• VoodooMischief@lemmy.ca
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    10 hours ago

    Most of these cameras are traffic cameras. Personally I’m finding it a little gross that people against traffic cameras are putting on an anti-surveillance state image to take them down when in reality curbing aggressive driving is a pretty important part of pedestrianizing and democratizing urban centres. I’ve always had the vague feeling that this Flock camera debate has been hijacked by people who don’t actually care for improving communities.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      The correct way to fix aggressive driving is traffic calming. In other words, making physical changes to the infrastructure, like removing lanes, lane-narrowing, adding speed humps or chicanes, etc.

      As (a) a traffic engineer, (b) a bicycle and pedestrian activist, and (c) a mod of !fuckcars@lemmy.world, I find it downright insulting to be accused of “[not] actually car[ing] for improving communities” just because I also care about not creating a motherfucking totalitarian panoption!

    • stickyprimer@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Honestly everything around here is about cherished narratives.

      But you do create an interesting tension between two cherished narratives:

      1. cars are evil
      2. surveillance cameras are evil

      I think number 2 is just winning out.

    • CubitOom@infosec.pubOP
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      10 hours ago

      A network of “traffic cameras” might include other sensors than a camera.

      The 24/7 monitoring of an intersection outside of an abortion clinic might be used to find women that had an abortion.

      Police and others with access do abuse these systems for personal use with minimal oversight.

      • VoodooMischief@lemmy.ca
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        10 hours ago

        Again, I’m not debating the problems with surveillance for non traffic related issues. However these examples in your video are very clearly traffic cameras. It does not help the issue to carry water for aggressive car driver culture in the guise of being anti-surveillance.

        • valar@lemmy.ca
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          9 hours ago

          You may be misinformed; The flock cameras in this video are not just traffic cameras but in fact are tracking everyone’s location all the time in a national database in a way that violates the 4th amendment.