Well, there are two clear things to be teased out here:
* What Flock does is _not_ consistent with the use of a camera in a fashion that is identical to an eyeball - they are not standing and watching cars go by, or even recording them and logging it. I think it's essential to support the right of individuals to to this. But putting a camera on a fixture? That's a little different. But even if we support that - and I think I can be convinced...
* The custody of this data in secret, and the sharing of it with criminal elements in society, let alone those committing crimes under color of law like CBP, is the harmful part.
Imagine if there were a network of cameras covering all the commons across the land (ie, every street), and there were a way to view their perspective in real time. This gives every person the ability to record and follow any other.
Is this, in itself, an affront?
What if an alien on mars has such a powerful telescope that they too can follow someone in this way. Is this criminal? Do the rights of a person to police how certain photons - those which bounce off their skin - can be captured... extend to the ends of the universe?
I hope the answer is 'obviously not'.
The problem here is that CBP exists in the first place. We need to complete the incomplete struggle for abolition that fizzed in the middle of the 19th century. We need to rid the land of the power structures wherein some people can exact violence under color of law and others cannot even defend themselves, even as all the cameras in the land capture this injustice.
_That's_ the problem, not that somebody saw it happen.
* What Flock does is _not_ consistent with the use of a camera in a fashion that is identical to an eyeball - they are not standing and watching cars go by, or even recording them and logging it. I think it's essential to support the right of individuals to to this. But putting a camera on a fixture? That's a little different. But even if we support that - and I think I can be convinced...
* The custody of this data in secret, and the sharing of it with criminal elements in society, let alone those committing crimes under color of law like CBP, is the harmful part.
Imagine if there were a network of cameras covering all the commons across the land (ie, every street), and there were a way to view their perspective in real time. This gives every person the ability to record and follow any other.
Is this, in itself, an affront?
What if an alien on mars has such a powerful telescope that they too can follow someone in this way. Is this criminal? Do the rights of a person to police how certain photons - those which bounce off their skin - can be captured... extend to the ends of the universe?
I hope the answer is 'obviously not'.
The problem here is that CBP exists in the first place. We need to complete the incomplete struggle for abolition that fizzed in the middle of the 19th century. We need to rid the land of the power structures wherein some people can exact violence under color of law and others cannot even defend themselves, even as all the cameras in the land capture this injustice.
_That's_ the problem, not that somebody saw it happen.