> there are alternatives
This does not consistently appear to be the case in the US unfortunately.
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/effs-investigations-ex...
[2] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup
you wouldn't consider someone vandalizing your home or the infrastructure in your neighborhood to be violence? of course it is violence, an attack on the place i live (whether that's limited to just my home or to the larger community i live in) is an attack on me
is it not violence to, for example, burn down a business where people work in if you do it at a time where no one is around to get immediately hurt as a consequence? can i not call the financial damage caused both to the workers and the owners of that place violence?
Very obviously not. Words have meaning. You are misusing words to garner emotional support for your preferred political position.
Burning down anything (including a business) is arson. Not violence. It only becomes violence if people are present and at imminent risk of physical harm.
Financial damage is not violence. Speech is not violence. Please take your doublespeak back to reddit; it doesn't belong on HN.
a case where you can argue speech can be violence would be a verbal threat to hurt or kill someone, but that has nothing to do with what we're talking about, i don't know why you're bringing up speech, are you trying to say that destroying these cameras is a form of expressing freedom of speech? (not accusing you of this btw, just genuinely curious what you meant by that)
I included speech as an example, the same as your bringing up property damage, arson, and financial damage. It seemed relevant given the general shape of what you were expressing.
Someone being driven to suicide or unable to pay for medication is not an example of violence. It might be many things but violence is most certainly not one of them.
> you cannot pretend that disrupting someone's livelihood is not at all related to attacking their liberty and/or life
Indeed it is _related_ but that does not magically make it "violence". Violence is direct physical harm. Not indirect and not anything other than physical.
> a case where you can argue speech can be violence
Speech is _never_ violence. That's about as close to definitionally impossible as you can get. (Here's a fun related observation: violent rhetoric is not itself violent.)
Respectfully, you seem to be having extreme difficulty comprehending the fact that words have meaning. It's impossible to engage in meaningful discussion with someone who either can't or won't conduct themselves in accordance with that fact.
coming up to you on the street and telling you i'm going to stab you to death is not violence as long as i don't go through with the stabbing? someone needs to better secure the mental asylum wifi, you shouldn't have access to it
shouting "BOMB!" at an airport for fun is not violence even though you're causing people to trample each other and might result in serious physical harm that's resulting directly from your action?
Your second example is inciting public panic. Again, not violence. And again, illegal literally everywhere (at least AFAIK).
> serious physical harm that's resulting directly from your action
That's the thing, the panic was the direct result. The physical harm was indirect. Once again, words have meanings.
Perhaps you should seek to learn more about the law. You might find that, in addition to words having meaning, society has been dealing with "problematic" behaviors for as long as it has existed and is honestly pretty well equipped for it in general. These things have been catalogued extensively. Referring to everything as "violence" is no better than labeling every other crime "terrorism".
That being said - the destruction of flock cameras is in no way violence. No one sees that and takes it as a threat of harm - at least no one acting in an honest way.
Brandishing a gun at someone is a threat that you'll shoot them but, importantly, is not the same thing as actually making good on the threat. (From the victim's perspective the distinction is rather important.)
also, i consider a security camera in a place i live to be security infrastructure, you should not be able to come into a place and do act like a vigilante imposing your view on what should and should not be recorded through force, if you have a problem with the way things work you should try to work within the law
again, this is what separates civilization from chaos
No, I file an insurance claim and move on with my life. It is just property, and almost all property can be trivially replaced. Your property is not you. It is just property. We simply see the world differently, that's all. Good luck to you.
life is very simple when you live in fairy land