5,000 Police Departments Use This Controversial Tech
The short version: TJ Walker admits Flock cameras are surveillance but wants more of them for automated traffic enforcement — we think that's backwards.
Our Take
Credit where it's due: TJ Walker's video does something a lot of Flock boosters won't — he actually says the word "surveillance" out loud and admits the concerns from both the left and right are real. Then he pivots to arguing the fix is to build the system out further, bolting on automated traffic enforcement so cameras can write tickets for speeding and red lights without an officer ever showing up. That's not a rebuttal to the surveillance critique. That's a bigger surveillance system with a revenue stream attached.
This is the same move we see over and over: acknowledge the danger of a nationwide, retention-heavy, third-party-accessible database of everyone's movements, then insist the answer is more cameras doing more jobs, because efficiency. But every new function — traffic enforcement, parking, whatever's next — is another reason for the network to expand, another vendor contract, another log of your car's location tied to a ticket instead of a warrant. "We need more of them" is not a safeguard. It's an admission that once a surveillance tool exists, mission creep is treated as a feature.
If you want to know how far this has already spread near you, check our camera map, and if you'd rather push back than just watch it grow, our take-action page has the tools to do it.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Ultamize with TJ Walker, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.