County pushing back as no water due to the new data centre
The short version: A county's fight over a water-guzzling data center is a reminder that the physical infrastructure behind mass surveillance has real local costs communities can still contest.
Our Take
The channel Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency spotlights a county pushing back after a new data center started straining local water supplies. It's a story that rarely makes headlines, but it matters: every ALPR camera, facial recognition system, and license-plate database running in the cloud needs somewhere to physically live, and that somewhere is increasingly a server farm draining rural aquifers and power grids with little public input before the concrete gets poured.
We cover Flock Safety and camera networks because they're the most visible edge of the surveillance build-out, but the data centers behind the scenes are just as deserving of scrutiny. Water fights, zoning battles, and utility rate hikes are often the first place ordinary residents get leverage over infrastructure that would otherwise be rubber-stamped by county commissions eager for tax revenue. That leverage is worth using, the same way residents have used public records requests and city council meetings to push back on ALPR contracts.
If this kind of local resistance interests you, check how many Flock cameras are already running in your own county on our map, and see what steps you can take to push back where you live on our take-action page.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.