Flock: A Bipartisan Response to Surveillance in U.S. History | Vanderbilt College of Arts & Science
The short version: A Vanderbilt historian reminds us that Flock's ALPR dragnet is just the latest chapter in America's long, bipartisan struggle over surveillance and privacy.
Our Take
Professor Sarah Igo's framing, as covered by Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science, is worth sitting with: the fight over Flock cameras isn't some novel culture-war skirmish, it's a rerun. America has been here before with wiretaps, national ID proposals, and database creep, and each time the same question resurfaces — who gets to watch whom, and who's accountable when they do. Putting Flock in that lineage strips away the tech-bro mystique and shows it for what it is, another expansion of state and corporate watching power that doesn't care if you lean left or right.
That bipartisan angle matters because Flock's marketing depends on nobody looking too closely or too long. Local governments quietly approve camera contracts, data gets shared across jurisdictions and sometimes federal agencies, and the public finds out after the fact, if at all. Historical context like Igo's is useful ammunition precisely because it shows this pattern of quiet installation followed by belated outrage is a feature of how surveillance expands in this country, not a bug unique to one vendor.
We'd rather you not find out belatedly. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and if you want to push back locally, our take-action page has the tools to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Vanderbilt College of Arts and Science, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.