Surveillance vs. Freedom: How Flock Safety Cameras Threaten Americans’ Rights—Left, Right & United
The short version: Technocracy Dissident spotlights EFF research showing Flock ALPRs used to surveil protesters across the political spectrum, arguing surveillance is a bipartisan threat.
Our Take
Credit to Technocracy Dissident for framing this the right way: license plate surveillance doesn't care who you voted for. The EFF findings this video walks through — hundreds of protest-related plate searches run by local agencies — confirm what we've been documenting for a while. These systems get pitched as tools for catching car thieves, but the search logs tell a different story. Once a network of always-on cameras exists, it becomes incredibly tempting for police to run queries on anyone who shows up to a demonstration, whether that's a BLM march or a pro-life rally or a gun-rights protest.
That's the real danger of infrastructure like this: it's politically neutral in the worst way. A camera that can track a protester today can track a different kind of protester tomorrow, depending on who's in charge of the database and what counts as 'suspicious activity' that week. There's no durable law in most states requiring agencies to disclose these searches, audit them, or even justify them beyond a vague case number. First Amendment-protected activity — showing up in public to object to something — shouldn't leave a permanent, searchable trail of where your car was and when.
This is exactly why we built our camera map, so people can see what's actually watching their streets instead of taking an agency's word for it. If this video makes you want to do something beyond nodding along, check out our take-action resources for ways to push back at the city council or county level, where these contracts actually get approved.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Technocracy Dissident, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.