I've yet to hear a convincing connection between driving down a public road and having privacy - in fact, the outside of a registered motor vehicle on a public road is about as non-private as you can expect.
You already have a unique plate tied to the registered owner of the car, and a range of court cases have held you can be stopped, ordered out of the car, questioned (by both police and immigration enforcement), etc.
It's not about your vehicle being seen in public at a single point in time, it's the fact that this system captures everyone's patterns of life. School, doctor, shooting range, church, play, protest. When, when, how often. All tracked and packaged up in a commercial database, without warrant or justification.
If you happened upon me on a public street, I'd say "that I'm here on this street now is not private information".
If you installed sensors across the entire city with 2-5 block resolution and could tell me everywhere I have been in the last 30 days (and hence where I'm liable to be tomorrow), I'd say "you are grossly violating my right to be secure in my person against unreasonable search - this is wrong".
Is the same outrage present for your cell-carrier, credit card issuer, email provider, and the dozen other data-collecting orgs you assumably interact with throughout the day? They've built a more comprehensive pattern of life on you than a few points in the city you may have driven past. All that is subject to search and all of it is being sold now to random people.
The panic over Flock is silly unless you're already living in a hut in the woods, because it's not capturing 5% of what you describe. But, I guarantee your phone provider, Meta, and email provider do know all those things.
> Is the same outrage present for your cell-carrier, credit card issuer, email provider, and the dozen other data-collecting orgs you assumably interact with throughout the day?
Not for the data brokers, advertisers, and employees of the orgs. Every feigned panic because some cop Flock-searched an ex rings a little hollow when you consider the reach and lack of accountability present across the data collection schemes I mentioned.
Yes, same outrage: it’s most of what I’ve worked on for twenty years. But “you’re already surveilled” isn’t a defense of Flock, it’s an argument for less surveillance everywhere.
Volume isn’t the distinction that matters, who holds the data and what is possible as a result is. Meta can sell my movements to an advertiser. It can’t pull me over, detain
me unjustly, or hand my neighbor over to ICE. With Flock, police aren’t a downstream buyer; they’re the direct customer.
And “you already gave it away” is no longer good law. Chatrie v. United States (2026): Chatrie had opted into Google Location History, and the Court still held that disclosure to a third party doesn’t forfeit your Fourth Amendment interest.
Worth noting where we started, though. Two comments ago there was no plausible connection between public roads and privacy. Now there’s one, it’s just smaller than Meta’s. I'm really glad you have had this anparently eye opening moment here on HN.
I never said that there was a plausible connection between public roads and privacy - I still maintain it’s the most clear cut example of a public place without an expectation of privacy imaginable. Unfortunately your eyes weren’t open enough to see that from previous comments.
Nice to see we got to what this really was though: not a genuine privacy concern, but an “Orange Man Bad” concern because ICE could use Flock to deport illegal immigrants.
Doctor, church, shooting range, protest. ICE was one item on a list. Build the infrastructure and it stays built for whoever’s in charge next.
Trying to discredit my substance based on a single of many examples tells me you're not arguing authentically here, nor elsewhere in this thread. We are failing to be productive past this point.
1. I don't think Texas was around during the Tea Party, and
2. Property is also a right, so this is just about how much privacy you are willing to sacrifice for how much property.
You already have a unique plate tied to the registered owner of the car, and a range of court cases have held you can be stopped, ordered out of the car, questioned (by both police and immigration enforcement), etc.
If you happened upon me on a public street, I'd say "that I'm here on this street now is not private information".
If you installed sensors across the entire city with 2-5 block resolution and could tell me everywhere I have been in the last 30 days (and hence where I'm liable to be tomorrow), I'd say "you are grossly violating my right to be secure in my person against unreasonable search - this is wrong".
The panic over Flock is silly unless you're already living in a hut in the woods, because it's not capturing 5% of what you describe. But, I guarantee your phone provider, Meta, and email provider do know all those things.
All of these require a search warrant.
Volume isn’t the distinction that matters, who holds the data and what is possible as a result is. Meta can sell my movements to an advertiser. It can’t pull me over, detain me unjustly, or hand my neighbor over to ICE. With Flock, police aren’t a downstream buyer; they’re the direct customer.
And “you already gave it away” is no longer good law. Chatrie v. United States (2026): Chatrie had opted into Google Location History, and the Court still held that disclosure to a third party doesn’t forfeit your Fourth Amendment interest.
Worth noting where we started, though. Two comments ago there was no plausible connection between public roads and privacy. Now there’s one, it’s just smaller than Meta’s. I'm really glad you have had this anparently eye opening moment here on HN.
Nice to see we got to what this really was though: not a genuine privacy concern, but an “Orange Man Bad” concern because ICE could use Flock to deport illegal immigrants.
Trying to discredit my substance based on a single of many examples tells me you're not arguing authentically here, nor elsewhere in this thread. We are failing to be productive past this point.