
Mozilla letter to Amazon Ring: stop sharing information with police - sususu
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/tell-amazon-ring-stop-sharing-information-police-services/
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mitchellst
A really odd post. I am open to the argument but don’t think Mozilla makes it
here. The only piece of evidence they cite for harm— hyperlinked to the phrase
“facilitate racial profiling”— leads to a think piece by someone a little
creeped out by posts on Nextdoor, which doesn’t mention Ring at all.

I get that people don’t love surveillance. But the evidence is not here that a
homeowner or renter’s decision to install a cloud-connected security camera on
private property makes them or their community less safe. Unless you make a
slew of assumptions that go undefended here, namely: cops are natural
aggressors, having these cameras will attract cops, and the harm which these
aggressive cops are likely to cause when attracted is greater than the
combined deterrent effect of the camera’s presence against other crime + their
value for genuine investigative work on crimes which were not deterred. Again,
I’m open to the argument, but you need to present really good evidence, not
just virtue signal. Because I don’t like getting packages stolen off my porch,
and Ring seems like a straightforward way to prevent that.

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ponker
I do not feel that "Cops are natural aggressors" needs further litigation but
agree on the rest. However, how do you find Ring cameras protect your packages
from theft? Do package thieves notice the camera and avoid your house, or do
you send the video to the police who find the person based on their appearance
or vehicle? If the former, why does the camera need to even be functional? And
if the latter, why is the "cloud" necessary compared to a Ubiquiti style
camera, or if you prefer a cloud camera, one from a company other than Ring
who has shown extreme eagnerness to use close relationships with law
enforcement as a form of marketing?

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SpicyLemonZest
I'm a bit confused by the question. Why should people buying home security
products see a close relationship with law enforcement as a negative?

~~~
morsch
You have just repeated their question in the negative without answering it.
Apparently everybody has an answer they find self-evident despite it being
opposite. Also, there were other questions. (I'm aware you are not the OP.)

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AdamJacobMuller
Keep in mind all Amazon/Ring are doing is making it a bit easier for users and
the police to share this data.

I have Nest cameras and have shared footage with the police on numerous
occasions.

Unless these camera companies deny me access to my footage, they can't do
anything to prevent me from choosing to share it.

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Grakel
Cameras record facts. What if body cam makers stopped providing police body
cams?

I can see not sharing the videos to the public, who are notorious for bad and
racist judgement, but if the police are racist, that's a police problem, not
an evidence problem.

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kerkeslager
> Cameras record facts.

What I do in the bathroom is factual, but just because something is factual
doesn't mean the police have a right to see it.

> What if body cam makers stopped providing police body cams?

Are you proposing that Ring owners should be subject to the same standard of
transparency as people that the government issues guns to?

> if the police are racist, that's a police problem, not an evidence problem.

Uh, it's a societal problem, that society (which includes Amazon) needs to
address.

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Grakel
Ring cameras record in public, not your bathroom. What a straw man.

~~~
kerkeslager
It's not a straw man, because I'm not accusing anyone of making a pro-giving-
police-recordings-of-bathrooms argument. On the contrary, I'm assuming we all
agree that giving police recordings of what we do in the bathroom would be
invasive. This is the basis of a further argument.

Ironically, accusing me of making a straw man argument in this case, is a
straw man argument. ;)

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7174n6
It's cool to signal your virtue - until you are the victim of a crime! Then
the police better get the video from cameras in the neighborhood.

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philwelch
It's worth pointing out that for many home security products, sharing
information with the police is a feature--even a selling point.

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wccrawford
There's no way that Ring is going to stop people from sharing videos.

But making it easy to push a button to submit video to police does enable
casual racism.

"Oh, there's a suspicious person, I'll submit this video to the police.
_Click_ " That person has made a judgement based on looks alone. If it were
harder to submit the video (download, attach to email, look up police email
address, etc) then there'd be a lot less of that.

And for people who are serious about sharing video with the police, those
extra steps aren't really an impediment.

In short, I think their hearts were in the right places, but the ramifications
weren't fully thought out here.

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schwartzworld
citations needed did an incredible episode on the porch pirate narrative.
Listen to Episode 97: Porch Pirate Panic and the Paranoid Racism of Snitch
Apps by Citations Needed Podcast on #SoundCloud
[https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-97-porch-
pira...](https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-97-porch-pirate-panic-
and-the-paranoid-racism-of-snitch-apps)

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throwawaysea
Why is Mozilla getting involved here at all? I would rather my browser
manufacturer stay out of politics and activism. It is a customer’s choice to
share footage with the police. Why wouldn’t we want to help police identify
criminals more quickly?

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SpicyLemonZest
The Mozilla Foundation is organized to be an internet activism company. They
spun off their browser development efforts into a subsidiary (confusingly
named the Mozilla Corporation) so that they could focus on activism.

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sneak
I support this piecemeal protest, but ultimately we really just need to defund
and abolish the police in the US as they are known today and replace them with
a new and different organization dedicated to public safety, that is actually
legally required to help people (the police are not), and that has huge
consequences for integrity failures such as lying.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
The "not legally required to help" thing sounds silly in the abstract, but
most people interested in police reform are going to want to keep it. A police
force that's _required_ to help people is, by definition, a police force that
can be sued for not policing aggressively enough.

~~~
sneak
Most of the issues with police today are not that they are enforcing the law
too aggressively, it is that they are closing out call tickets too
aggressively.

They are entirely different things: [https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-
problem-with-police-in-ame...](https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-
police-in-america/)

