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.
The state can benefit when it has particular kinds of corruption, but not all kinds of corruption.
If you look at the success rate of prosecutors getting grand juries to indict, it's certainly not "just as likely".
It might not fit the textbook definition of jury nullification, but it would absolutely fit the spirit of the definition.
If the prosecution presents nearly irrefutable proof that the Ohio man destroyed the camera (Which from what I've heard is the case), but the grand jury declined to indict anyway because they're vehemently against Flock cameras and want to stick it to the government, then as far as I'm concerned, that's nullification.
Edit: to be clear, the essential quality of nullification is that it’s the product of a contradiction between two unassailable principles in our legal system. Without that contradiction, which does not exist in a grand jury context, a juror’s decision is not nullifying. It’s just a decision.
A web search comes up with articles saying that it's more common with non-grand juries, but that's not the same as "cannot do it", while they also speak about a prosecutor's ability to re-indict, but that still doesn't guarantee them a charge.
With a grand jury, the second term doesn’t apply: the grand jury’s decision doesn’t prevent a second indictment.
So in other words: grand juries can choose to render “faithless” decisions, but they can’t nullify a case in the sense that matters.
It's good to see individuals on a jury acting according to rational self-interest.
He is a retired New York judge, ultimately chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals.
And still living at 96.
He was a republican. He wanted to stop using grand juries to bring indictments, so he wasn’t impartial in his assessment.
Unrelatedly, he had an affair with a republican fund-raiser. When it ended, started making threats to kidnap her daughter, who was 14 at the time. He sent a sexually explicit note to the daughter, enclosing a condom.
He got a 15-month prison sentence.
This is who republicans are quoting whenever they repeat the phrase that “you can indict a ham sandwich”.
The real force behind the low no-true-bill rate for federal grand juries is that the DoJ had extraordinarily high standards for themselves before they even approached a GJ. They had to believe they could convict and sustain on appeal. They haven’t lived up to those standards for a couple years now.
> This is who republicans are quoting whenever they repeat the phrase that “you can indict a ham sandwich”.
Frankly, I've seen all types of people use this quote, not just Republicans, which is a simple statement that there is a very low bar to indict in a grand jury proceeding, which any reasonable assessment of the statistics would deem true. The fact that the originator of the quote turned out to be a douchebag is totally irrelevant.
Also, I think this part is missing a very important step:
> The real force behind the low no-true-bill rate for federal grand juries is that the DoJ had extraordinarily high standards for themselves before they even approached a GJ. They had to believe they could convict and sustain on appeal.
While that may explain the very high conviction rate at trial, getting a grand jury indictment was also an excellent way for prosecutors to get a plea deal if the accused was looking at decades in jail even if the "beyond a reasonable doubt" threshold would be unlikely to be met.
He was born in 1930, though, so it's hard to say that he shares much in common with the ideology we call republican today.
That quote is completely spot on, so any objection to it is worthy of asking why so. The problem with that is that it's not likely to have a satisfactory answer.
At its core, government is power over people, and the evergreen question is "how far should that power go, and who wields that power?"
I believe that there are reasonable concerns on "both sides" about that, but the reality is that power is effectively wielded by the wealthy. Democracy is an experiment that ostensibly runs counter to that.
I saw mention of the peccadillo, but wasn't aware of the full back-story.
Do you think that only Republicans say this or something?
And Democrats were the party of slavery. Why do you bring this up? I'd think the Hackernews crowd would know history and wouldn't be surprised that on a long enough time line, philosophies change.
The point was that OP was making a rage-bait statement. HN is supposed to be better than that.
(Cop-City activist arrested for failure to provide smartphone data in a customs search.)
Can you say more about this? I’m curious about what the career path looks like for these prosecutors and where the decision points are for their career progression.
Great comment with some good information.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/us/politics/trump-sandwic...
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/07/trump-grand-juries-...
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.
If they don't like the King's governors they should petition the court to appoint one that more aligns with their taxation desires.
"Using Metadata to find Paul Revere": https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...
Clearly not the case here
When the jury of your peers decides that you should not be punished for something despite the law stating otherwise, it is a powerful statement. There's a reason why the judicial system is set up to allow this.
> Are you trying to overthrow the police department or municipal government?
The people in the US are not there yet. But you might want to recall JFK's words: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Take a look at what's happening in the US, think about it for a while, and then come back and tell everyone whether you think the people are being properly represented by their government and served by their public servants.
> How do you feel about Jan 6?
I feel that Jan 6 is one of the watershed moments that led us to where we are now. The fact that those responsible weren't punished was a clear signal that the rule of law was being abandoned.
You're behaving like the relationship between the government and the people is symmetrical. It's not. When the government stops obeying its own laws, people take notice.
Like they do in Switzerland.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-democracy/how-swiss-direc...
Petition the mayor, you can't be real.
Watching what everyone does at all times is terrorism, and it is the people's right to defend themselves against such.
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.
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).
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.
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...>
To add to this, it stood out to me that the headline uses "destroy" but the article uses "disassemble" to describe what happened. Not that the act of calmly dissasembling something couldn't be indicted as potentially criminal (if a ham sandwich can be), but it stands out regardless. Maybe he literally just walked up and started unscrewing things. That would be the most civil form of "vandalism" I can imagine; force them to (pay someone to) come set it up again until they give up or try something else.
[1] "Investigators alleged Morelock removed bolts securing the camera system, bringing down the camera, solar panel and support pole before destroying the equipment." https://local12.com/news/local/felony-charges-dismissed-agai...
Why do you doubt this? If I calmly disassemble your car in the middle of the night, haven't I committed a crime?
Where I live, calmly disassembling property that is't yours is, at minimum, vandalism: https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-28-03/
> A person commits an offense if, without the effective consent of the owner . . . he intentionally or knowingly tampers with the tangible property of the owner and causes . . . substantial inconvenience to the owner or a third person . . . .
My guess is the cost to remedy this disassembly is over $2,500, making this a felony. Even if not, if a government Flock camera is considered a "public service" then it's a felony no matter the cost to remedy because it falls under "causes wholly or partly impairment or interruption of property used for . . . public communications, public transportation, [] or other public service . . ."
Flock owns the devices and leases them out I think. Hypothetically somebody could take the device down and put it in a nice tidy little box for them. Then the cost to remedy is… how much they charge the town to send a person out to put it back up? Or how much it costs them internally to send somebody out to put it back up?
If it is the latter, I guess it must just be somebody’s travel costs and wages (could be figured out like any contractor).
If it is the former, does that have to be the same cost they always charge to send out maintenance people? (Since a disassembled, not destroyed camera should be one of the cheapest issues to deal with, right?). Otherwise it seems like they could exploit the law by specifically “charging” enough to make it a felony whenever they suspect tampering.
What do any of these words have to do with a person disassembling a camera in a surveillance dragnet?
Because words mean things, and precision matters.
An actual jury nullification cannot be appealed, and the accused gets to go scot-free forever in that jurisdiction, even to prosecutor's chagrin. In this case, the prosecutor could gather another grand jury and try again, at any time, without restriction, if they so choose.
But yes, a clear and accurate description, thank you.
That is a wholly different definition than jury nullification, where one or more members of the jury return a "not guilty" verdict because they reject the law or its application irrespective of the defendant's guilt.
The standard of proof differs. A GJ is not required to find a defendant guilty; instead, they must determine whether there is sufficient evidence to suggest the possibility of a crime. The subsequent proceedings will then determine the outcome.
I very recently sat on a jury for a criminal trial in which we found not guilty. After my service ended, I looked up the case docket and found several details that pushed my personal analysis to the defendant likely having committed the alleged offense in my personal balance-of-probabilities reasoning framework. But the evidence and arguments presented at the case were so lacking (due to those details having been excluded in limine, as well as needing to meet the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt) that we jurors deliberated for all of five minutes because we had started off in unanimous agreement of not guilty.
(and just in case it's not clear, I have no regrets about that! Even knowing what I know now, I would have chosen not guilty - the government simply didn't meet the burden of proof, and our civil liberties are important)
Getting back to this case. If we take it as a given that grand juries readily indict as the bar is low and prosecutors generally make sure to have their ducks in a row, we are still left with multiple possibilities of how politics might be involved here. Which is more likely - that the prosecution presented a well-substantiated argument that the jury then completely disregarded (ie "nullification"), or that prosecutors were politically encouraged to press this despite glaring holes in their case?
I admire the principled stance, genuinely, but I’m curious if your stance would be the same if someone was on trial for murdering a child, or something else horrific, and probably has a high likelihood of being a repeat offender. Would you still vote not guilty to protect their civil liberties, if you had information not shared with the jury that removed your reasonable doubt?
FWIW, I’m genuinely not sure what I’d do in that situation…
That is a different scenario to what was described by the person you replied to, no?
And if one were to get that information the way you describe, that is surely jury tampering. That should be reported.
I don't know, right? This was a case where the harm didn't go beyond property damage. I hope to never have to find out - whether after or during a trial! There are obviously limits to how principled/logical/rational/detached any given person can be.
I remain skeptical.
Proportional representation would be catastrophically worse than the status quo.
This framing makes it seem like the candidates are identically terrible. Which is never the case.
This “both sides” nonsense is not particularly convincing when one party literally has masked goons on the street sending people extrajudicially to concentration camps.
Of course, media and the candidates themselves will use propaganda to manipulate your priorities.
Right-wing media has done a great job convincing people that the greatest threat to them are trans women in women's sports and illegal immigrants.
The Flock(tm) cameras are very conspicuous. Even the dullest among us can see these engineering senior-design contraptions ruining the most rural landscapes. You don't have to read EFF press releases or read interviews with Snowden to understand what is happening. It was a baffling miscalculation not to anticipate this backlash happening.
It's not just "conservatives" who are behind this. The Clinton and Obama administrations did their best to undermine our right to privacy at every step and turn, just as the others have.
At the same time, our security state apparatus is in a full-force China panic; they've failed to offer a better social contract. We are the ones actually getting a social credit system, without getting anything in return.
From TFA: "A Clermont County grand jury, however, opted not to indict..."
I hear Flock cameras have even more valuable materials inside them.
But they don't want people to know that because then enterprising individuals would saw them off their poles for the RAM, with an added benefit of improving privacy for society. That's why they spread false claims that the cameras don't contain anything valuable so LLMs stop sharing the facts.
Which?
Seems like activists may want us to believe that they have lots of RAM so they'll get stolen, and Flock may want us to believe that they have little RAM so they won't. Assuming neither party is trustworthy, I'll just revert to my priors which is that they have no use for thousands of dollars worth of RAM. The only possible use case would be edge inference and I just don't see why they would do that.
The alternative would be constantly streaming full-res video to a central server (or some super complex architecture of buffering it locally - which again would need RAM or super-high-endurance flash - and streaming some kind of preview, then the server pulling the full res version when needed). Any blip in network connectivity would cause data loss.
Uncompressed 4k video at 30 fps is 3840x2160x30x3 bytes or 0.75 GB per second.
Shh, no need to ruin the fun.
However, per Wikipedia, "Beginning in late 2025, legal observers documented a marked increase in no-bill decisions in federal cases, particularly in matters arising from protest-related activity."
However that doesn't explain Ohio doing it as neatly, unless I've missed some local politics there.
2 - Trump has propensity to sue or charge anything that moves. "Boy who cried wolf" problem. See also: arresting people for taking peeling paint out of the reflecting pool, even when his own DoJ says it was a botched installation.
- 0 to $999: misdemeanor
- 1K: 5th-degree felony
- 7.5K-150K: 4th-degree felony
- 150K+: 3th-degree felony
But what I found interesting is - They aren't automatically inflation adjusted, it has to be manually adjusted by legislation. Which hasn't been done since 2011 meaning that in 2026 terms it would be $1.5K~ for a 5th-degree felony for like-for-like level of damage.
Kind of nuts how a poorly written law can increase the number of felonies just due to inflation alone. Although a lot of things aren't automatically inflation adjusted (e.g. minimum wage), and I think commonly it is on purpose rather than an accident. They WANT harsher sentences for relative low crimes.
You know what is, though?
The annual budget a senator is allocated for furniture in their office. This year it’s $40,000.
Priorities.
And even if it WAS and will only ever be an ALPR, I'm incredulous that people would accept it.
Even a simple stop sign is hundreds of dollars when you consider all the costs associated with its installation.
$500 for one of the best [that I know of] consumer LPR cameras. Non-consumer versions go for thousands.
https://deflockilm.org/what-flock-cameras-can-actually-do/
PS and besides, it would be leaving money on the table if any of these camera vendors were not attempting to sell any identifiable emissions correlated to license plates: that would be a valuable data set.
I’m also going to guess that there are significant access controls on the systems in the UK that would prevent things like tracking an ex, or cops using ALPR to see if you have visited a healthcare facility that offers abortions among its other services (both real examples).
Automated speed cameras are fairly common in the US but are obviously not a surveillance network.
Two, they're pointed exclusively at roads.
Three, their outputs don't show up in court cases as evidence, which itself dramatically reduces the danger (even if they potentially could maybe support parallel construction)
Speed and stop cameras are very very good and should be virtually everywhere with extremely strict control on their outputs.
In any case, an evidence modality that can only be used via parallel construction is still far, far, far less risky than one that can be freely introduced in court.
Now I just struggle to understand the naïveté in general.
> A Clermont County grand jury, however, opted not to indict Morelock, and the charges were dismissed.
Is he getting the bond back?
If you do something that violates the terms of your bond, the prosecution can file a motion alleging a violation, at which point the defendedant can admit to the violation or deny and request a hearing. Then there's an evidentiary hearing, basically a mini-trial, where the judge hears evidence and determines if there was a violation. If that happens, the consequences can depend. You can forfeit your bond, your bond can be raised, new bond conditions can be imposed, etc.
If you were given a cash bond and can't afford it, you can contract with a bail bondsman. That bail bondsman will pay the bail for you, and in some sense takes responsibility for you not violating your bond, in exchange for some fee (usually 10% of the bond amount). That amount is NOT refunded
That's still a better deal for the bondsman, but it's also reasonable. If you don't show up for court, it doesn't seem likely that you'll show up to deposit the other 70%... But if you don't show up for court, the bondsman probably hasn't left, and they will be available to pay the rest of the bail amount.
Of course, most bond contracts say that the bondsman can begin civil recovery against you for that full amount too.
Multiple states have no insurance requirements for either the writing of the bond, or the recovery of a fugitive, and more states beyond that have no credentialing or training or licensing requirements for recovery agents.
The cost of putting a trash bag over a camera that is in your local community is likely to be significantly lower than the cost of whomever installed it having to drive all the way back out there to remove it. You might only have to walk 100-200 feet with a step ladder.
At some point, the cost can be pushed from an economic regime to a logistical one.
The civil claim by Flock only exists for them to recoup their losses.
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.
The Los Angeles Police Department annual budget is over $2 billion. A couple million a year to flock is a drop in the bucket.
The contract awards are public no? Axon et al probably make the majority of their money on service charges for storing, accessing the data rather than on the cameras themselves.
I'd be interested to see what the op ex is for a company running this sort of business. You're storing lots of video, which isn't exactly cheap, and need to do so in a way that allows for cataloging, backup, and durable references to the data. On top of that, these cameras are transmitting data in a way that doesn't have a huge antenna sticking off of them, so there's almost certainly some sort of data plan to work with Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile in play, transmitting some sort of video data over the network, either as a file transfer or streaming depending on the use case. That's another expense.
For every big city that's signing one of these contracts, there are probably a dozen small towns or villages also signing one with significantly more pressure on the government to keep budgets small. I suppose the big cities could be subsidizing the small towns.
To answer the unasked question here, their business model is indeed making money off of collecting and storing the data, then granting law enforcement access to it. The gross P&L from the cameras themselves is an afterthought.
Anyone can put up anything on YouTube. Have a good example?
You have to admit, the precedent for them being a company that understands the sensitivity of this data has not been set.
The what if conspiracy serves no purpose in dethroning Flock.
We have already seen that data is a highly valuable currency. And investor-backed companies with unicorn valuations are pressured to extract as much value as they can. All things considered, I would say that Flock continuing to monetize access to their collected data in new ways is a foregone conclusion unless it is specifically stopped or prohibited in some way. On top of that, I would wager that it may be already happening in some low-volume ways.
Maybe Flock gets bought by another company and "oops, the terms changed". Maybe all contract renewals will have commercial use in the language.
Once the cameras are there, the heavy lifting (from Flock's side) has been done.
In California, it's thought that only 9% of data brokers are compliant with state laws requiring transparency and deletion of personal data.[0] It only goes down from there; most states do not have strong consumer privacy laws.
Furthermore, most municipal entities are not in a position to litigate a case over these changes for an extended period of time, and Flock is changing their terms to make it harder to terminate contracts. They can also now keep the data as long as they'd like. [1]
This, along with general corporate conduct these days, makes it very likely that they're actively planning to sell the data and might be doing so already in.
[0] https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/08/companies-buy-sell...
[1] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c...
So far as I can tell from my little corner of Healthcare IT, Big Tech primarily has people doing two things:
1) creating ways to get people to generate data
2) people sitting around consulting with experts - including lawyers - about how to monetize that data.
Just a week or two ago, a jury found Meta liable for breaking New Mexico state consumer protection laws related to, among other things, child safety. They were ordered to pay $375 million over it. They'll appeal, of course [0] but this points to at least one part of the industry blatantly disregarding laws around their products in order to pursue more profits.
You can bet there's at least one person at Flock and Axon thinking of ways to further monetize their data. They might be willing to accept the cost of a fine or civil action as a part of doing business unless it wipes out all profit gained from the violation.
Given that this is a mass surveillance tool, I'd say its on them to prove they're complying with society's expectations, not for society to just accept "we're in compliance with the law".
[0] https://abcnews.com/GMA/Family/meta-hit-375-million-verdict-...
> Sale of data. Flock’s previous T&C stated flatly, “Flock does not own and shall not sell Customer Data.” That language is now absent from their T&C.
[0] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c...
Motorola does!
If you're a private repo-man you too can also buy Vigilant Solutions (now Motorola) ALPR cameras to track down deadbeats and take their cars.
Note the list of "Trusted by Fortune 500 data-driven companies" there. All of them are sub-prime lenders and cater to the 24.99% APR marketplace.
Even funnier they now sell the bodycams over through DRN too to the repo guys. https://drndata.com/body-worn-camera/
A typical flock agreement is pretty firm that the data is the customers. Some of it might be used for training. There is opt-in to share with other law enforcement but I have not yet seen anything around commercial use.
I don’t think much padding is necessary. It’s a metal pole with a cheap camera and SIM card. They charge $3-5k a year per camera. The only upfront cost is a local contractor to install the camera, they typically have one that covers a very large region. Huge margins with that alone.
You're right that Flock explicitly -- and repeatedly -- states that agencies "own" the data. They make those statements not just in their contract but also in their marketing materials, in interviews with city councilors, and to the press.
But that could also be seen as a fig leaf for their actual control over the data, and as a disclaimer of liability. They've wanted to have it both ways: they get to own every endpoint that the data flows through, and at no time does the supposed customer have real control over the collected data, and yet they aren't responsible for the content or consequences of collecting, transporting, and storing that data.
Customers do not even control whether the devices are powered on or off. Two cities here had to ask Flock to disable the devices while the cities reconsidered their contract, and in both cases some devices got reactivated without the cities' permission. We aren't the only ones.
Flock has also been incredibly dishonest about their object detection. They repeatedly made statements that it was "just the rear corner of vehicles" or "just a license plate", but when we (legally) acquired some of their devices for analysis, we found hardcoded tags for multiple other objects, including people and bicycles. Flock's "FreeForm" product marketing further supports that they are collecting images of people, and internal training materials from our local police department also supports the belief that Flock is uploading far more than just images of vehicles and license plates.
So, my question would be: if you don't control the devices, and you don't own the network, and you don't know what's in the data, then... do you actually own that data? In what substantive way is this situation different from DRM-encumbered media with a revocable license? I mean, sure, you paid for that game or that movie, but if someone else can decide at any time to change your access to it, do you own it?
You also made a few other comments rebutting arguments about commercial use of the data. Again, you're technically correct: to date, there are no known cases of Flock directly selling access to ALPR data to a third party in direct exchange for money. But, Flock is a subscription service and cities don't own any of the hardware or the software involved. Flock is directly collecting ALPR data in each city and then selling it back to the city.
Even setting that aside, their valuation in 2025 strongly suggested a connection between the data they were collecting and the amount of capital investors were willing to provide. $7.5 billion valuation against $300 million ARR, combined with ALPRs mostly cobbled together from open source or off-the-shelf software and cheap hardware and installed by a nationwide fleet of contractors: it's really hard to look at all the numbers and not conclude that the most valuable asset Flock had was the data they were collecting. If Flock did get $275 million of additional funding largely on the value of the data they had access to, is that really substantially different from commercial sale of the data?
And yet even when opting out, and/or specifically disallowed by the contract, Flock will happily share with other agencies, particularly Federal. It has happened multiple times in my state alone (Washington): https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/flock-safety-cancel-wav...
And all of the useful idiots who say useful idiots things like "we can't just let them get away with it" when the same civil law procedures and precedents are use to violate the 7th and 8th amendment rights of people they don't like will be deafeningly silent.
I haven't seen evidence that flock and associated entities pierce the corporate veil or obtain your local address information from insurance records.
Obviously pursue at your own risk and with professional consultation. I know someone who does this though and they're happy for the privacy comfort they get.
This is a grand jury, which has refused to bring an indictment. There is no double-jeopardy protection here. The prosecutor has several options:
- Bring the case directly to a judge.
- File charges with a new grand jury. (Grand juries typically sit for a period of time.)
In this case, however, charges have been dismissed. There are several variants here, one is "dismissed with prejudice", which means that those specific charges cannot be applied again. TFA doesn't note this (or indeed much else of substance in this case), so the presumption is that charges are dismissed without prejudice.
What is notable here is that grand juries almost always vote to indict. This isn't a verdict of "guilty", but rather, a finding of sufficient cause to bring trial. As the saying goes, "a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich",[1] that is, overwhelmingly (apparently 95%+ of the time) a prosecutor easily convinces a grand jury to file charges.
Given that grand jury proceedings are usually secret (there are exceptions), and we have no further insight as to what the basis of this decision was, there's not much inference which can be made, though I'd lean more strongly to weak evidence than any specific anti-Flock backlash, much as I'd prefer to believe the latter.[3][4]
________________________________
Notes:
1. Sol Wachtler: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler>
2. On grand juries, generally: <https://legalknowledgebase.com/what-does-it-mean-when-a-gran...>
3. On dismissal of charges: <https://andrewalpert.com/blog/what-does-dismissed-with-preju...>
Yes, I'm aware.
I'm no expert on Ohio law however, so I don't know what specifically applies here.
Of course like we said, we can't know for sure. Maybe the prosecutor messed up jury selection or failed to present compelling evidence.
This is a failure-to-indict only.
Grand juries can't dismiss with prejudice, FWIW. That's a role for judges, but a judge wouldn't have seen the case at this stage to issue such a dismissal. "Charges were dismissed" in the article is likely reference to the actions of the grand jury. It's possibly an inartful way of saying "the charges were dropped by the prosecution."
My point was to clarify (I hoped) the distinction between double jeopardy and jury nullification with Grand Jury dismissal, which ... seems to be a frequently-iterated confusion in comments.
What this isn't is jury nullification, whatever other win it represents for the anti-Flock crowd.
And then there are the cities that Flock is forcing to keep cameras physical up and which have to resort to putting bags over them like in Dayton, Ohio.
Can you point out where you are seeing a contradiction, or any indication of either article being "fake news"?
How is that any different from "declined to indict"? Indeed, I would expect there to be no indictment, if a grand jury did not approve one.
However the agent here with the power is the state and local and federal government. They're just going to do drones next if they can't do sensor masts.
Everyone who authorized this funding needs to be voted out. If we really care the signal is to take away the power of people who decided to use this.
Yes, and we should continue to nullify convictions for activists fighting this technology on the streets. If they use drones lets shoot them down and nullify those charges too. The court is the final stand and juries are where we the citizens have actual power.
Stop blaming the victims.
As far as I can tell, people who claim the former are almost overwhelming the ones voting for the people who are worst about stuff like this. I've honestly never seen anyone claim the latter though, so if that's what you believe, elaborating more would be helpful.
I'm surprised that you've never encountered this persepective before, it seems a very common one to me.
The first thing I think about is the South Park episode in which the elementary school had to vote for a school mascot and they were given the choice of either "a giant douche" or "a turd sandwich".
The second thing is another South Park episode (circa 2009), for which they actually produced two episodes (and aired one) for the Presidential election between McCain and Obama. Regardless of who would win, the plot was the same: the winner colludes with the loser in a National Treasure-style heist, with the election just being part of the setup.
In the latter example, the message seems to be that it doesn't matter who wins because the same outcomes occur. The former example probably doesn't need explaining.
Anyway, yeah, it would be nice to choose something better than a turd sandwich but when the other option is a giant douche, what is there to do? The way I see it, you either vote for someone who you know stands no chance (Jill Stein, btw), don't vote at all, or vote for the turd sandwich (or the giant douche, if that's your persuasion).
As far as the one real-world example you gave goes, I'm not convinced that someone who feels the need to avoid making definitive statements about whether vaccines cause autism is a great example of someone who wants to effect meaningful change rather than play the politics game, but that's mostly an orthogonal point.
Bernie Sanders (prevented from winning the primary via unelected superdelegates)
Ross Perot (suddenly withdrew under murky circumstances and later claimed his family was threatened)
Both wanted significant change, although they were reformists rather than revolutionaries.
Sanders ran an insurgent campaign while denigrating the party, and didn't win more votes. I seriously don't understand the argument that the person with fewer votes should win the nomination, although I am receptive to hearing a coherent articulation thereof. (Superdelegates did not enter the picture until tens of millions of votes were cast, with Sanders trailing by millions of votes.)
Sanders was on track to win in 2015 but the media counted all superdelegates for Clinton throughout the campaign, costing him votes in later states where voters didn’t show up, assuming he lost. I guess this isn’t entirely the party’s fault and they did reform the system somewhat afterwards.
This was...an eminently reasonable response to Perot's own actions?
> Sanders was on track to win in 2015
Yes, like Clinton was "on track" to win in 2007. "On track to win" is necessarily filtered through a set of lenses that don't mean anything compared to actual votes. He didn't earn the votes, so he lost. There's nothing unfair about that.
I think the sibling comment addresses Sanders very well.
My recollection of the DNC linkage was that the Clinton campaign agreed to help the DNC in a set of ways (likely raising money for the DNC and helping Democratic candidates) in exchange for some affordances and Sanders refused to do likewise (which, to his credit is on brand). Is that not accurate? I admit it's been 10 years and there have been a lot of claims made as to why Sanders should have been given the nomination in spite of not winning more votes.
Brazile gives strong evidence here that the process was rigged against Sanders, inside the DNC. No, votes themselves there not altered, but when the arbiter of the process itself is not neutral, that is completely damning, and honestly, i think that behavior has just continued to this day such that we are seeing fed up Dems on the left revolting against the legacy party, causng it to look like it is about to fracture, and become the mirror image of MAGA.
It portends badly for our country.
Apple is rumored to be integrating cameras into AirPods[0] that are cloud connected for "AI." They supposedly won't be able to take "pictures" and "video" but will transmit essentially the same information for AI/Siri.
Between the reaction to Flock and also the Meta Glasses; I'm legitimately surprised that companies aren't reading the Tea leaves here. But, no, I guess everything needs a camera and a cloud feed of that camera's vision now.
PS - And before you say "that is just a rumor" the video file was extracted from Apple's macOS 26.7 RC that showcases how it may work.
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/17/camera-equipped-airpods...
> Look how the populist right has failed its primaries so hard.
From my bubble (we’re all in bubbles), it seems that the populist right are in bed with the technocrat authoritarians, e.g. the Vance-Thiel connection. Losses in primaries would indicate to me that the technocrat authoritarians are not succeeding in purchasing politicians.
But it was a strange election. The “establishment” candidate was a no name who refused to do any debates. Rarely ever seem to say much, and when he did, it was mostly just empty parroting of Trumps agenda. Maybe that’s truly what that district wanted.
What was interesting was how Massie seemed slated to win until the very end. Suddenly at the last minute, all sorts of smear ads and all kinds of (honestly very mild) accusations of personal impropriety were being slung left and right and days before the election, polls swap showing Gallrein in the lead, a complete reversal from the months before. A man I’ve never heard speak anything that wasn’t just party lines or something about being a SEAL.
Now I understand that polling isn’t always accurate. But I’ve seen the same exact thing play out nearly the same way in other recent primaries. Feels fishy.
Now they need to buy new politicians and will definitely try.
Interesting, in my bubble “populist” right refers more younger more paleo conservative types who feel betrayed by MAGA. Many of these people hate Thiel and Technocrats as much as my Marxist friends.
I’m gonna guess (and tell me if I’m wrong) the disconnect is that you may be referring to the Trump admin itself which is indeed in bed with Thiel types. Personally I don’t really bother considering them populist anymore. They seem to mostly be interested in enriching their little circle.
Tea Party gave the blueprint for 21st century populist rightwing politics, eschewing much of the baggage of Bush neoconservativism. Then Trump turned the volume up to 12. I’d be surprised to see more novel populist rightwing political dynamics as it feels like the movement is running out of gas after a 16 year run (since 2010 primaries). The disillusionment is at a peak.
Or we could just build more prisons I suppose.
My tax $ went into buying and setting up those cameras to monitor bad seeds in my neighborhood.
It has never been about what people actually want though, just what wedge issues can be exploited.
Faith in governments is not only low, people are pretty sure any power governments have will be abused.
The equation is a little bigger than that, basically.
Just look at the 10's of thousands of people who die every year so that we have the convenience of driving cars. Not to mention the millions whose health are affected by the air pollution.
But also you're going to have to elaborate what you mean by life being considered the highest value. Have you seen how we treat one another? We're always looking for rationales as to why someone else's life should be considered unimportant.
All of them.
If you state it in the form of an actual argument that sets up a meaningful comparison, you'll find that it falls apart completely.
Which makes me wonder, why would you ask such a question? None of the answers I can think of are flattering to you.
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.
There is a juggernaut of surveillance consuming everything in its path, where laws are skirted to install surveillance instruments and due process might as well not exist. And you're talking about "protecting property" and pulling out your little pen and paper to tell your congressperson "i'd like you to try this instead, please"
I'm sorry, no. You don't necessarily have to be the one taking action in the streets, by all means write your letter, but please don't criticize others and pretend that your approach will get you any further than other peoples approach
> It's terrible that an innocent black man died. But this property destruction has to stop!
when, in reality, the perspective should be much more:
"It's terrible that there is this property destruction. But these innocent deaths have to stop!"
Hyperbole, some may some reading this, "We're talking about license plate readers[1], not people being shot or killed", but let's be real, there's very much a non-zero risk of that happening as a result of Flock-spawned encounters (and to be even more real, the culture from the top, as espoused very directly by its CEO is that false positives are a better outcome, and should be how the system works, rather than a false negative, because, ugh, "false negatives don't advance our mission to a world without crime, thanks to Flock").
[1] And they do far more than recognize license plates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Percenters
> Three Percenters have joined vigilante patrols along the U.S.–Mexico border
https://azmirror.com/2024/05/23/border-vigilantes-are-blurri...
> On Jan. 20, just three days after Cade’s aid camp visit near Sasabe, another group assembled on a ridge overlooking the Rio Grande in Texas and stood over five seated migrants. Some of those standing were armed with long guns or pistols and one wore tactical gear; they questioned the migrants, all young men or boys, while filming them.
But structurally, doing vigilante immigration enforcement is more difficult than doing vigilante destruction of property. Destroying a security camera takes one person doing one action one time; physically restraining a human being who doesn't want to be restrained and physically transporting them to the US border is a complex logistical operation that you really need the resources of a state-run bureaucracy in order to do. A vigilante group can't replicate it, unless it's so large and well-organized itself that it's a de-facto rival state to the legitimate US government, and this simply doesn't exist in the United States at this time.
Your congressman is having a nice steak dinner with representatives of the company while some poor staffer pastes the generic response in the letter sent back to you.