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Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by amazingamazing on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:36PM (#48171088)
The irony is destruction of private property will only justify the very surveillance one is trying to avoid. Would you agree ring cameras should be destroyed too? The police can use their footage. In practice they are similar to flock.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by zug_zug on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:41PM (#48171149)
Kinda like saying "Throwing the British's tea into Boston harbor will only make us subject to harsher terms."

The reality is the vast majority of social progress in the last millenium was achieved with force and threat of force. I find this weird revisionist "violence is never the answer" trope recited as a fact that needs no justification to be incredibly weird and unreliable.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by piloto_ciego on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:58PM (#48171370)
I'd say, "you can't commit violence against a camera" but now everything is violence if it costs someone money.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by KennyBlanken on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:57PM (#48172090)
...only if it costs a corporation money.

Someone shoplifts $50 worth of stuff from Wallyworld and the cops come a runnin' (if they're not already there, because they station a cop full time there.)

Someone steals your $500 bicycle and cops tell you not to bother filing a police report because nothing will happen.

How did we start tolerating public employees not only discouraging people from making them do their jobs, but them justifying it by saying they're incompetent and nothing will happen?

And before someone screeches that wallyworld has cameras: so do many people now, too. The cops won't do anything even when a tracker like an airtag shows the bike is in a specific house. Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp and other forums are chock full of obvious stolen bike listings and people are easily tracing them to lost-bike posts.

There's a huge encampment under a bridge in my city that is known as the regional bike 'chop shop' where tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of bicycles are being cut up for their parts and the parts sold through fences and the frames et al going out for scrap metal.

The cops do not give a shit.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by piloto_ciego on Sunday May 17, 2026 @07:24PM (#48174053)
They're only there to enforce property rights ultimately.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by ai_critic on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:21PM (#48171661)
That's...exactly what happened with the Boston Tea Party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts

Had France not been willing to subsidize an insurgent campaign to distract the British, it's incredibly likely those Acts would've remained in place for some time.

People who rush to using violence as an answer frequently do not consider the outcome if they've misjudged their opponents' capacity for it.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by linksnapzz on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:43PM (#48171926)
>People who rush to using violence as an answer frequently do not consider the outcome if they've misjudged their opponents' capacity for it.

It's part of the fun of being an internet revolutionary. Eventually, though, most end up thinking things through.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by raincole on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:44PM (#48171175)
Violence is only the answer if you're willing to cost a few thousands (sometimes millions) of lives.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by newAccount2025 on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:50PM (#48171268)
That’s an instant debate winner if we can’t differentiate between breaking cameras and mass death.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by raincole on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:53PM (#48171294)
Yes, breaking cameras never results in positive changes. Mass death sometimes does.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by prepend on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:07PM (#48171498)
I wouldnt call property crime violence.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by tptacek on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:52PM (#48171282)
You could use this Boston Tea Party logic for virtually any violent action no matter how dumb or counterproductive.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by whatshisface on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:53PM (#48171298)
To be fair to the loyalists, a lot of people were making this point at the time. Tally ho, gents.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by tptacek on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:00PM (#48171403)
It's like the "watering the tree of patriotism with the blood of centrists" or whatever the fuck it was. You probably wouldn't want to hang out with the groups of people most likely to deploy these arguments.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by naniwaduni on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:26PM (#48171728)
> Kinda like saying "Throwing the British's tea into Boston harbor will only make us subject to harsher terms."

I mean, that it... quite literally did?

Yeah, you can externalize enforcement of sanctions against you to drag other people into a conflict with you, but I wouldn't suggest getting caught making that argument.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by amazingamazing on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:43PM (#48171173)
So what are you advocating for?
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by zug_zug on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:47PM (#48171208)
For throwing the tea into the harbor.

By the way -- Where do you stand on throwing tea into the harbor? And where do you stand on the legitimacy of publicly discussing throwing tea into the harbor?

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by amazingamazing on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:48PM (#48171221)
Why speak in riddles? Do you want people to destroy the cameras or not?
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by zug_zug on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:59PM (#48172101)
Based on the number of upvotes I'm getting I think it's you who's really struggling to make a point.

I don't think your arguing in good faith and you are getting called out on it by a few people. So you answer first, then I'll answer -- Was the boston tea party justified? Is civil disobedience ever justified? Is breaking the law a good thing sometimes if it's a bad law (e.g. Rosa Parks)?

If you can't answer those then I think you'll have convinced me and the rest of us that you aren't even trying to make a good-faith effort to make a point.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by amazingamazing on Sunday May 17, 2026 @03:13PM (#48172246)
Again this is not the Boston Tea Party or the Civil Rights movement. I also don’t really care about upvotes either. You keep making comparisons with the best instead of explicitly stating your opinion on the topic at hand in the article. Anyway no point of further discourse.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by dandellion on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:07PM (#48171496)
What riddle? I'm not a native English speaker, and it's pretty clear even to me what he's saying.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by pydry on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:57PM (#48171362)
It's not complicated.

They are in favor of public vandalism such as that which was committed by the Boston Tea Party whereas you appear to be suggesting that you are vehemently against it.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by mothballed on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:58PM (#48171368)
What a load of shit. You're essentially goading someone to fedpost and holding their argument hostage if they don't.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by new_account_100 on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:45PM (#48171188)
I feel like you're trying to bait people into saying something that violates the site guidelines.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by prepend on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:08PM (#48171511)
I think its better to lodge displeasure by placing sticky notes instead of destroying. It decreases camera usefulness and I’m not quite sure it’s a crime.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by mrtesthah on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:44PM (#48171184)
Property destruction is not the same crime as battery/assault/etc.

Let’s not call breaking a camera “violence”.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by petre on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:55PM (#48171331)
It's not violence, it's vandalism. Quite diferrent.

But why smash'em when you have the right to bear arms? I'd do target practice instead. Improve your shootong skills while getting rid of surveillance. Win-win.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by NDlurker on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:09PM (#48171517)
Extra charge for using a gun. Slingshot maybe? Or as I said before, just put a bag over the camera. Is that even illegal?
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by pc86 on Sunday May 17, 2026 @03:29PM (#48172407)
There is both a practical and ideological difference between a private person putting a camera on their private property and agreeing to share that data with law enforcement when requested, and government organizations deploying fleets of cameras and collecting troves of data just in case.

The difference is so staggering I have trouble believing anyone who has spent more than about 90 seconds thinking about the issue could believe in good faith that they're in any way comparable. Happy to be proven wrong, though.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by dandellion on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:04PM (#48171461)
That justification is a red herring. The goal is the surveillance, and safety is just an interchangeable excuse. It should be obvious when they'll do things like increasing surveillance to "protect the children" and at the same time avoid other measures that would be far more effective at keeping children safe. The real irony is when it turns out they themselves were the biggest danger for children all along.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by naniwaduni on Sunday May 17, 2026 @02:33PM (#48171803)
It matters because while the choice of excuse doesn't really matter to the surveilling end, they still need to make the excuse with the fig leaf of plausibility. The worse their excuses look, the easier it is for you to convince other people who don't already agree with you that you're right and they're wrong.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by new_account_100 on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:40PM (#48171129)
I'm not destroying anything, and based on the article it looks like they're handing out decent sentences to the people destroying the cameras. Surely no judge would appreciate someone running onto a taxpaying home owner's front porch and destroying their doorbell.

That being said, Ring cameras creep me out and I feel they have a powerful anti-social effect.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by Barbing on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:41PM (#48171145)
Exactly, let your local politicians know the only way they can get your vote is by rejecting Flock.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by whatshisface on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:46PM (#48171203)
What's going on here is that out of 100,000 constituents, three know that Gary's Carpets is licensing the city reservoir as a PFOAs dump, and combined they have $1,000 of advertising reach if in-kind contribution is counted. Meanwhile, Gary's Carpets has a $60k advertising budget annually, donates to all five churches, subcontracts influence operations with bot farms, and attends weekly meetings of the grand lupus lodge.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by Barbing on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:55PM (#48171328)
Great, sad-in-its-truths comment.

How long will it take the three of them to talk with leadership of those churches? Are they allowed to bring up off topic concerns at PTA meetings where they can tell parents to be aware of the bot farms? Did they already knock on some neighbors’ doors?

All of this is really hard and really time-consuming. The alternative is for those three people to start smashing cameras and we know they won’t finish with their freedom. The uphill battle is the one we must fight.

Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by rolph on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:49PM (#48171243)
an irony may come from the increase, of crime rate where these are installed rather than reduction.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by 0n0n0m0uz on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:43PM (#48171165)
Similar but nowhere close to a substitute
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by amazingamazing on Sunday May 17, 2026 @01:44PM (#48171182)
Why not? They can retroactively be used like flock. Amazon could partner with them tomorrow. The police already can and have asked Amazon to footage and correlated it to find people.
Re:At least 25 Flock cameras have been destroyed in five sta... by culi on Sunday May 17, 2026 @06:40PM (#48173805)
It's not valid "private property" if it's spying on the public. Your right to punch ends where my nose begins.

You do not have the right to own and operate something that infringes on my rights.