>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.
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 don't even get what the comment has to do with anything. Is it supposed to be some kind of zinger? It's a great idea. Make him spend all night arresting people.
The article is written to enrage you. Including that "zinger" makes you angry at the establishment. After reading the article, while I sympathize with the woman who was arrested, I am not surprised at the outcome.
No, we do not. Throwing a tantrum is not conducive. If you actually cared about preventing the proliferation of flock cameras, you would hate this woman's actions. No solid arguments, no discussions, just making the opposition look like fools who just have rage and are using this case to feel important.
From the article, she showed up to make solid arguments and have a discussion, but:
"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."
The middle finger itself is protected speech. It does not create immunity for disruptive conduct at a public meeting, and omitting the conduct immediately before the arrest is misleading.
She got what she deserved. You can criticize. You cannot disrupt a public meeting and abuse people from the floor.
To be clear, you think someone being loud in a public meeting deserves to be violently dragged from the room because you're offended by it? What other speech do you find violent removal worthy?
Edit: I was shadow banned for my comments in this thread. You have been warned - no dissent against Flock (YC17) allowed.
Maybe you should direct this comment towards the person I responded to and their litany of comments, because this applies far more there. I am far less concerned about hand wringing over being slightly impolite to people advocating for violent violation of people protesting the police state.
Edit: this comment officially got me shadow banned and I can no longer comment. The irony and hypocrisy is off the charts. Don't offend the mods or their friends, people. Only they are allowed to get "emotional" and advocate for violence.
The person you're replying to are making factual comments based on experience.
You are not; you are working from emotion, and interpreting the article in an unrealistic way.
Just trying to gauge what your experience is with law enforcement. You seem interested in having a facts based conversation so I think it's important to understand where you're coming from first.
Do you think all forms of civil disobedience are worthy of arrest? Asking genuinely.
Flipping various members of your government the bird has probably been ruled free speech up and down every federal district in the country at this point. The Supreme court affirmed it at least once, maybe two or three times now.
>Why does a city council installing Flock cameras deserve respect?
Because making respect contingent on "whether you agree with the issue or not" is a great way to make everything devolve into partisan tribes, eg. "anti-abortionists: why do baby killers deserve respect?"
>It is when that issue is personal privacy and our fundamental rights. Why would I want to respect them when they want to further dehumanize us?
You really can't see why this can't be applied to abortion as well? I'm not even against abortion and I can see the problem with what's essentially "if you you disagree with them enough you don't have to respect them".
The anti abortion people have already done that. They harass women and bomb clinics. They don't respect women and actively work to have their rights taken away. So I don't really care about them, nor do I respect them. The same way I will not respect the wannabe little lords in city councils like this.
How familiar are you with city council proceedings? I think we need to know before engaging with you further. It's not useful to argue with free speech absolutists.
> Yeah because addressing the city council with your middle fingers extended is totally mature and appropriate of adults.
I think by reaching adulthood, let alone public office, most people have seen middle fingers before. Moreover there is no statute against being in public bare-handed.
"""The move passed 5 - 3, the crowd shouted at city leaders, and Schrag ordered citizens to clear the room and shut off cameras recording the event. As people left, police detained and ticketed Noah Powell. Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue. Police arrested her while Schrag looked on. “Sorry ma’m,” the mayor said as police led Heider away in handcuffs."""
Without defending anybody, it is generally disruptive to talk about a topic that is not on the current agenda but opinions differ on whether that can lead to an arrest. If you've ever run one of these council meetings, you'll quickly see there are folks who just want to disrupt the process or make it go very slowly (these things often wrap up after midnight).
According to TFA, the "folks who just want to disrupt the process" seem to be the city council and the mayor, not their constituents who came to give public comments about something that affects them:
> The council was set to vote on Jensons’ proposed review on Monday and hear comments from the community. But when the resolution came up during the meeting, Mayor Schrag immediately pushed to send it to a committee and avoid public comment.
In a democracy, it's generally disruptive to prevent constituents from petitioning for redress of grievances.
Is saying the following (different person said this, but was also arrested) a petition for redress of grievances?
"""“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 like democracy and I want people to have their voice heard but city council meetings are about getting business done, and they don't guarantee that every single person will be able to speak at length about their grievances.
No, insulting a person is not a petition for redress of grievances. To do so, you must actually state a grievance. In this case Powell just wanted to insult the city council.
That's Powell. Heider was also arrested and prevented from petitioning for redress of grievances, going back to my point:
> In a democracy, it's generally disruptive to prevent constituents from petitioning for redress of grievances.
The real "disruption" here is the fact that the council and the mayor refuse to listen to their constituents, not that some of those constituents are angry about it.
Right- if you read the context of our thread, I started talking about Powell.
I think Heider has a much better case, were she to try to sue the city council (which I think is a waste of time if her goal is to prevent Flock cameras), but even then, the laws and cases around people who disrupt city councils are complex, and if the city lost... it would j ust end up costing tax payers more money.
Are you sure the intent of the council was to specifically refuse to listen?
I agree it is disruptive, obviously that was the point, but it is not "depriving the rest of the people of their abilities to comment". Had she been allowed to finish her comment, nobody would have been deprived of anything.
That statement was directed about the trend of posting videos of people getting dragged away from council meetings, in general, not this particular story.
In this particular story, Heider was using the comment period on an unrelated issue to voice her complaints about Flock. Hence her removal once it became clear she was not talking about the issue at hand.
> 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.
At a high level it's the same thing: people trying to use public comment periods for protests, rather than actually engage with the topic.
Consider this: what if at every public comments periods, anti-abortion activists incessantly took the stand at unrelated meetings to rant about abortion providers? This becomes so pervasive that good faith community members who actually want to engage with the topic at hand have reduced opportunity to speak. Of course removal of the former is justified if they refuse to abide by the rules of the council meetings.
> 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.
That doesn't make make it permissible to try and use the comments periods on other meetings to talk about Flock. The point remains, she was not removed for simply voicing opposition to Flock cameras. The was arrested and removed for trying to derail an unrelated meeting.
Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
The person saying your comment is ignorant probably doesn't care about the procedural rules. Instead, it's because you're placing disproportionate emphasis on citizens following meeting rules instead of being concerned that they're denied the ability to speak about policies that directly affect them in a democracy.
We don't live in a world where words literally mean what they say without nuance or context. We live in a world where "public discussion" does not mean "all the people who want to talk about a topic of interest can disrupt a city business meeting". We also live in a world where the city council can table (US meaning) a discussion by sending it to committee.
Have you been to city council meetings, especially in places like Berkeley? They often go well past midnight and are filled with people just endlessly postponing important votes. These are business meetings that follow an agenda and the leaders have a significant amount of power to move the process along.
I doubt the intentions of your argument when most of your time here is spent advocating for a surveillance state in the US. Is there a monetary incentive, or do you defend these companies because you dislike humanity?
Yes, in fact it would be better without the last sentence. If one wishes to have a productive discussion, assuming bad faith on the part of your interlocutor is not the way to go about it. That just leads to flame wars.
> When someone exceed their allotted time during a public comments period, that person is depriving the rest of the people of their abilities to comment.
Except ... nowhere in the article does it say that Heider exceeded her allotted time.
She exceeded the allotted time to speak about the topic of Flock cameras, by starting to talk about them at all during the portion of the meeting about a housing issue. These meetings are about specific topics, not an "every citizen gets X minutes at the podium" free-for-all.
Exactly. We have an individual that started doing this constantly in our local neighborhood meetings. It makes the entire meeting so dreadful attendance began to drop off. Fortunately we finally acted and threatened to bar and trespass them if they didn't stop. Complete lack of respect for the process and others.
Your only other submitted story this year has been promoting Flock's "new safety standards. Most of your recent posts are trying to promote flock. I wonder if you actually attend any local neighborhood meetings.
If the attendee's description is true and the video is not missing context, then that doesn't appear to be what happened. Interpreting her description and the video, during the public comment period for an unrelated topic, she went through the usual process for giving a public comment, started her completely off-topic written statement, then was arrested during it a few seconds after two attempts by the council to interrupt her, during which she was flipping off the council.
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.
Looking at the the wrong way, what the citizenship in mass should be doing is surrounding the meeting with torches and making said council fear for their lives.
You might want to look at how a small mob orchaestrated by and comprised of Bush's campaign flooded voting offices to stop a recount, as part of a successful effort to steal the election from Gore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
They didn't even need torches to subvert democracy. I think a majority of Americans are under the misconception that they live in a civilized democracy, and that they have been for a while. But if you look under the covers (or if you're a minority), or just learn history, then you'll find that it's not.
>You mean like how they used the "you can't speak on an issue because we've decided we're not talking about that" rule to have this lady hauled off?
It's not open Q&A. There's nothing preventing them from speaking on their preferred issue online, or even outside. Otherwise public meetings quickly devolve into anarchy. If a specific time was allocated to talk about speed limits, do you think it's fair game for TERFs to use that time to complain about gendered bathrooms?
That's not to say the mayor/council is in the right either, but we also can't have "if you think the debate was shut down too early you can do whatever you want".
>It's not open Q&A. There's nothing preventing them from speaking on their preferred issue online, or even outside. Otherwise public meetings quickly devolve into anarchy. If a specific time was allocated to talk about speed limits, do you think it's fair game for TERFs to use that time to complain about gendered bathrooms?
Bring on the TERFs. Better it be a dumpster fire that get's DOS'd from time to time than people not be allowed to speak their minds.
Gather up a dozen friends, dress like Indians and throw the politician in the harbor. Yes I know I'm mixing and matching historical references, that's the point. Have one guy dressed as Elizabeth Warren, another guy like the redskins mascot and a third guy as Abu from the Simpsons like they didn't understand the assignment. The point is to maximize the meme-ability of it so that you get a court of public opinion trial and not the usual kangaroo court trial that people who thumb their nose at government get.
As an european guy. Interesting to see things happen from far away. Knowing that crazy country has so much power, makes the near future of the whole world even more scary.
It's not that much different in the most powerful parts of Europe. For instance Germany does this to people who talk about Palestine. So does the UK. Poland does it to people who talk about gay rights. I don't know the equivalent in Spain, France or Italy.
On the other hand, I see a lot of HackerNewsers and European geeks utterly angry at laws that forbid (blanket) recording of public places and GDPR which controls what the videos can be used for.
Every EU topic here is filled with people wishing for its destruction and dismantling of such privacy protecting laws.
Those are likely the same people who want to unconsensually force Flock and other mass surveillance on people. Most well socially adjusted people greatly appreciate those protections.
Thankfully we have no voting power in the said country so they don't care what we think as long as we consume and overall behave. Let's see how long this lasts though. It seems as though EU is approaching the finding out stage.
They really buried the details in this article. The opener leads you to believe she did nothing wrong because she briefly spoke during a public comment period
> 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.
I dunno, Council announces that they are going to be talking about Flock (YC 17), that there will be public comment about Flock (YC 17), sees that a whole lot of people are very angry about Flock (YC 17) and have come to the meeting, and immediately shift the discussion to a committee so they don't have to hear those people angry about Flock (YC 17), I can see why she did what she did. That sure seems like the Council is trying to avoid all of the community anger over Flock (YC 17).
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.
Can you explain the need to be annoying about the YC 17 thing? What's the objective here? Is it supposed to convince potential founders to decide against taking YC's money as a way of putting financial pressure on YC not to fund projects that people don't like? Or is the intention that YC people are reading your comment directly and it's changing their minds?
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.
I am amused that much of the HN community goes out of its way to highlight YC connections for companies- I've even seen it for Stripe (YC 09) and Dropbox (YC07) within the past year or so- but has completely dropped that for Flock.
Ah I see you are well versed in bureaucratic attack strategies on the first amendment! “We’re not violating your rights, there’s a special first amendment zone you can say all that where we can’t hear!”
Can you instead try to see that people who disagree with you may actually not being attempting to subvert the first amendment, but instead are focusing on the necessary business city councils have to achieve? There are clearly limits on what you can say and do in a city council meeting.
You're conveniently omitting the fact it was public comments for a different 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.
It's objectively hilarious that the useful idiots so virulently angry about Flock look like the type of people that don't drive a car, so it makes you wonder what the fuss about ALPRs is and how it affects them.
If Flock was used to enforce congestion pricing in the cities they ride bikes in, they would all be for it.
Don't act like flock is incapable of tracking bicycles and individual humans. The product may have been sold as ALPR but scope is creeping to total persistent surveillance.
Back in the 90s, when I wore a younger man's clothes, I got a 'disturbing the peace' citation from the Modesto Police Department, the world's finest law enforcement agency (major sarcasm; they're horrible). Two cop cars were parked side-by-side, drivers chatting, blocking the only exit from a parking lot. I gave a little toot of the horn in my '87 Honda Prelude (I loved that car!). The cops didn't move. I gave another little toot. No movement, but they both turned their heads and looked right at me, irritated. I was in a hurry to get home and watch the VHS I had just rented, so I laid on the horn, really loud, just held it down. One cop got out, walked over to my car, told me he could arrest me and hold me in jail all night, just if he felt like it. Then he gave me the 'disturbing the peace' ticket.
I actually went to court to fight it, but the cop didn't show up. Case dismissed.
Based on reading between the lines and watching the video, here's my sense of what happened:
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.”
> 2. The council moved to disallow discussion of flock cameras
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.
I'm sure people like you making fun of "pearl clutching" would defend other cranks at public meetings, right? Or is it a matter of "I only invoke 'pearl clutching' if I agree with your cause, otherwise they're being uncivil and deserve to be arrested"?
At this point I no longer think the US can say anything about the Chinese. Yes they have a surveillance dystopia and highly entrenched state crony capitalism, but we now have exactly the same thing.
I think it's a bit reductive to compare China taking inspiration from America in the 20th century to Nazi Germany's explicit admiration for slavery and the genocide of Native Americans.
You don't have remotely the same thing. You don't have high-speed trains, housing that populace who don't already own real estate can afford, a government that keeps the tech-oligarchs at a short leash and who mercilessly removes corrupt officials, functional public transit, functional anything public really.
> Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue. Police arrested her while Schrag looked on. “Sorry ma’m,” the mayor said as police led Heider away in handcuffs.
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.
Sure makes it awfully convenient to end a comment session when you don't want to hear what's being said. We are approving the budget for the death ray, do we have any objections? You have five hundred microseconds to object. Let the record show there were no objections. Guards, arrest that man for speaking after the time for objections has ended.
The comment session was for an entirely unrelated 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.
It wasn't that the council disagreed with what Heider said, it's that what she was talking about was unrelated to the meeting.
That doesn't make make it permissible to hijack other meetings. The point remains, she was not removed for simply voicing opposition to Flock cameras. The was arrested and removed for trying to derail an unrelated meeting.
Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
Many of us on this thread have experience with city councils and are anti-Flock and pro-civil disobedience. We're arguing with you from a point of praticality related to city business meetings. Practicing civil disobedience at a city council meeting is fraught with peril- for example, you're preventing other people from having their topics discussed/voted on. From my perspective, if your goal is to make actual change, getting arrested at a city council meeting speaking on the wrong topic is not a particularly effective method.
I disagree with your assessment. These city councils undoubtedly are aware that Flock/ALPRs are a controversial issue, and in many cases, including this one, they don't allow people to speak on the topic.
I recall watching a meeting, I think it was in Austin? Where on every topic, most people coming up to talk did so because they refused to hear comments on the cameras. Instead, they had to deal with the frustration of constantly sending people off the podium.
The lesson being, if you know people will feel strongly, it should behoove you to schedule time for them to speak properly.
Translation: Those in power are allowed to execute 'illegal' chess moves, (skipping the Flock discussion), but the public can't do the same to try and discuss things that officials want to avoid discussing.
How it works in Seattle is that people are supposed to sign up and talk about things on the agenda for that council meeting but they are not stopped from talking about anything. This is why you'll see people like Alex Tsimerman (look him up) speak nonsense at nearly every council meeting. The councilpeople just ignore those comments and I believe they aren't included in the meeting record since they're off topic.
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.
Thank you for mentioning this. I think a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand city council meetings and just how many disruptive people who want to play out the clock talking.
> I think a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand city council meetings and just how many disruptive people who want to play out the clock talking
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.
As a community leader, it would be to publicly acknowledge that there are concerns, then schedule a town hall meeting for their constituents to discuss those concerns with subject matter experts at a more appropriate time.
> “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 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.
A reasonable take. It’s a hot button issue, and arrest is absurd, but these people are embarrassing and actually the most counterproductive way to approach this.
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.
1. That wasn't her, it was someone else who was arrested
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.
This article is terrible. The story is already pretty good (for the anti-flock side), with the the mayor/council was for shutting down debate on flock. The author didn't need to devolve into ragebait territory, obfuscating what happened by jumping forwards and backwards in time between paragraphs.
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.
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."
(I suppose I have a little more respect for her, though. We certainly need more citizens like her.)
From the article, she showed up to make solid arguments and have a discussion, but:
"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."
She got what she deserved. You can criticize. You cannot disrupt a public meeting and abuse people from the floor.
Edit: I was shadow banned for my comments in this thread. You have been warned - no dissent against Flock (YC17) allowed.
Many of us can be sympathetic while also knowing that disrupting a city council meeting is usually not an effective form of protest.
Edit: this comment officially got me shadow banned and I can no longer comment. The irony and hypocrisy is off the charts. Don't offend the mods or their friends, people. Only they are allowed to get "emotional" and advocate for violence.
Do you think all forms of civil disobedience are worthy of arrest? Asking genuinely.
Why do they get to use the police state to abuse people if they get disrespected?
Absolutely insane that the surveillance state is expanding (even more!) and this is what you're concerned about.
Because making respect contingent on "whether you agree with the issue or not" is a great way to make everything devolve into partisan tribes, eg. "anti-abortionists: why do baby killers deserve respect?"
It is when that issue is personal privacy and our fundamental rights. Why would I want to respect them when they want to further dehumanize us?
You really can't see why this can't be applied to abortion as well? I'm not even against abortion and I can see the problem with what's essentially "if you you disagree with them enough you don't have to respect them".
They are elected officials after all, so much for the 'wannabe'.
Also why is 100% of your comment history political ranting and acting like a major asshole?
I think by reaching adulthood, let alone public office, most people have seen middle fingers before. Moreover there is no statute against being in public bare-handed.
"""The move passed 5 - 3, the crowd shouted at city leaders, and Schrag ordered citizens to clear the room and shut off cameras recording the event. As people left, police detained and ticketed Noah Powell. Later in the evening Mia Heider tried to speak out about Flock during public comments about a housing issue. Police arrested her while Schrag looked on. “Sorry ma’m,” the mayor said as police led Heider away in handcuffs."""
Without defending anybody, it is generally disruptive to talk about a topic that is not on the current agenda but opinions differ on whether that can lead to an arrest. If you've ever run one of these council meetings, you'll quickly see there are folks who just want to disrupt the process or make it go very slowly (these things often wrap up after midnight).
> The council was set to vote on Jensons’ proposed review on Monday and hear comments from the community. But when the resolution came up during the meeting, Mayor Schrag immediately pushed to send it to a committee and avoid public comment.
In a democracy, it's generally disruptive to prevent constituents from petitioning for redress of grievances.
"""“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 like democracy and I want people to have their voice heard but city council meetings are about getting business done, and they don't guarantee that every single person will be able to speak at length about their grievances.
Yes, and it's protected by the first amendment.
> they don't guarantee that every single person will be able to speak at length about their grievances.
In this case, they didn't let anyone speak at any length about their grievances. Hence this article.
> In a democracy, it's generally disruptive to prevent constituents from petitioning for redress of grievances.
The real "disruption" here is the fact that the council and the mayor refuse to listen to their constituents, not that some of those constituents are angry about it.
I think Heider has a much better case, were she to try to sue the city council (which I think is a waste of time if her goal is to prevent Flock cameras), but even then, the laws and cases around people who disrupt city councils are complex, and if the city lost... it would j ust end up costing tax payers more money.
Are you sure the intent of the council was to specifically refuse to listen?
In this particular story, Heider was using the comment period on an unrelated issue to voice her complaints about Flock. Hence her removal once it became clear she was not talking about the issue at hand.
> 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.
At a high level it's the same thing: people trying to use public comment periods for protests, rather than actually engage with the topic.
Consider this: what if at every public comments periods, anti-abortion activists incessantly took the stand at unrelated meetings to rant about abortion providers? This becomes so pervasive that good faith community members who actually want to engage with the topic at hand have reduced opportunity to speak. Of course removal of the former is justified if they refuse to abide by the rules of the council meetings.
Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
She's only being denied the ability to speak in the very specific circumstance of a public comment period on sidewalk codes.
Contrary to what some seem to believe, public discussions are not open-mic night.
discussions
I guess I don't follow.
We don't live in a world where words literally mean what they say without nuance or context. We live in a world where "public discussion" does not mean "all the people who want to talk about a topic of interest can disrupt a city business meeting". We also live in a world where the city council can table (US meaning) a discussion by sending it to committee.
Have you been to city council meetings, especially in places like Berkeley? They often go well past midnight and are filled with people just endlessly postponing important votes. These are business meetings that follow an agenda and the leaders have a significant amount of power to move the process along.
It's about time that we start naming-and-shaming people that promote surveillance using strawmen and scapegoats.
Except ... nowhere in the article does it say that Heider exceeded her allotted time.
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.
They didn't even need torches to subvert democracy. I think a majority of Americans are under the misconception that they live in a civilized democracy, and that they have been for a while. But if you look under the covers (or if you're a minority), or just learn history, then you'll find that it's not.
We talking about the oligarchs here or?
You mean like how they used the "you can't speak on an issue because we've decided we're not talking about that" rule to have this lady hauled off?
It's not open Q&A. There's nothing preventing them from speaking on their preferred issue online, or even outside. Otherwise public meetings quickly devolve into anarchy. If a specific time was allocated to talk about speed limits, do you think it's fair game for TERFs to use that time to complain about gendered bathrooms?
That's not to say the mayor/council is in the right either, but we also can't have "if you think the debate was shut down too early you can do whatever you want".
Bring on the TERFs. Better it be a dumpster fire that get's DOS'd from time to time than people not be allowed to speak their minds.
Peaceful gatherings are covered.
> what the citizenship in mass should be doing is surrounding the meeting with torches and making said council fear for their lives
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.
Stripe: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Dropbox: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Flock: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
You're conveniently omitting the fact it was public comments for a different 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.
> Well, she spoke about something 'off topic' during public comments
I didn't even address what others pointed out, which was that the topic was suddenly changed because these people showed up.
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.
Someone going on the stand to rant about abortion during a meeting on sidewalk codes would similarly get removed.
I doubt you are pro-Flock, perhaps you don't like civil disobedience?
I recall watching a meeting, I think it was in Austin? Where on every topic, most people coming up to talk did so because they refused to hear comments on the cameras. Instead, they had to deal with the frustration of constantly sending people off the podium.
The lesson being, if you know people will feel strongly, it should behoove you to schedule time for them to speak properly.
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.