[HN Gopher] Flock cameras gifted by Horowitz Foundation, avoidin...
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Flock cameras gifted by Horowitz Foundation, avoiding public
oversight
Author : rurp
Score : 191 points
Date : 2026-02-23 21:15 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thenevadaindependent.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thenevadaindependent.com)
| zerosizedweasle wrote:
| Fascists, him and his VC partner
| roysting wrote:
| I wish people would get more thoughtful, because fascism is the
| last thing any of this is, it's something brand new and way
| worse, something from some sci-fi story of a tech-dystopian
| ruling class with suffocating and smothering domination over
| the masses. I think you would have to mash together a couple
| different novels and movies to accurately capture what this is.
|
| 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.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Gross. Ethics laws should prohibit this.
| roysting wrote:
| Technically it should be covered as not just illegal, but by
| virtue of being the pinnacle of capital crimes, inherently
| treasonous through the violation of the Constitution's
| emoluments clause... but abiding by the Constitution is just so
| lame and old. We need to move fast and break things.
| drweevil wrote:
| I sounds naive to assert that the jurisdiction of city
| government doesn't extend beyond just "whatever is funded by
| taxpayers."
|
| Also, if someone were to destroy one of these things, the
| damage caused, by a similar logic, is $0, right? /s
| willturman wrote:
| How long until YCombinator stops listing Flock "Safety" on their
| website as one of their proud VC success stories?
|
| [1] https://www.ycombinator.com
| propagandist wrote:
| The new leadership (Tan) is utterly shameless and free of moral
| constraints. I wouldn't count on it.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Yeah, the idea that YC will disown unfettered capitalism
| seems dreamy.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Flock was valued at $7.5 billion last year, and it's probably
| worth more now. It's absolutely one of YCombinator's success
| stories.
|
| 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.
| soperj wrote:
| It's only a success if all you care about is money.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| Which is all a great deal of people in America care about,
| yes.
| unclad5968 wrote:
| They could also care about mass surveillance.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| This is YC we're talking about. They'd fund payday loans
| with organs as collateral for African orphans if they
| could. Seriously, they have _NO_ scruples.
|
| (And yes, I know where I am.)
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| Yes. Therefore, for Y Combinator, this is a success story.
| john_strinlai wrote:
| never, it _is_ a shining success when viewed through the eyes
| of venture capital
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Hunh, didn't know flock was ycomb.
| altairprime wrote:
| Why would they? There's no "pro-social" enforcement in their
| funding terms, so they're just as "morals aren't applicable to
| profit" as any off-the-shelf C-corp is. If they required their
| startups to found B-corps then I'd understand trying to apply
| human ethical concerns to them, but they don't, so human morals
| simply _don 't apply_.
| lm28469 wrote:
| It prints money and harvest data, the holy grail basically, why
| would they remove it
| rvz wrote:
| Never.
|
| We should not expect any VC no matter how big or small to care.
| rusty_rick wrote:
| Similar post here on cities being gifted surveillance tools:
| https://computer.rip/2025-12-26-Flock-and-Urban-Surveillance...
| irl_zebra wrote:
| Did you make this account to post this comment?
| firloop wrote:
| I was about to link the same article and I did not make my
| account to post this comment.
| irl_zebra wrote:
| Sure, but you created your account 14 years ago and have
| lost of posts. The person to whom I'm replying created
| their account 0 minutes before posting the comment to which
| I am replying. Not really apples to apples.
| rusty_rick wrote:
| I've never posted anything on hn before and saw this post
| and it reminded me of a blog I found interesting. So yes,
| I did make this account to post this comment
| ok_dad wrote:
| We all have to start somewhere, welcome aboard.
| irl_zebra wrote:
| Very cool, welcome aboard!
| john_strinlai wrote:
| can you explain why it matters?
|
| 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)
| enahs-sf wrote:
| So if I understand the totality of the situation here: mans
| donates cameras from company he invested in, gets tax break for
| doing so, helps portfolio co, furthers own self-interest and
| propels us towards surveillance state?
|
| Did I miss anything?
| roysting wrote:
| The only thing you may have missed is that YCombinator is also
| an investor in Flock.
| reactordev wrote:
| You're saying the quiet part out loud sir...
| roysting wrote:
| That's my curse
| tptacek wrote:
| I think the money is a red herring here. ALPR firms can come up
| with any number of different pilot/licensing/financing programs
| to keep deployments under purchasing thresholds for police
| departments.
|
| 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.
| jmward01 wrote:
| This is why gifts to government are problematic. They are never
| gifts, they are end-runs around accountability and should have
| exceptionally high scrutiny. It is hard to say they should be
| outright illegal since participating in government often blurs
| the line between gifting government and just normal
| participation. This though is clearly just an end-run around
| democracy.
| almosthere wrote:
| Are people going to start "disabling flock cameras" when they are
| integrated into police vehicles?
| LadyCailin wrote:
| I'm not necessarily defending that, but that sounds far less
| problematic in general.
| bix6 wrote:
| The US is such a joke. Free market my ass. What an end run around
| true competition. Just grift top to bottom.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Nothing stops other surveillance companies from donating
| cameras and 24-7 monitoring services.
| tptacek wrote:
| I think the money is a red herring here.
|
| 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.
| rurp wrote:
| This is very helpful information, thanks for sharing. Vegas is
| unlikely to be an outlier here, especially given the
| involvement of Horowitz. I expect that many cities and towns
| will face similar moves to do an end run around citizen's
| rights and knowledge.
| SirFatty wrote:
| I cannot imagine a scenario where I'd want those in my
| neighborhood. Glad you like them, but I hope they don't make it
| to the west suburbs where I live.
| tptacek wrote:
| Who are you talking about who likes the cameras? It isn't me.
| But if you're in a suburb of Chicagoland, my guess is your
| neighbors like them a bunch. They won't like Flock, because
| of the Trump administration and ICE press around Flock, but
| ALPRs are commodity technology now and you'll likely roll out
| some other vendor, like the munis surrounding Oak Park did.
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| > They won't like Flock, because of the Trump
| administration and ICE
|
| 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.
| tptacek wrote:
| This would be a more compelling rebuttal if I hadn't just
| told you a story about how we obtained exactly the
| outcome you claim to want in our own municipality.
| righthand wrote:
| The money being a red herring is a convenient excuse to say
| "surveillance capitalism is fine because there's already a
| legal path to this dystopia and this idea fits right in". These
| capital interests have shown even if there is a legal path to
| stop they will ignore it and try to circumvent it. So the money
| isn't a red herring because the money is being used to bypass
| the legal pathway to stop the deployments.
| tptacek wrote:
| This comment is one very long sentence and because it replies
| to me I'm sorry to have to say I'm not smart enough to
| understand what it's saying. Did you try to get an ordinance
| enacted in your municipality and fail? I'd love to hear how
| that went, and maybe offer advice.
| righthand wrote:
| You're very clearly defensive about defending flock
| installs, but yeah I will go back and edit my comment to
| clarify. Apologies your majesty for forgetting some
| punctuation while I was sick.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm defensive about _defending_ Flock installs? I 'm one
| of a small minority of HN commenters that has actually
| gotten Flock cameras disabled across a municipality.
| righthand wrote:
| Oh sorry I can't read more than 1 sentence so I don't
| know what I'm replying to, you'll have to reword yours.
| npilk wrote:
| For the record, your original comment is a little hard to
| parse, particularly because you say "our pilot
| deployment" which makes it sound like you were involved
| in deploying the cameras. Combined with your realpolitik
| comment about knowing your neighbors want them, I think
| several people are confused about your opinions and what
| you ended up doing to fight the cameras.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| FWIW this is probably the most matter-of-fact series of
| statements from a commenter about Flock or about the
| democratic process that I've seen in years on this site.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Reading comprehension my dude.
|
| 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.
| burkaman wrote:
| Why is the money a red herring? Just like in Oak Park, the
| police in Vegas are required to follow a democratic process for
| large purchases, and they were only able to avoid that with the
| money.
|
| > 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.
| tptacek wrote:
| The large purchase has nothing to do with the actual problem!
| In Oak Park, OPPD rolled ALPR cameras out without bending a
| single rule because Flock structured a pilot deployment for
| them that came in under the purchase threshold. You aren't OK
| with that (and I'm not either) and it has nothing to do with
| the money.
| burkaman wrote:
| Ok maybe this is just a semantic issue, but I'm still not
| understanding your argument that money has nothing to do
| with it. In your case, instead of having the founder donate
| the cameras, the company itself essentially donated them, I
| assume for a limited time. How is that not a money issue?
| When you said "a minor fracas erupted at the board", why
| did the board have a say at that point? Was it because the
| police now had to spend money, triggering public oversight?
|
| 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.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't know how to more clearly say that the purchasing
| thresholds for police departments are not the actual
| issue with ALPR deployment. What you need is affirmative
| consent from the board/council before they're deployed,
| regardless of cost. If you rely on cost thresholds, ALPR
| vendors will make arrangements to get deployed in ways
| that fit under those thresholds. That's exactly what
| happened to us.
|
| 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".
| burkaman wrote:
| I think proactively passing a model ordinance is a good
| idea, but installing cameras is obviously not the only
| objectionable thing a police department can do. It isn't
| practical to make them get public approval for every
| acquisition regardless of cost, and it also isn't
| practical to brainstorm every possible bad thing they
| might ever try in the future and pass ordinances covering
| all of them.
|
| I agree that the concrete bad thing that happened here is
| that cameras were installed without public consent. You
| are responding by saying "well the public should have
| predicted that and passed an ordinance before the police
| had a chance to try it". I am saying the police should be
| forced to consult the public when they make any
| significant acquisition, in any area, not just
| surveillance.
|
| Perhaps the cost threshold could be amended to apply to
| the value of the good or services received, not the
| amount paid for them.
|
| You also are not addressing the issue of government
| dependency on a private individual. Let's say Vegas has a
| public debate and decides they are in favor of cameras
| with no restrictions. Great, so is it now ok that
| Horowitz is donating them? No, it's still bad, because he
| might decide to stop being generous at any time, and then
| what happens? Vegas either suddenly loses an important
| service they depend on, or is forced to immediately pay
| whatever exorbitant price Flock/Horowitz comes up with.
| tptacek wrote:
| ACLU CCOPS covers _all_ surveillance technology, broadly
| construed; it is not simply an anti-camera ordinance. The
| whole point of it is to codify what things require
| consent.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| > Why is the money a red herring?
|
| Because even $1 for surveillance is too much.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Getting your foot in the door: I think that having a supposed
| non-profit foundation make a contribution to a local
| government that then purchases a product that directly
| benefits an investor in that company which also happens to
| run that same foundation seems if not illegal ethically
| challenged.
| lstodd wrote:
| This is all well and good, but the problem is that those
| systems leak left and right. No amount of politics can stop
| that.
|
| 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.
| tptacek wrote:
| I mean, that's what we ended up doing, as I wrote above.
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| It's democracy in action, nothing to see, please move along.
| n2d4 wrote:
| Genuine question, why does Flock get so much bad press in the US
| compared to other, much more infringing surveillance tech?
|
| 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?
| Pine_Mushroom wrote:
| I think a big part is the name. Like we are the sheep for the
| shearing.
| n2d4 wrote:
| Does this question really warrant the downvotes? I'm genuinely
| curious. Why not just answer it instead?
| patrickmay wrote:
| I suspect you're getting downvoted because the phrasing of
| your question implies that you don't consider this type of
| surveillance to be a problem.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never
| does any good, and it makes boring reading.[1]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| drnick1 wrote:
| > Your mobile provider knows your exact location at any point
| in time, and the NSA probably has access to most big tech data.
|
| 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.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Title is: Vegas police are big users of license plate readers.
| Public has little input because it's a gift.
| fantasizr wrote:
| gotta feel bad for snowden's naivete that he thought his big
| disclosures would resonate with the public at large. All we got
| in the years since was more surveillance and for him, a life in
| exile.
| solfox wrote:
| This is the type of self-interested philanthropy that gives tech
| non-profits a bad name. Whatever happened to giving without the
| expectation of return?
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