Re: Are Flock cameras next? Supreme Court rules against police using sprawling cell phone location data

On 2026-07-16, Schlomo Goldberg <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> Scott Hoge <[email protected]> writes:
>>
>> "Access to one's life," "power," and "guilt" are, at best,
>> incomplete concepts. The concept of /guilt/, additionally, has
>> signification only within a system of /retributive/ justice
>> (where the "guilty man" is stomped on by a bigger, more
>> attractive male for the amusement of the public) and may
>> disappear, and disappear entirely, in a system of
>> /restorative/ justice (where instead we just solve the
>> problem).
>
> And that "solving", of course, won't involve stomping by "a
> bigger, more attractive male"?

Not necessarily. That's just what stupid people take pleasure in
when someone is "proven guilty."

>> You say, "Privacy isn't about hiding a crime." Here, "about"
>> is an obfuscating term. Privacy /enables/ hiding a crime. It
>> also /disables/ the obtainment of information that is
>> potentially useful in the socioeconomic problem-solving
>> process (such as who starves from lack of food, where, and
>> why).
>
> You can try just asking people if they're starving. Or you
> think they won't tell you due to privacy?

Asking people /encountered in the course of a day/ whether
they're starving, and discovering that they're not, won't answer
whether /anyone else/ may be starving. Nor will it fully explain
/why/ they're starving.

Surveillance would remedy this by providing more information
about resource consumption -- whether by the "lazy liberals"
decried by conservatives, or by the red-meat-eating,
gasoline-chugging conservatives themselves.

>> "Power," and the boundary thereof, inheres not only in the
>> possessor of private information, but in those who have the
>> power to know. Removing the right to privacy grants you the
>> power to know who "accessed your life" in his commission of a
>> crime against you.
>
> No, it does not. I don't remeber Flock providing public access
> to their cameras, even though they services are already paid
> for by "public servants" such as law enforcement.

I'll soften my statement. Removing the right to privacy grants
you the /possibility/ to know who "accessed your life" (assuming
possibility is broader in extent than power).

That said, we're not talking about a band of cowardly, stupid,
weak-minded, poorly-reasoning military thugs monitoring you "from
above." We're talking about mutual access between adults of equal
dignity and intellectual respect. So yes, Flock /might/ have to
let the public view the footage as well.

-- Scott Hoge