Grand jury declines to indict Ohio man charged with destroying Flock camera

superkuh

This is only fair play given the cities and DAs around the country have refused to indict or prosecute Flock surveillance when they break the law.

buellerbueller

Good. Let the techbros understand we don't want a surveillance state.

recursivedoubts

Jury nullification ain't sounding so bad anymore, is it?

aizk

This reads like a newspaper snippet you discover in a cyberpunk video game.

lenerdenator

>The backlash against Flock has intensified as a growing number of police officers have been accused of or charged with abusing the technology, often to stalk romantic interests. As of Aug. 12, there had been more than 100 cases of abuse by law enforcement, according to the Institute for Justice. In response, Flock announced new safeguards designed to prevent misuse by police. Critics, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argue that the reforms are largely “cosmetic,” and that warrants should be required for searching license plate reader data. I'll go further: the gathering of such information should only be allowable by a sworn law enforcement officer acting under a warrant or some other sort of judicial permission during an active investigation. Flock and Axon are private companies. What's to stop them from selling this license plate data to the police or to other parties to pad their quarterly numbers? Actually, I'd be surprised if they're not already doing this. A friend of mine is in the camera business and was wondering how the hell they're making the money they're making off of local and state government contracts.

josefritzishere

This is true patriotism.

SoftTalker

Why would a simple vandalism charge go to a grand jury?

throwfaraway135

Life is considered the highest value in the west. So let me ask you this. Is the life of a person less worth than your privacy?

seethishat

Property damage is a crime. I don't object to Flock cameras or any other public cameras. But if I did, I would write to my congress person rather than commit a crime and destroy someone's property.

dredmorbius

This is not a jury nullification (which is an emergent property of US Constitutional double-jeopardy protections), but a failure to indict , that is to bring criminal charges (a "bill of indictment") for potential criminal conduct. In this instance, the case has been dismissed, but might conceivably be brought again. Why grand juries make the decisions they do is hard to determine, as their operations are (usually) secret. This may have simply been a case of insufficient evidence of a crime, or identity of the suspect ("probable cause"), as appealing as a broader backlash theory might be. Much of this article appears to be either speculation or unsourced information if there was in fact resistance to bringing a Flock case by this grand jury. The latter might indicate a violation of secrecy oaths by jury members or other court officers. Specific practices vary by state, not all of which use grand juries. All federal criminal cases rely on a grand jury. < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_juries_in_the_United_Sta... >

pluralmonad

Sad to see how quickly the narrative has been pushed from "you should not collect this data" to a bunch of "we need common sense guardrails" comments.

VikingCoder

I got my catalytic converter stolen twice. I hear Flock cameras have even more valuable materials inside them.

ratelimitsteve

The state will try again until they get the result that they have determined is correct.

fHr

I'm more pro surveillance and think a lot of people missbehaving in public need it nowadays. But even I think this Flock Quasistasi mass sutveillance stuff is going way to far. It's hard to say I love security but also privacy and the abuse potential or risks are huge as well. I'm torn.

segmondy

I have thought that the thing for folks to do instead of destroying these cameras is to just put a black trash bag on it.

forgotusername6

To me this is strange. In the UK I'm so used to ANPR I just assumed my car is tracked wherever I go. There were a few incidents when the automatic speed cameras first came out, filling them with expanding foam so they exploded etc but even those died out after a while.

NoImmatureAdHom

In addition to making it abundantly clear that we will not stand for a techno-Stasi, we need to remember to vote out the buffoons responsible for this too.

openasocket

For those that don't know, grand juries declining an indictment is extremely rare. A grand jury is basically a check on prosecution, that they have to have some initial evidence before charging someone with a felony. The standards are much lower than the subsequent criminal proceedings. The grand jury only hears from the prosecution, there is no defense involved. Only a majority of the grand jury has to sign off, not unanimous like in an actual trial. The standard of evidence is just probable cause, not beyond a reasonable doubt. The rules of evidence are relaxed, meaning hearsay and other evidence can potentially be introduced that would normally be barred from a trial. Because of the above, the rate of indictment from a grand jury is very high, over 90%. Most prosecutors will go their entire careers without getting a "no true bill" (meaning the grand jury did not sign off on an indictment). There's a saying that "a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich." So the fact that there was no indictment here is a big deal. It will probably hurt that prosecutor's career.

dramm

I want to buy Cody Morelock a fancy ham sandwich.

huslage

Flock should be killed. Axon should be killed. Neither are useful to society in any way.