Surveillance State
The short version: Texas Scorecard talks with Rep. Keith Self about how Flock's ALPR network is quietly building a federal-adjacent surveillance net on American roads.
Our Take
Texas Scorecard sat down with U.S. Rep. Keith Self to talk about something we've been saying for a while: Flock Safety's cameras aren't just a local "crime-fighting tool," they're a piece of a much bigger surveillance architecture. When a sitting member of Congress starts using the phrase "surveillance state" in connection with ALPRs, that's a sign this issue has moved well past the fringe privacy-advocate conversation and into the mainstream political bloodstream.
What makes Flock different from a cop parked with a radar gun is scale and persistence. These cameras log every plate, every car, every direction of travel, timestamped and often shared across jurisdictions and networks with little public oversight. Self's point, that this erodes constitutional protections most Americans assume they still have, is exactly why we built our map in the first place: most people have no idea how many of these cameras are already watching their commute.
We're glad to see elected officials willing to say the quiet part out loud instead of rubber-stamping every vendor pitch about "public safety." Credit to Texas Scorecard for giving Self a platform. If this resonates, go check our camera map to see what's near you, and hit take action to push back at the local level.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Texas Scorecard, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.