Data Centers and Flock Cameras – Big Tech Owes Americans Answers

Our Take

Credit to the Claremont Institute for connecting two dots that usually get covered separately: the frantic buildout of AI data centers and the quiet spread of Flock Safety cameras on street corners nationwide. These aren't unrelated trends. Every plate scan, every face captured, every "hit" logged by an ALPR has to live somewhere, and increasingly that somewhere is a hyperscale data center with retention policies nobody voted on and vendors who answer to shareholders, not constituents.

The video's framing — that Big Tech and the law enforcement agencies leasing its tools owe the public actual answers — is exactly right. Flock markets itself as a small-town safety product, but the backend is a national surveillance grid with data sharing agreements that cross city and state lines, often without the public hearings that normally accompany infrastructure this consequential. When a city council approves "a few cameras," they're really approving a pipeline into a much larger system they don't control and can't audit.

If you want to see how far that pipeline already reaches, check our camera map for what's been deployed near you. And if your town hasn't had the public debate this deserves, our take-action page has the tools to start one.