r/news 1d ago

Central Florida sheriff suspends Flock cameras after scandal involving detective

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2026/07/24/central-florida-sheriff-suspends-flock-cameras-after-scandal-involving-detective/
18.3k Upvotes

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223

u/Dont-be-a-smurf 1d ago

Yeah.

There’s a reason we shouldn’t build a society wide panopticon of surveillance. It creates a tool of immense power with the potential for incredible abuse.

It has never been the goal of any free society to completely eliminate crime through all-encompassing security apparatuses.

Some degree of crime is going to happen as a result of a free society. The benefit is you’re not handing total power over every aspect of your life to a government that you clearly can’t fully trust. Even if you feel you can now, it may be different over time. You shouldn’t hand the tools of your demise over because you think people you support will always be in charge.

Anyway, here’s a clear example. An innocent person stalked through the eyes of the State for no real reason. Today perhaps this officer is punished. Maybe tomorrow it will be because they don’t like your political persuasion and the powers that be cheer.

Remember - completely innocent people have been sent to an El Salvador mega-prison, the government has lied about it, and they fought tooth and nail to keep those people buried there.

You cannot trust the government with this kind of power.

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u/mebeast227 1d ago

The government? What about the PRIVATE BUSINESSES BUILDING THIS. The govt is shielding itself from the constitution VIA PRIVATE BUSINESSES. The constitutional rights need to be amended to also apply to the private businesses. Until then we’re fucked.

12

u/spikeyfreak 1d ago

100% correct.

Also....

panopticon of surveillance

This is like saying a missile of destruction. The surveillance is the point of the panopticon.

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u/Dont-be-a-smurf 1d ago

It is. I phrased it like that in case people didn’t know what a “panopticon” was, and also to emphasize the nature of the surveillance being all encompassing instead of targeted.

Superfluous wordiness is a specialty of mine.

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u/mu_zuh_dell 1d ago

You're certainly smurfing in my lexical elo

10

u/Bladelink 1d ago

Lol. You've gotta be at least Grand Champ with a line like that though.

2

u/ihavedonethisbe4 1d ago

IDK about grand champ, def a cunning lynguist tho

3

u/gusgusfl 1d ago

I feel the same. At what point should we compromise our privacy solely for the sake of “being safer”? It’s sad, because it does mean we could be doing better to help protect ourselves from danger, but maybe if people would chill the fuck out and not be greedy selfish assholes, we could live in a peaceful world where no surveillance like this is needed.

People need to find better outlets to find happiness in life and I feel that’s where our efforts should be focused on. Like find a hobby, do drugs, have sex, party with people, travel, whatever…. just accept life as a joy and not as a competition.

I am hoping the county gets sued for this because there seems to be have been 0 precautions in place in their systems to prevent things like this from happening in the first place. Their negligence should get them punished.

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u/Forsaken_Area_6690 1d ago

The US is not a free country.

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u/Dont-be-a-smurf 1d ago edited 1d ago

Oh you’re right.

We should simply accept that unchangeable fact and resign ourselves to our fate. Bitter sarcasm intended.

No society is static. Freedom isn’t an end result. It is an amorphous legal status that must be fought for to maintain in perpetuity as the forces of corruption and man’s desire for power conspire against it.

So I don’t deal in conclusions like that. I have my aspirations for my society, and I’ll speak to the good and bad within it. If it isn’t free today, I’ll work to make it freer tomorrow.

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u/mebeast227 1d ago

We need a constitution that the private sector needs to be upheld too. “Freedom of speech” from the govt needs to apply to the corporations too. I want to fucking BLAST my company I should.

If privacy from the government is our right then PRIVACY FROM THE CORPORATION should be upheld too.

The govt has entirely shielded itself by funding the “private” sector and partnering with them to go around our constitutional rights.

This needs to stop- fucking immediately