Solar Farms or Flock Cameras?
The short version: Laurel Libby and Owen McCarthy joke about solar farms vs. Flock cameras, but the punchline hints at a real double standard in how Americans weigh visible eyesores against invisible surveillance.
Our Take
Laurel Libby and Owen McCarthy's exchange is framed as a laugh, comparing which draws more local backlash: solar farms or Flock Safety cameras. It's a funny bit, but it lands on something real. Solar farms get fought over at zoning meetings for years — they're big, visible, and change the landscape. Flock cameras go up on a pole in an afternoon, often with zero public notice, and most residents never even clock that they're being photographed and tracked every time they drive past.
That asymmetry is the whole problem. A solar array doesn't run your plate through a database and flag you to police departments states away. A camera that quietly logs your location, direction of travel, and time stamp does — and it does it whether or not you've committed a crime. The fact that these systems can roll out with less friction than a rooftop of solar panels says a lot about how little scrutiny ALPR deployments actually get from the communities living under them.
We give Libby and McCarthy credit for putting the comparison out there, even in a lighthearted format, because it's a useful gut check: what should actually trigger public pushback? If you want to see whether this kind of low-friction rollout has already happened near you, check our camera map, and if you'd rather your town not sleepwalk into a surveillance network, our take-action page has concrete next steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Laurel Libby, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.