Zero Flock cameras in Manhattan’s wealthiest neighborhood
The short version: Orwell Day spotlights a stark pattern: surveillance cameras cluster in working-class neighborhoods while Manhattan's richest blocks reportedly have none, raising questions about who gets watched and who doesn't.
Our Take
Credit to Orwell Day for pointing a camera (ironically) at the cameras themselves and asking a question Flock Safety and local police departments would rather you not dwell on: if ALPR networks are truly about public safety, why do they map so neatly onto class lines? A neighborhood with more doormen than crosswalks apparently didn't need the same dragnet that gets rolled out in less affluent zip codes.
This isn't a new story in the history of policing technology — surveillance infrastructure has a long track record of being deployed where people have the least power to say no, and conspicuously absent where residents have the connections to keep it out. Whether that's a deliberate choice by city officials, a quiet request from a co-op board, or just the predictable result of where police precincts decide to spend their budgets, the effect is the same: uneven surveillance sold as universal safety.
If you want to see how this plays out in your own city, check our camera map and look at who's being watched and who isn't. And if the pattern bothers you as much as it bothers us, our take-action page has steps for pushing back at the local level, no matter which side of town you live on.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Orwell Day, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.