Flock CEO: If you want a crime-free society, be ready to give up your privacy

Commenters pushed back hard against the Flock CEO’s claim that a crime-free society requires surrendering privacy. datahack rejected the tradeoff as unacceptable and noted violent crime recently fell, while joshAg said he prefers spending government resources elsewhere rather than chasing zero crime. xtajv invoked the Fourth Amendment and fnordpiglet observed that privacy has already been eroded without delivering a crime-free utopia. AngryData argued Flock won’t address common problems like wage theft, and m463 pointed to cultural differences - citing Japan’s low-crime norms - rather than pervasive surveillance as the cause. bdangubic and others offered sarcastic takes on the surveillance-for-safety logic.

Debate split sharply over implementation versus principle. jesterson and silverFork said the real issue is who controls and accesses the data, proposing public ownership, uniform collection, and strict access criteria, while Woodi and frankvdwaal warned oversight systems can be perverted and invoked historical warnings about liberty. al_borland and Dezvous insisted on fixing the justice system and root causes - locking up repeat offenders or addressing social drivers - rather than relying on cameras. The divide boiled down to whether expanded, tightly governed surveillance is an acceptable tool for safety (as a few suggested) or an intolerable surrender of liberty that won’t solve underlying problems (as many others argued).