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Discussion (168 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Two sentences showing precisely why no one can trust the police. Not only are they completely unaccountable, but they will trample your first amendment rights and do so with smug amusement in full public view. These are the kinds of people we're supposed to be happy to give massive surveillance power to?
"I will take as long as I need, to get you to comply. Your resistance doesn't make this go away, it just prolongs the inevitable."
How is that First Amendment rights?
If she was within her allotted time for a comment that was completely off-topic but otherwise complied with the public comment process, and her flipping off the council was, as she claims, only after it was clear that she was going to be interrupted by the police, then that does seem different than actually interrupting the discussion or refusing to leave.
A society that let small mobs carrying torches dictate your laws would not be good for you, me, or anyone other than the most violent vocal minority.
Peaceful gatherings are covered.
Every EU topic here is filled with people wishing for its destruction and dismantling of such privacy protecting laws.
Woman Arrested, Dragged Away After Speaking About Flock (YC 17) at City Council Meeting
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/21/darth-vader-...
https://www.404media.co/doctor-doom-thanked-seattle-for-all-...
> Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri. After briefly speaking at a podium during a public comment period, she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
The details are toward the end. The council was trying to discuss a public housing issue and she was trying to use that time slot to bring up Flock.
> Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue.
They cut off the mic and told her it was the wrong topic, she wouldn’t leave the podium, flipped off the council (it’s the photo in the article) and the police hauled her off the podium.
There’s a real valid story in here about the city council sending the Flock thing to committee, but the article has been through the clickbait ringer so many times that they’re trying to make it sound like someone got arrested for saying “Flock cameras” during an open comments section, which isn’t true.
Given the topic I’m probably going to get downvoted for bringing up facts from the article itself, but I’m really tired of this type of journalism where you can tell they workshopped this and carefully chose which important details to bury at the bottom of the story so it gives a different impression if you only read the headline or skim the first couple paragraphs.
If you are going to do something that makes so many people so angry that they are willing to come to a local government meeting, you kinda have to let them talk about it, you know? Otherwise it feels like you're trying to run out the clock on them.
I can't imagine either of these being impactful, and the effect seems to just be to distract from people's concerns about Flock (YC 17). Eg, my eyes are bouncing off of the presumably anti-Flock statement you're making here because you've coated it in repeated parentheticals and tortured the writing so you can say "Flock" as often as possible.
If Flock was used to enforce congestion pricing in the cities they ride bikes in, they would all be for it.
I actually went to court to fight it, but the cop didn't show up. Case dismissed.
If you're currently living in Modesto, here's a song for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spsiGPa4aaY
1. Some protestors showed up at a council meeting to complain about flock
2. The council moved to disallow discussion of flock cameras
3. The protestors started disrupting the meeting, chanting, etc, and were forced to leave/were arrested
4. One protestor went to the podium and started talking about flock cameras, was politely interrupted, then had her mic cut. She flipped off the council and was arrested
If you oppose flock/this kind of surveillance, fine. But this kind of behavior is not tolerated at council meetings, and it's not a surprise that some of the protestors were arrested.
> “Well, I said: ‘Jeff Schrag is a cuck.’ I said: ‘Fuck you Jeff.’ I said: ‘Worthless’ and then, also, the final thing I said was: ‘Jeff Schrag has a tiny, stinky, cock,’” Powell explained. “I just let myself get handcuffed and let them do whatever power trip they wanted to do. Got my ticket and left.”
I mean, really?
Not sure why they would do that. Our city council gives people three minutes to talk about what they want. Not sure why this city council wouldn't do that.
If your goal is to rescue the reputation of capitalism, people have found more success just calling Donald Trump a communist.
I mean, what is the appropriate response to someone refusing follow protocol after giving guidance that there's a different topic at hand now? There was a comment session on Flock cameras, people talked about it, then they moved onto housing. You can't run a public meeting where people get to drag every issue back to their favorite issue uninhibited, it just literally doesn't work. The meeting would run 24/7/365 and still nothing would get done.
> Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
It wasn't that the council disagreed with what Heider said, it's that what she was talking about was unrelated to the meeting.
There's other ways to also try and limit the length of public comment, if there's more than say 30 people signed up, reduce public comment from 2 minutes per person to 1 minute. Be aggressive about cutting mics rather than giving everyone 10 extra seconds. For topics that council knows will be contentious and attract a lot of public comment they'll either hold multiple public comment blocks that day or literally just do a marathon session, 4-5 hours of just public comment.
Finally, if enough people are frustrated enough about an issue to constantly show up to public comment to talk about it, councilmembers should try meeting with those people at a different forum to at least hear them out to try and diffuse their anger. Council meetings should not be the only other place where residents can talk to their councilmembers.
That may be the case but here it would seem a discussion about Flock was skipped on purpose so that people who want to bring it up would have no choice but to do so during an 'unrelated' discussion.
Maybe: 24/7/52
Or: 24/365.25
(Always bothers pedantic me.)
That's apparently asking too much.
I agree with the point she was trying to make. As a member of the public she should not have been arrested for being verbally abusive. But I'm OK with her being removed for subjecting the people who work there to that abuse. If she had made the same points with something approaching civility I'd be in her corner, as I still am with respect to surveillance.
If she were a coworker directing that to me, one of us would be a former employee by the end of the day.
> “Hello, my name is Miley Heider. I’m a Springfield, Missouri constituent, and I’m here to oppose the usage of ALPR cameras, most commonly made by Flock Safety. These cameras are not just surveillance,” Heider started.
> “I’m sorry ma’am,” Springfield Mayor Jeff Schrag said. Her mic was cut. A cop approached her at the podium.
> Heider held up both of her middle fingers while continuing to speak: “They are an invasion of our privacy,” she said.
Powell was the other person arrested.
> Heider was one of two people arrested
You want to know how to turn the masses of normies that could otherwise be persuaded to join you? Send in people like this to behave like this.
2. These are the "normies":
> Mia Heider had never attended a public meeting before when she showed up to the city council meeting in Springfield, Missouri.
> Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
Here's a concise, non-ragebait, chronological version:
>Dozens of people showed up to the Springfield City Council Meeting on September 22 with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of automated license plate readers. There was a resolution before the council that would trigger a review of the controversial camera systems, but Schrag moved to send the resolution to committee and prevent public comment on the issue.
>Heider explained that she waited until the public comment period for a different issue, filled out a form to talk, and then got up to deliver a written statement about Flock cameras.
>she was arrested and dragged away in handcuffs.
>The cop said, “You’re under arrest,” grabbed her arms, and pulled her out of the room. “I can do this all night. I get paid by the hour,” the cop added.
>The police officer who arrested her said Heider was being charged with disrupting the peace. He took her into the hallway outside of the meeting and held her in handcuffs for around five minutes before issuing her a ticket and letting her go.