for me to believe a
| prosecutor wouldn't be able to file that under some
| stalking-adjacent statute. The fact that they're doing
| the same thing en masse doesn't make it more generalized,
| it's just a larger scale of high specificity.
| antonvs wrote:
| > You're saying there might be some expectation of privacy
| _even in public_?
|
| Sure. The expectation is that your every move in public is
| not being recorded and stored on a central system that the
| government, and by extension various kinds of bad actors,
| can access.
|
| In a society where the government's role is to defend its
| citizenry rather than participate in their exploitation,
| this would be an easy choice.
|
| US governments (both federal and local) face some
| challenges here, because "defend its citizenry" is not
| really one of its main goals.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > You're saying there might be some expectation of privacy
| even in public?
|
| Not parent poster, but yes!
|
| What people _expect_ are _outcomes_. The mechanics they
| know of for how data is /isn't available is merely _how_
| they reach their reasonable expectation.
|
| I _expect_ that almost nobody I meet in public is a Stasi
| informant.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _You 're saying there might be some expectation of privacy
| even in public?_
|
| There should be. I like how this is handled in Japanese
| media, where there is such an expectation - people's faces
| are blurred unless they opt in, and publishing photos/video
| without redating people's identities is not just a social
| misstep but grounds for a lawsuit if it causes distress for
| the subject. You need a release for any commercial use of
| photography, and non-commercial publication (eg Instagram
| or your art blog) can still get you sued if it infringes on
| others' privacy.
|
| https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/4241/
| e...
|
| Japan has set about harmonizing its privacy laws with the
| GPDR and similar for business purposes.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I think it's less of a revision and more a return to a core
| meaning.
|
| Privacy isn't a mechanic, it's a capability, and most
| reasonable people DO expect, implicitly, that that they can
| travel unremarked under most circumstances.
|
| I think most people would agree that a government drone swarm
| specifically tasked to follow you everywhere in public
| (loitering outside buildings) would be an invasion of
| privacy. Especially when it is illegal not to be wearing some
| equivalent of license plates.
| cipehr wrote:
| I can't stand this type of "journalism"/sensationalism.
|
| > Redmond's Police Department was not among those listed in the
| report, and has never allowed external agencies to access their
| Flock data without requesting and receiving permission from the
| police chief first, according to an Oct. 24 statement by Lowe.
|
| So because the arrests were _near_ a Flock Camera the
| "journalist" is connecting the two? Even with the statements an
| information to the contrary?
|
| :(
| jajuuka wrote:
| This wouldn't be the first time Flock was used by ICE and
| would not be the first time Flock allowed ICE backdoor access
| against the wishes of the local government or police
| department in Washington. https://jsis.washington.edu/humanri
| ghts/2025/10/21/leaving-t...
|
| So making the connection isn't a leap and seems like a pretty
| pragmatic action taken to reduce ICE's ability to surveil
| communities.
| s3p wrote:
| Very tinfoil hat of them.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Yes. Because Flock literally cannot be trusted.
|
| As an ex-Flock employee in my county alone, Flock's
| "Transparency Report" only lists -half- of the agencies using
| Flock.
| pavon wrote:
| The journalists didn't make this connection, it was a topic
| of discussion at the city council meeting. And the result of
| that discussion was to suspend the cameras anyway, out of
| concern that ICE could end up with the the Flock data, even
| if they hadn't already. It would have been odd for the
| journalist to report on the outcome and leave out the event
| that prompted it.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| From what I read, the pressure from activist groups on
| Redmond's city leadership began before the Skagit County
| ruling. So it is probably unrelated. But I think it's still a
| bad outcome for Redmond. Why wouldn't you want law enforcement
| to be able to observe public spaces (which these cameras are
| monitoring) and identify or track suspects? We want our city
| services (like policing) to be efficient, right? We want
| criminals to be arrested and face consequences, right? We all
| want safe cities and neighborhoods, right?
|
| I think the Skagit county ruling is likely to be appealed.
| There is a lot of information that governments can redact for a
| variety of reasons, despite FOIA or state/local transparency
| laws. It seems obvious that there's a case for law enforcement
| to be able to access footage but to avoid handing over that
| kind of intelligence to the general public, where criminals
| could also abuse the same data. And I just don't buy the
| argument that surveillance through cameras is automatically
| dystopian - we can pass laws that make it so that data is only
| accessible with a warrant or in a situation with immediate
| public risk. There are all sorts of powers the government has
| that we bring under control with the right laws - why would
| this be any different?
|
| As for Redmond turning off its cameras - this is just fear-
| mongering about ICE. In reality, it's just sanctuary city/state
| resistance to enforcing immigration laws. Redmond's police
| department confirmed they've never shared this camera data with
| federal agencies, but that doesn't stop activist types from
| making unhinged claims or exerting pressure. In reality, it's
| activists of the _same_ ideological bias as the soft on crime
| types that have caused crimes to go up dramatically in the
| Pacific Northwest in the last 20 years. They're happy to see
| law enforcement hampered and the public put at risk - the ICE
| thing is just the new tactic to push it.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| You sound like great fun at a party.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Why wouldn't you want law enforcement to be able to observe
| public spaces (which these cameras are monitoring) and
| identify or track suspects?
|
| Yeah, why wouldn't I want that? Or Flock "helpfully"
| proactively flagging AI-generated "suspicious vehicle
| movements" to LE for investigation? What could wrong there?
|
| > We all want safe cities and neighborhoods, right?
|
| Was it hard not to end that paragraph with a "Won't somebody
| think of our children?"?
| mikestew wrote:
| Your first paragraph doesn't just beg the question, it
| outright harasses it.
|
| _...and identify or track suspects?_
|
| For starters, we're _all_ suspects when those cameras are
| running. Granted, AI-driven facial recognition is 100%
| accurate, so if you have nothing to hide...
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| Immigration is similar to the housing crisis and Nimbyism. Voters
| don't want a streamlined and efficient immigration system that
| lawfully allows a lot of migrants in (NIMBY). it is also similar
| to the war on drugs and its failure, ICE won't solve anything
| just as the DEA only made things worse with drugs.
|
| No matter what, the whole ICE acting like the SS thing will only
| result in more illegal migration in the long term, like a lot
| more. Same with europe's far right teasing.
|
| If the "infrastructure" can't support more people, we can build
| more here in the US. Borders shouldn't be open, but more health
| and able-bodied or skilled people wanting to migrate, so long as
| their criminal history is clear, should be let in, infrastructure
| should be scaled. It's more economic activity and wealth for the
| rest of us. More jobs, more workers. We need to do that for the
| housing crisis anyways.
|
| We need more cities, more development, less NIMBY-thinking and
| less "beat them until they comply" thinking. Too many people who
| don't know or are unwilling to solve real problems but are eager
| to see cruelty and violence cause these untenable and regrettable
| situations.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > No matter what, the whole ICE acting like the SS thing will
| only result in more illegal migration in the long term, like a
| lot more.
|
| How so? What mechanism do you see that goes from "ICE acting
| like the SS" to "a lot more illegal migration in the long
| term"? What's the cause and effect here?
|
| Not saying you're wrong, necessarily, just... I don't see the
| causality at all.
| brianbreslin wrote:
| My _guess_ is he sees ICE hauling people out of even the
| courts when they were attempting to abide by the legal
| processes and will say f-it, why bother, its safer to not
| adhere. just my assumption of OP 's intent.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Statistics are showing that the total immigrant population is
| down by over a million since the start of the year. If you
| have the ability to leave, why put up with this nonsense?
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/21/key-
| findi...
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| What was the reaction to SS? or to stick to my DEA example,
| what was the result of the war on drugs? millions and
| millions dead because of drug related causes right? how do
| you think the nation will react to ICE's brutal and cruel,
| even illegal operations? many would consider them heroes, but
| the other side will consider them no different than the SS or
| gestapo, the only correction is to wind down immigration
| enforcement dramatically, increasing immigration.
|
| Imagine a democrat administration simply reverting ICE to its
| pre-2025 state. the implication alone and the perception it
| gives will drive up illegal immigration. "america is open
| again".
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| A large number of people, myself included, are now
| radicalized against the concept of immigration enforcement. I
| think everyone has a duty to make sure that ICE is as
| ineffective as possible and ICE agents are as miserable as
| possible. There's a lot of talk, for example, about how the
| asylum system is easily abusable; that's true, but now we
| will not be able to fix it because no immigration reform
| compromise that doesn't destroy ICE is acceptable.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Why fill out the right paperwork and actually attend your
| court dates and immigration hearings if there is a good
| chance that will result in your extraordinary rendition to
| some torture prison God-only-knows-where? Much safer to
| simply stay off the books.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| > Voters don't want a streamlined and efficient immigration
| system that lawfully allows a lot of migrants
|
| There was a really interesting open ended survey some years
| ago, in the leadup to the trump/clinton election but I can't
| find it now sorry.
|
| When republicans voters were asked to describe their preferred
| immigration policies, they outline a stance significantly more
| permissive and flexible, and less burdensome, than the one we
| currently have. More liberal than the reality, in other words.
|
| People don't know what the immigration policies are and so they
| can't know what they should be either. The anti-immigration
| sentiment is a stunning propaganda victory decades in the
| making, no more.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Yes, that's my experience when having to explain what getting
| a greencard entails, most people have no idea how the whole
| thing works.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Access to the United States is not a human right. This is a
| nation, not a strip mall.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Is self-determination a human right? We certainly decided
| a lot of nations to the south of us didn't deserve that
| right. Look up the history of the banana republics some
| time.
| outside1234 wrote:
| People want immigrants. It is just that they want them to be
| second class citizens that are not allowed to earn more than
| them because of their skin color.
|
| I was resistant to this argument for a long time, but the ICE
| thing makes it clear that really the core of all of this is
| racism.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| > will only result in more illegal migration in the long term
|
| Why? Wouldn't it disincentivize illegal immigration by making
| it much more riskier?
|
| Agreed that the legal immigration system needs an overhaul,
| these are a lot of people living in limbo, paying taxes and not
| causing crimes with very few rights. The term no taxation
| without representation was the reason the USA got founded.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| It's a temporary partisan solution, the other party will do
| the opposite, reducing enforcement and letting even more
| illegal migrants in, lest they be accused of being a
| xenophobe.
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| Not sure of that to be honest, I think that would be a loud
| minority.
|
| Once democratic cities got a taste of the flood of people
| coming in that were sent by southern states, they realized
| how big the issue is and how much of a drag on resources it
| is.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| That's not how it is in reality, southern states (not
| just them though) have been doing that with homeless
| people too, not just immigrants.
|
| Republicans did jim crow in the 50s and 60s, we still
| talk about it today, and the positive blowback from that
| needs no explanation. Keep in mind that ICE is doing a
| lot more than cops did to protesters in the 60s, and it
| is targeting not just one group but several minority
| groups. not only that, it is all being live streamed, and
| it is affecting a lot of majority-group americans more
| directly. If ICE can avoid being disbanded it would be a
| great victory for them.
|
| If I were exaggerating, I would be talking about
| tribunals and mass incarcerations of ICE agents, but I'm
| not.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Correction: it was actually southern Democrats that did
| Jim Crow. The Democratic party used to be quite different
| before the civil rights bill.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > No matter what, the whole ICE acting like the SS thing will
| only result in more illegal migration in the long term, like a
| lot more.
|
| I don't follow. Illegal immigration into the US is down right
| now. So, how did you arrive at that conclusion?
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| It's a pendulum, the next administration will react in the
| other direction, possibly very dramatically.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Because the blowback on ICE's current 'posture' is going to
| gut that agency.
| mothballed wrote:
| The lesson learned is that people going to their immigration
| hearings to stay legal are getting nabbed, and going the
| legal way is a convoluted recipe for failure.
|
| As soon as enforcement lets up an iota the lesson will be it
| is wiser to stay off paper and off the visa pathway and go
| underground. People who aren't arrested and don't present to
| CBP for entry and don't get a visa, as far as the government
| knows, don't exist.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is not "the legal way."
|
| The people going to their immigration hearings to "stay
| legal" were apprehended as illegal immigrants, invited to
| come up with an excuse as to why they should be allowed to
| stay in the country, and released. You'll literally see
| "apprehension date" on their paperwork. The "legal way" is
| to apply for that stuff, _then_ enter the country.
|
| It's annoying that people elide this. There is an ongoing
| attempt by the current administration to remove these very
| recently introduced practices that no one voted for. Or a
| show of an attempt, really, because they love illegal
| labor.
|
| But it's weird that for the past decade that illegal
| immigrants who have been caught are released almost
| immediately into a dilatory multi-year process of hearings.
| It's also weird that even those that have not been
| apprehended are issued IDs, work permits, business and
| drivers licenses, get in-state tuition as state schools,
| and in some places get to vote for local elections. There
| was never a debate about this, and it would have never
| survived a debate.
|
| It's important to note that none of the countries that they
| are coming from allow people to do this. You can't just
| walk into Mexico and be Mexican, or fly to Nigeria and be
| Nigerian. Any shock that they have is in how easy it is to
| just walk and fly into the US and stay indefinitely.
|
| > it is wiser to stay off paper and off the visa pathway
| and go underground.
|
| This is how it used to be. But "underground" is nothing
| like this; it isn't in-state tuition and business licenses
| and street protests. It's usually harder than just going
| back home. In the late 90s, net migration from Mexico was
| _negative._ The "wall" (that Hillary Clinton helped push,
| and had a hand in started modern left-bashing among
| Democratic administrations) was a bad idea because a lot of
| people just jumped the border for enough time to make a few
| dollars, then ran back. People would go back and forth half
| a dozen times. After the wall, getting across was so
| onerous that you had to stay.
|
| Previously, if you were a Mexican who hit a bad financial
| patch, you ran to the US, worked like a dog, and ran back
| with enough cushion to get your life going again - if you
| failed again, you could just repeat the process. After the
| wall when you hit that same patch, you had to commit to
| trying to make a life in the US.
|
| I think the inflection point was the desire to get cheap
| labor to repair New Orleans after the flood, but they
| didn't want to hire the black people who lived there, they
| wanted to get rid of them, to ship them out to FEMA
| trailers in neighboring states. That's exactly what they
| did.
| relaxing wrote:
| > The "legal way" is to apply for that stuff, then enter
| the country.
|
| Which is next to impossible, particularly for immigrants
| who pick crops and process livestock. It's annoying when
| people elide this.
|
| > It's also weird that even those that have not been
| apprehended are issued IDs, work permits, business and
| drivers licenses, get in-state tuition as state schools,
| and in some places get to vote for local elections.
|
| Or since those people pay taxes and are subject to
| governance, maybe it isn't weird at all.
| jajuuka wrote:
| I don't think the drugs analog works. What this activity by
| ICE does though is put a chilling effect on "legal"
| immigration and tourism. Which will over time hurt supply
| chains, tourist destinations and jobs overall.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| "On Thursday, a Skagit County Superior Court judge ruled that
| pictures taken by Flock cameras in the cities of Sedro-Woolley
| and Stanwood qualify as public records, and therefore must be
| released as required by the state's Public Records Act, court
| records show."
|
| This video by Tom Lehto talks more about that court case that
| illustrates citizens can legally do FOIA requests for traffic
| cameras (e.g. Flock): https://youtu.be/1vQn4MWBln0
| wrs wrote:
| The example of Seattle Police dashcam and body camera footage
| may be interesting. When those things were relatively new, ten
| years ago or so, someone started filing _daily_ public records
| requests for footage from all 911 dispatches (among other
| things). They wanted to build their own database of the
| theoretically public footage. The SPD complained that the
| overhead of redacting all that footage would be impossible.
| Eventually the legislature clarified the status and tightened
| the request rules, so now you have to request footage for a
| specific incident, and you may have to pay a redaction fee. [0]
|
| [0] https://mrsc.org/explore-topics/public-records/law-
| enforceme...
| mulmen wrote:
| I think someone even tried automating the redactions then
| posting to YouTube.
|
| It's an interesting case that pits privacy against
| transparency.
|
| I absolutely want the cops to wear bodycams and I'd prefer
| they can't even turn them off. But they also need to protect
| the privacy of victims, suspects, and witnesses. So they
| can't just live stream to the Internet either.
|
| How much is the redaction fee? How much would it cost to just
| pay it for everything?
| alexpotato wrote:
| As another data point/example:
|
| Florida is a "sunshine state" [0] when it comes to public
| records which is why it's legal:
|
| - to have mugshots and arrest records posted online
|
| - which in turn leads to "attractive felon" style websites
| where mugshots are rated.
|
| I'm generally for more privacy while at the same time
| getting why people push for transparency. Either way you
| get downstream and often unintended consequences.
|
| 0 - https://www.myfloridalegal.com/open-government/the-
| quotsunsh...
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Redactions are necessary to protect innocent members of the
| public. Going through all the footage from every officer
| every single day to perform these redactions would require a
| huge amount of manpower. That may change with new technology,
| but until it can be automated reliably, the WA legislature
| got this right.
|
| With shit like traffic cameras, I don't think redactions are
| necessary, although it would be nice if all license plates
| were automatically redacted and only accessible with a
| warrant. Turning the cameras off is an even better idea.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Someone should use AI to request such a large amount of data
| that it DDoSes the whole system. Unfortunately I feel like that
| would result in traffic camera data just being removed from
| FOIA rather than removed from use.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I don't think that would be legal... you'd have to get a
| judge to reverse the previous decision that established the
| cameras are public record. They would probably just turn them
| off instead.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| If I recall, the FOIA allows government agencies to charge
| you for the work of processing your request if you're
| requesting more than N pages or it takes more than a couple
| hours of work to fulfill the request. I'd be careful about a
| maliciously compliant response to such a thing. That said, we
| live in a boring world where they'd probably just respond by
| threatening you with a felony hacking prosecution for
| attempting to take down their system.
| outside1234 wrote:
| We are all speed running our learning on how all of these systems
| can be used against us.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| No they turned them off because it turns out those cameras are
| public records and all their citizens can make requests for ALL
| THAT DATA.
| adrr wrote:
| Couldn't they just not log the license plates and only look for
| license plates on the list like stolen cars, stolen plates,
| amber alert etc? Why do they a need a list of all cars that the
| camera saw?
| relaxing wrote:
| To run fishing expeditions.
| echelon wrote:
| I have seen so many of these cameras by intersections recently! I
| wondered what they were.
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