Flock cameras are un-American. I’m glad folks are fighting back. | Opinion

Flock cameras are un-American. I'm glad folks are fighting back.

Key points

• Since Flock Safety introduced almost a decade ago, the ACLU estimates, the business has installed regarding 120, 000 license plate readers throughout the United States.
• Police employee Heidi Taylor is accused of misusing Flock cameras to track her estranged husband and his partner in Dallas, Georgia.
• What do Darth Vader, the ACLU and some Democrats and Republicans have in common?
• Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, is launching an investigation into Flock Safety, demanding answers regarding how the business retains data and tracks vehicles.
• Fortune documented that Flock cameras assisted catch a man who opened fire at Brown University in December, killing two and wounding others.

Flock cameras are un-American. I'm glad folks are fighting back. Opinion From liberal cities to red-state teenagers, Americans throughout the political spectrum are turning against Flock Safety's license plate readers – and some are taking matters into their own hands. Nicole Russell USA TODAY. USA Today report exposes flock camera misuse.

What do Darth Vader, the ACLU and some Democrats and Republicans have in common? They hate Flock cameras.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, is launching an investigation into Flock Safety, demanding answers regarding how the business retains data and tracks vehicles.

Politicians aren't the only ones worried. The AI-powered surveillance cameras track, scan and preserve license plate numbers, feeding them into a searchable database that law enforcement and others can access. Citizens in blue and red states alike are protesting cameras that were installed to create them safer.

I'd expect pushback from Republicans. This person tend to be wary regarding anything resembling a surveillance state. I'm more surprised by the resistance from the left.

Authorities in St. Paul, Minnesota – a notoriously liberal city where talk of defunding the police was common in 2020 – are removing their Flock cameras over reservations concerning how the data it collected was kept and who had access to it. After public backlash, santa Barbara, California, dropped them, too.

In other states, fed-up citizens are taking matters into their own hands. Police in Chester County, South Carolina, arrested three teenage boys for allegedly cutting down and destroying a Flock camera. I don't condone vandalism, but who wants to bet this obtained some cheers from the neighbors? Similar incidents have hit Texas and Michigan.

Flock cameras speckled throughout cities are anti-American, and the risk of unwanted surveillance outweighs the benefit. Uncomfortable as it may be to admit, Americans' growing distaste for these cameras, and their resistance to them, is a good sign of a healthy society. USA TODAY ID'd Flock abuse. See if officers tracked your car. Are Flock cameras even solving crime?

Since Flock Safety introduced almost a decade ago, the ACLU estimates, the business has installed regarding 120, 000 license plate readers throughout the United States. (I never thought I'd say this regarding the ACLU, but I to respect its clever slogan, "Get the Flock Out.").

Flock cameras seem like a good idea in a crisis: finding a missing child or a criminal on the run. Flock Safety informed CNN that its cameras have assisted solve regarding 700, 000 crimes a year. But a considerable amount of reporting, backed by data, undermines the claim.

Notably, the Atlanta Community Press Collective reports that the city has more than 5, 000 automatic license plate readers, yet FBI data demonstrates they've done little to assist the Atlanta Police Department solve crime – and may have actually slowed it down.

Of course, there are success stories. Fortune documented that Flock cameras assisted catch a man who opened fire at Brown University in December, killing two and wounding others. Police applied access to more than 70 Flock cameras to track him down.

But Flock cameras have additionally been employed to spy on individuals. A Florida police officer allegedly applied his department's Flock access to stalk his estranged wife, making more than 700 unauthorized inquiries into her car over two years before he was finally arrested. A Kentucky police officer allegedly ran more than 2, 000 Flock camera searches to track his ex-girlfriend; he was arrested, too.

For context, the Washington Post documented that Flock was employed "for unauthorized purposes" in dozens of cases where "rogue police" applied the automatic license plate readers to spy on the women in their lives: wives, girlfriends, exes, even their exes' new partners. How's that for solving crime?

Another view: Flock camera pushback is growing. It may be too late. Opinion. Flock cameras present a significant privacy risk.

Like plenty of technological advances, Flock cameras are a double-edged sword. Regarding 41% of residents surveyed by Data for Progress have an "unfavorable" view of Flock surveillance cameras. Interestingly, Democrats and Republicans are regarding equally unfavorable.

Even Flock's CEO, Garrett Langley, has admitted as much, telling Fox News that society needs to find "compromise" between privacy and safety rather than prioritizing one over the other.

Flock cameras shouldn't be installed just since they're high-tech and purport to stop or solve crime, particularly if there are more privacy violations recorded than instances of resolved crime. If Flock cameras aren't as effective as they claim, their privacy and security costs outweigh the benefits.

I suspect some of the backlash stems from what Americans went through during the COVID-19 pandemic. If Americans learned anything from mandated lockdowns, it's just how rapidly state and local governments stomped on our fundamental freedoms when given the chance, in the name of "safety" and the collective good.

Fauci's COVID diary demonstrates he put ego ahead of American lives Opinion.

I don't condone the vandalism, but I do applaud citizens from blue and red states, teenagers and Darth Vader wannabes, for looking today's Major Brother in the eye and saying, "Not us; not today."

It's an American response to a particularly anti-American product that reinforces a fundamentally American principle.

After all, a free individuals in a free land, as Benjamin Franklin put it, " Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." We are.

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist with USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids. Sign up for her newsletter, The Right Track, and obtain it delivered to your inbox. SMS Facebook Twitter Email. Share your feedback to support improve our site! Share your feedback to support improve our site!

In short, flock cameras are un-American. Im glad folks are fighting back is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.