Wouldn't the democratic way be to petition the mayor or support a mayoral candidate to appoint a police commissioner whose beliefs on surveillance more align with your own?
Seems like destroying public property for political reasons is wrong and would otherwise be considered terrorism. But then again, people suspend reason when it comes to certain topics so I'm not surprised.
Those people throwing tea into the harbor are destroying property for political reason and are wrong and should be considered terrorists.
If they don't like the King's governors they should petition the court to appoint one that more aligns with their taxation desires.
Also, only knaves and fools would be concerned with The Crown's modest regulations for reporting "meta data" on all guilds and meeting-houses.
"Using Metadata to find Paul Revere": https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...
Terrorism requires people to be in terror. Is putting the flock cameras up or taking them down causing more terror?
Or more narrowly, terrorism is the use or threat of violence to influence a political outcome.
Clearly not the case here
The political outcome is that Peter Thiel wants to have full control of all security apparatus around the world. Fighting Flock is 100% a political fight.
When the removal of Flock prevented police from apprehending a kidnapper in Houston, I would consider that pretty terrifying. It's like cutting the brakes of police cars or deflating their tires.
Get a grip man.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/article/...
From what I'm seeing online, it looks like Houston started installing Flock cameras in 2022. How were they investigating kidnapping cases before that?
I'd be astonished if decades of methodology and infrastructure for investigating crime have all completely evaporated in the wake of a new and experimental tool -- one that's neither fully demonstrated its reliability as an investigation tool nor that it does not itself create a threat to public safety.
It's a bit polemical to blame their failure to apprehend their suspect on the lack of an tool that shouldn't have been necessary to apprehend the suspect in the first place, don't you think?
Unless you're an [ex-partner and/or woman seeking an out of state abortion](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/13/flock-saf...). So it's like deflating a police car's tires while the occupant is getting ready to stalk his ex-girlfriend.
> It's like cutting the brakes of police cars or deflating their tires
These two things are decidedly not on the same level. Cutting someone's brakes is an attempt to kill the driver. Deflating tires is just plain old property damage.
Well the government was illegitimate. Is that what you're contending happening here? Are you trying to overthrow the police department or municipal government? How do you feel about Jan 6?
I think the extrajudicial use of these types of surveillance is an illegitimate use of power and thus fine to be destroyed.
If you're against [X] you can destroy property? This isn't an argument. Do you understand why this doesn't work in democracy?
If I'm against police force can I set their cars on fire.
I'm against abortion, so I can set abortion clinics on fire.
I'm against data centers, I can blow them up.
Try harder
The comment you're responding to didn't formulate the argument as "I am against [X], therefore I am justified in destroying property used to do [X]", but is rather closer "[X] is itself illegal and therefore I am justified in potentially destroying property in order to stop imminent lawbreaking".
You can argue the point as to whether this particular "[X]" actually does constitute illegal activity that a citizen is justified in responding to with force, but I don't think it's valid to mischaracterize the argument as the response being justified solely by personal opposition.
Well you can do whatever you want but those are hardly equivalent to destroying a camera.
Of course you can, just you likely won't get any sympathy in the large number of cases where the public or government doesn't agree with you (police, abortion clinics).
In this case looks like the people agree with destroying these things.
Violence is increasingly the only path forward in America.
Apparently >50% of a jury did not agree with you, in this case, and that is one form of democracy we have to make sure decisions come from the consent of the governed. Looks like democracy to me.
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No, the democratic way would have been to have a vote(yes, with the citizenry, not somebody "elected") if you want to allow mass surveillance.
Like they do in Switzerland.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-democracy/how-swiss-direc...
Petition the mayor, you can't be real.
This gives me an idea for a (less il)legal alternative: hang "Big Brother is Watching" signs on all of the Flock cameras. Or maybe we can pass a law saying Flock has to do it. That seems like the ideal compromise.
That's a beautiful fantasy but that's just not how America works at this point. Everyone has ulterior motives to keep the meat grinder running.
> would otherwise be considered terrorism
Watching what everyone does at all times is terrorism, and it is the people's right to defend themselves against such.
> Wouldn't the democratic way be to petition...
This is also the democratic way, arguably more democratic, it's just probabilistic. Juries are supposed to be randomly sampled from the jurisdiction's population (a kind of democratic process). The ability of a jury to judge the law, and not just the particular crime is a feature, not a bug of the justice system. This is how the system is set up, and it is as legitimate as action through a legislative process.
EDIT: the parent asked a legitimate question in good faith, there is no need to downvote them because you disagree with their implied current understanding of an issue.
> Wouldn't the democratic way be to petition the mayor or support a mayoral candidate to appoint a police commissioner whose beliefs on surveillance more align with your own?
Do you believe Flock cameras have been rolled out en masse across the entire country all at once because there is near-unanimous democratic support for their presence?
> Seems like destroying public property for political reasons is wrong and would otherwise be considered terrorism.
"Terrorism," at this point, is just a term used to describe any action taken in opposition to the ruling class and its objectives of total domination & control, assuming that it has some potential to be effective (in contrast to toothless protests or voting).
> Do you believe Flock cameras have been rolled out en masse across the entire country all at once because there is near-unanimous democratic support for their presence?
I'm not sure where you got "near-unanimous" from. I think Flock cameras were rolled out en masse because public video surveillance has been common for a long time, and polling data has historically suggested (e.g. https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/5881-63-accept-video-surve...) that Americans are fine with it.
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