I have gotten in arguments about these Flock cameras, because people will use the "if you're not doing anything wrong you got nothing to worry about" defense.
Basically the entire point of the fourth Amendment (and sort of the Bill of Right as a whole) seems to be based on the assumption that we cannot trust the government to not abuse its power, so we purposefully limit its power. At least that's the impression I got, IANAL disclaimer I guess.
If we cannot safely assume that every cop is above-board, which we obviously cannot, then it's trivial to come up with cases of "if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear" defense. A bad cop could use Flock to stalk an ex-girlfriend. A bad cop could find some unsavory-but-not-illegal behavior from a politician (e.g. visiting a porn shop) and blackmail them. A bad cop could, as demonstrated by this article, simply use a Flock camera to harass someone they don't like.
I didn't think this was a controversial opinion, but I do see a lot of Flock/mass-surveillance defenders so I guess it is.
Even cops that are well intended, that most people would call good, are hopelessly under trained regarding civil rights. A lot of have them have delusions of being some kind of detective and being clever about deceiving you into giving up your rights. Then they become belligerent if you don't play along.
>because people will use the "if you're not doing anything wrong you got nothing to worry about" defense.
The cop using the cameras to stalk his ex girlfriend really should have put an end to such argument. No, survellillance via an unregulated, private company that any "law environment" can access on a whim was never going to end well.
Basically the entire point of the fourth Amendment (and sort of the Bill of Right as a whole) seems to be based on the assumption that we cannot trust the government to not abuse its power, so we purposefully limit its power. At least that's the impression I got, IANAL disclaimer I guess.
If we cannot safely assume that every cop is above-board, which we obviously cannot, then it's trivial to come up with cases of "if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear" defense. A bad cop could use Flock to stalk an ex-girlfriend. A bad cop could find some unsavory-but-not-illegal behavior from a politician (e.g. visiting a porn shop) and blackmail them. A bad cop could, as demonstrated by this article, simply use a Flock camera to harass someone they don't like.
I didn't think this was a controversial opinion, but I do see a lot of Flock/mass-surveillance defenders so I guess it is.