The link under "would be introducing measures"[1] has the full statement from the councilmember where he describes the proposals he will be bringing:
> A Modest Proposal for Digital Device Prohibition: A total ban on all cellular and GPS-capable devices for all operations within city limits.
> A Modest Proposal for Total Surveillance Abolition (Residential & Commercial): A total ban on all outward-facing cameras
> A Modest Proposal for Total Municipal and Commercial Decommissioning: A total termination of all internet services and electronic record-keeping
For those that didn't catch the reference, he's alluding to the 1729 publication by Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels
>A Modest Proposal For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick.
Which was a satirical work suggesting that the Irish poor's financial woes could be addressed by eating children, thus feeding people while reducing resource demand.
The other day I half-jokingly said I was going to build a site to expose local council members for taking kickbacks and someone said "that isn't happening"
It's literally happening and this story makes it really clear. I wish it was this easy to spot. It's usually Flock donating to some charity a council person is also a board member on
>It's literally happening and this story makes it really clear
A council member "crashing out" (ie. proposing some satirical bills) is "really clear" evidence of kickbacks? Seems like a stretch. At the very least I'd want evidence of some transaction having occurred, rather than "wow you strongly support something I can't possibly imagine anyone would support? You must be getting kickbacks!"
In my opinion that should be enough to get some investigative journalists and private investigators poking around. Assuming investigative journalists are still a thing.
The problem is that this all hinges on what you think reasonable political positions are, and thanks to political polarization, everything on the other side is suspect. You support drilling for oil? You must be in the pocket of big oil! You support solar power? You must be in the pocket of chinese solar manufacturers. You support development? You must be in the pocket of luxury condo developers! You oppose development? You must be in the pocket of landlords!
No, the municipal policy ALPR debate generally does boil down to people who have a principles opposition to technology specialized for surveillance, and other people who believe it's no different from the cell towers that already track you.
Nobody's bribing a councilmember in an 800-person rural township.
> Nobody's bribing a councilmember in an 800-person rural township.
I suspect this happens a lot more often than people assume. It does not take much to bribe people to change their minds based on the publicly known international spy/espionage cases. People will sell out their country for like $5k.
And besides, these days no ones giving straight cash to bribe, it's always via other means that are harder to trace and maybe not even directly monetary (sending them on a vacation, golfing, donations to charity...).
It's weird that people seem to act like lobbying doesn't exist at the city council level.
First Law of Message Boards: bribery is fun to talk about, people just disagreeing about stuff and having little temper tantrums when they lose arguments is boring, ergo: bribery is everywhere.
I guess you never dealt with enterprise sales, lobbying or any of the hundred of ways we legally allow bribes. Or do you only consider it bribery if its illegal and otherwise it's all fine?
Just box office baseball tickets, just a $2k steak dinner with high end wine, just a phone call with the governor, just a gift card, just an advisor position with some equity, etc, etc, etc.
> The First Law: Every forum is always in a state of constant decline.
> All forums start off good, enjoy a "honeymoon period" in which they continue to be good, and then steadily decline... from the point of view of each individual observer...
I think a lot about another comment from a while ago that donated 100 dollars or something to his city. That had his state govenor personally call him to thank him in a 5 minute call.
It's not a bribe, but if a govenor is placing his time @ 1200/hour for an individualized bow of gratitude, I can only imagine how cheap it is for a not good govenor to sell out for his own personal interests.
At the scale these tech trillionaires are working, why not throw a few pennies at some small councilman?
I think that any headline informing you of the goings-on in the city council of Bandera, Texas (population 829) is necessarily sensational. If you don't live in the area, there's no possible value to this content other than confirming preconceived biases.
Having the reporting from the local paper amplified outside the immediate community strengthens the signal, and supports the general norm of holding officials accountable.
"No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main"
Strengthens what signal? The local coverage does not say anything about "crashing out". It states that the council has voted to terminate the contract after an initial approval, in response to public opposition, and publishes a dissenting statement from one of the councilmembers in full.
The author could have amplified that non-sensational article and tied it in with the Youtube clips and other non-sensational articles he found; there's good journalism lurking in here. But instead he wanted to be sensational.
You imply that the population number is the reason we shouldn't care, but then you say explicitly that it's the fact that we don't live there. Both seem nonsensical without further elaboration?
Anecdotes about whether people like Flock cameras are useful. Anecdotes about how one specific guy who likes Flock made an overheated analogy are not useful. The author conflating the two is a dictionary-perfect example of sensationalism.
> Anecdotes about how one specific guy who likes Flock made an overheated analogy are not useful.
You haven't been on social media the last decade, have yoh? We're no longer in times where (if we ever were) of the most eloquent, subtle, balanced argument winning over elected representatives.
Do they not get that surveillance doesn't actually make anything safe? It makes it so you can prosecute after the crime has already been committed. It's not like thieves will go "I was going to rob this 7-11, but damn, they have security cameras inside!" The cameras are there to intimidate. Criminals aren't intimidated by prison time.
To steelman the other side of this - you are basically wrong. One of the strongest deterrants for crime is how likely people think they are to be apprehended. If people were basically certain they would be caught their propensity for crime is low. [1]. Criminals aren't intimidated by prison time you are right but they are intimidated by getting apprehended.
Now I hate the idea of Flock and think we should basically fully ban facial recognition technology, license plate readers, and similar topics. It is just too dangerous if the wrong people get in power. But we should make sure we are making real, fact based arguments.
> One of the strongest deterrants for crime is how likely people think they are to be apprehended.
The strongest deterrent for the general populace.
Generally speaking, crime rates tend to be pretty low already. So the sample shifts from general populace to those who already commit crimes, or in such an emotional fervor that they gain the capacity for crime.
Among that population, I don't think surveillance cameras are stopping much.
I’m sure this is true for a subset but is not universal. I imagine just as big a subset or even the majority of criminals simply think they are smart enough to get away with the crime.
Assume a perfect world where this system resulted in swift capture and high conversion on charges to convictions to the point where it becomes a pop culture fact that petty crime wouldn’t pay anymore. Does the next generation of criminals still believe they won’t get away with it? Or does the criminal population shrink?
Of course people don’t just stop being poor simply because crime is more effectively rooted out, but maybe their efforts would be redirected towards the power structures that allow poverty to continue vs each other, like would be the case if you rob a 7-11 franchise.
The argument about surveillance isn't whether it helps catch criminals (which obviously prevents some further crime), it obviously does. And yes, security cameras make places harder targets for thieves and robbers and criminals are intimidated by prison time. This seems almost axiomatically so to me, not sure what your argument against this could conceivably be.
The argument about surveillance is whether the negative trade-off (lack of privacy) is worth it.
Well, I'd say security cams and Flock affect the likelihood of apprehending a suspect, not so much the amount of prison time, so the argument still holds - you can't claim they won't have an effect.
Since these town council members are elected, I hope this guy has no aspirations of getting elected again, because he basically just showed everyone in his town that he can't be reasonable - that it is either none (no electronics at all) or all (privacy invading stuff like Flock)
I think going on the internet should require an internet driving license. The test to get one would include displaying the ability to tell reality from fantasy.
Doesn't he know you have to be tech-coded to have unhinged takes on the necessity and inevitability of ubiquitous intrusive surveillance and be taken seriously?
This is a story about a Texas muni with less than 900 residents, and a councilmember who is obviously doing a dumb rhetorical thing where he equates ALPRs with all the other devices that track residents (a standard talking point in literally every debate about ALPRs). There's nothing newsworthy here; an insignificantly small muni cancelled their ALPR contract and... nothing happened.
I think it may be useful to send a message to other rookie politicians that there will be blow-back when they have a temper tantrum and threaten to disable the internet. The world if full of these people. Some only become temporary HOA officers but a handful make it past that filter.
Potential removal from office. Exclusion from all the things. Anything else their community has the wherewithal to implement. It's all up to them really. In a way he self reported to the people.
Dismissing the action of local politics is exactly how we fall to the wayside in larger elections. Most politicians start somewhere, and actions like this should be shamed early on.
Secondly, singular emotional appeals work a lot better on convincing a populace than broad statistics. Stories like this will likely be better to push if your goal is changing the mind of the common citizen. People relate more to people than numbers.
The link under "would be introducing measures"[1] has the full statement from the councilmember where he describes the proposals he will be bringing:
> A Modest Proposal for Digital Device Prohibition: A total ban on all cellular and GPS-capable devices for all operations within city limits.
> A Modest Proposal for Total Surveillance Abolition (Residential & Commercial): A total ban on all outward-facing cameras
> A Modest Proposal for Total Municipal and Commercial Decommissioning: A total termination of all internet services and electronic record-keeping
For those that didn't catch the reference, he's alluding to the 1729 publication by Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels
>A Modest Proposal For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick.
Which was a satirical work suggesting that the Irish poor's financial woes could be addressed by eating children, thus feeding people while reducing resource demand.
[1] https://www.banderabulletin.com/article/3093,council-votes-t...
Those first two are great if adopted by and for their local government office.
Third one makes no sense.
I’m guessing he was the local politician who was receiving kickbacks then.
I wish they were all this easy to spot.
The other day I half-jokingly said I was going to build a site to expose local council members for taking kickbacks and someone said "that isn't happening"
It's literally happening and this story makes it really clear. I wish it was this easy to spot. It's usually Flock donating to some charity a council person is also a board member on
>It's literally happening and this story makes it really clear
A council member "crashing out" (ie. proposing some satirical bills) is "really clear" evidence of kickbacks? Seems like a stretch. At the very least I'd want evidence of some transaction having occurred, rather than "wow you strongly support something I can't possibly imagine anyone would support? You must be getting kickbacks!"
In my opinion that should be enough to get some investigative journalists and private investigators poking around. Assuming investigative journalists are still a thing.
The problem is that this all hinges on what you think reasonable political positions are, and thanks to political polarization, everything on the other side is suspect. You support drilling for oil? You must be in the pocket of big oil! You support solar power? You must be in the pocket of chinese solar manufacturers. You support development? You must be in the pocket of luxury condo developers! You oppose development? You must be in the pocket of landlords!
No, the municipal policy ALPR debate generally does boil down to people who have a principles opposition to technology specialized for surveillance, and other people who believe it's no different from the cell towers that already track you.
Nobody's bribing a councilmember in an 800-person rural township.
> Nobody's bribing a councilmember in an 800-person rural township.
I suspect this happens a lot more often than people assume. It does not take much to bribe people to change their minds based on the publicly known international spy/espionage cases. People will sell out their country for like $5k.
And besides, these days no ones giving straight cash to bribe, it's always via other means that are harder to trace and maybe not even directly monetary (sending them on a vacation, golfing, donations to charity...).
It's weird that people seem to act like lobbying doesn't exist at the city council level.
Or even just being their "friend". A little personal attention is often all that's needed to turn an otherwise aloof person into a champion.
I've lived in a small community (pop<1000) and a budget of $5K could turn you into a shadow mayor.
First Law of Message Boards: bribery is fun to talk about, people just disagreeing about stuff and having little temper tantrums when they lose arguments is boring, ergo: bribery is everywhere.
I guess you never dealt with enterprise sales, lobbying or any of the hundred of ways we legally allow bribes. Or do you only consider it bribery if its illegal and otherwise it's all fine?
Just box office baseball tickets, just a $2k steak dinner with high end wine, just a phone call with the governor, just a gift card, just an advisor position with some equity, etc, etc, etc.
> The First Law: Every forum is always in a state of constant decline.
> All forums start off good, enjoy a "honeymoon period" in which they continue to be good, and then steadily decline... from the point of view of each individual observer...
https://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2005/11/20/charles_rules_of_on...
I like this first law better.
Is this also true for organizations? Startup -> large company?
I think a lot about another comment from a while ago that donated 100 dollars or something to his city. That had his state govenor personally call him to thank him in a 5 minute call.
It's not a bribe, but if a govenor is placing his time @ 1200/hour for an individualized bow of gratitude, I can only imagine how cheap it is for a not good govenor to sell out for his own personal interests.
At the scale these tech trillionaires are working, why not throw a few pennies at some small councilman?
"...Flowers said, "I believe personally that guilty people act defensively. If you don't have anything to hide, then it shouldn't be a problem."
Oh boy, back to this crap again. If that's true, for you to be acting this defensively sure is sending some signal.
I was expecting the headline to be sensational but a crash out was exactly what happened. The bad faith non-sequiturs is the cherry on top.
Yeah, it's even worse because the Johnathan Swift reference makes clear just how I Am Very Smart this dude is.
I think that any headline informing you of the goings-on in the city council of Bandera, Texas (population 829) is necessarily sensational. If you don't live in the area, there's no possible value to this content other than confirming preconceived biases.
That's an odd way of viewing it.
Having the reporting from the local paper amplified outside the immediate community strengthens the signal, and supports the general norm of holding officials accountable.
"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main"
Strengthens what signal? The local coverage does not say anything about "crashing out". It states that the council has voted to terminate the contract after an initial approval, in response to public opposition, and publishes a dissenting statement from one of the councilmembers in full.
The author could have amplified that non-sensational article and tied it in with the Youtube clips and other non-sensational articles he found; there's good journalism lurking in here. But instead he wanted to be sensational.
You imply that the population number is the reason we shouldn't care, but then you say explicitly that it's the fact that we don't live there. Both seem nonsensical without further elaboration?
anecdotes about whether people like Flock cameras where they live are kinda useful, I think? maybe it'll inspire other city council votes elsewhere
Anecdotes about whether people like Flock cameras are useful. Anecdotes about how one specific guy who likes Flock made an overheated analogy are not useful. The author conflating the two is a dictionary-perfect example of sensationalism.
> Anecdotes about how one specific guy who likes Flock made an overheated analogy are not useful.
You haven't been on social media the last decade, have yoh? We're no longer in times where (if we ever were) of the most eloquent, subtle, balanced argument winning over elected representatives.
Do they not get that surveillance doesn't actually make anything safe? It makes it so you can prosecute after the crime has already been committed. It's not like thieves will go "I was going to rob this 7-11, but damn, they have security cameras inside!" The cameras are there to intimidate. Criminals aren't intimidated by prison time.
To steelman the other side of this - you are basically wrong. One of the strongest deterrants for crime is how likely people think they are to be apprehended. If people were basically certain they would be caught their propensity for crime is low. [1]. Criminals aren't intimidated by prison time you are right but they are intimidated by getting apprehended.
Now I hate the idea of Flock and think we should basically fully ban facial recognition technology, license plate readers, and similar topics. It is just too dangerous if the wrong people get in power. But we should make sure we are making real, fact based arguments.
[1]. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/670398
More cameras doesn’t necessarily mean more apprehensions and convictions though.
> One of the strongest deterrants for crime is how likely people think they are to be apprehended.
The strongest deterrent for the general populace.
Generally speaking, crime rates tend to be pretty low already. So the sample shifts from general populace to those who already commit crimes, or in such an emotional fervor that they gain the capacity for crime.
Among that population, I don't think surveillance cameras are stopping much.
> Criminals aren't intimidated by prison time.
I’m sure this is true for a subset but is not universal. I imagine just as big a subset or even the majority of criminals simply think they are smart enough to get away with the crime.
Assume a perfect world where this system resulted in swift capture and high conversion on charges to convictions to the point where it becomes a pop culture fact that petty crime wouldn’t pay anymore. Does the next generation of criminals still believe they won’t get away with it? Or does the criminal population shrink?
Of course people don’t just stop being poor simply because crime is more effectively rooted out, but maybe their efforts would be redirected towards the power structures that allow poverty to continue vs each other, like would be the case if you rob a 7-11 franchise.
The argument about surveillance isn't whether it helps catch criminals (which obviously prevents some further crime), it obviously does. And yes, security cameras make places harder targets for thieves and robbers and criminals are intimidated by prison time. This seems almost axiomatically so to me, not sure what your argument against this could conceivably be.
The argument about surveillance is whether the negative trade-off (lack of privacy) is worth it.
I responded to OP but he correct that criminals are not overly concerned by amount of prison time but the act of being apprehended itself https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/670398. Flock is still awful though
Well, I'd say security cams and Flock affect the likelihood of apprehending a suspect, not so much the amount of prison time, so the argument still holds - you can't claim they won't have an effect.
https://archive.is/WGZoe
Since these town council members are elected, I hope this guy has no aspirations of getting elected again, because he basically just showed everyone in his town that he can't be reasonable - that it is either none (no electronics at all) or all (privacy invading stuff like Flock)
It's Texas. Being reasonable is not a prerequisite for winning elections. If anything, it's a handicap.
archived: https://nonogra.ph/after-town-bans-flock-councilmember-crash...
How useful could it be if the poles are vandalized regularly?
Just wanna say I am happy 404media is, presumably, not banned here anymore!
Does not appear to be any more. [1] If I remember correctly dang said that at one point the site required membership to view articles.
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co
I think going on the internet should require an internet driving license. The test to get one would include displaying the ability to tell reality from fantasy.
:) he's not wrong, it is all surveillance
Sounds like it is the ripe time for others to respond earnestly with a GDPR-like proposal for all internet and phone providers :)
Does Texas have open records law for politicians? He's taking this personally, which means he has a personal stake in the outcome.
Probably. https://deflock.org/foia
Doesn't he know you have to be tech-coded to have unhinged takes on the necessity and inevitability of ubiquitous intrusive surveillance and be taken seriously?
This is a story about a Texas muni with less than 900 residents, and a councilmember who is obviously doing a dumb rhetorical thing where he equates ALPRs with all the other devices that track residents (a standard talking point in literally every debate about ALPRs). There's nothing newsworthy here; an insignificantly small muni cancelled their ALPR contract and... nothing happened.
I think it may be useful to send a message to other rookie politicians that there will be blow-back when they have a temper tantrum and threaten to disable the internet. The world if full of these people. Some only become temporary HOA officers but a handful make it past that filter.
What blow-back? He literally can't do any of this and he knows it. Municipalities can't ban cell phones. He's just trolling.
What blow-back?
Potential removal from office. Exclusion from all the things. Anything else their community has the wherewithal to implement. It's all up to them really. In a way he self reported to the people.
Dismissing the action of local politics is exactly how we fall to the wayside in larger elections. Most politicians start somewhere, and actions like this should be shamed early on.
Secondly, singular emotional appeals work a lot better on convincing a populace than broad statistics. Stories like this will likely be better to push if your goal is changing the mind of the common citizen. People relate more to people than numbers.
I do local politics work.