Have the American people finally decided that enough is enough?
Data centers. Flock cameras. Over-surveillance. Psyops. Overstimulation. Too much government interference. Digital identity mandates – the list goes on ad nauseam.
And, of course, I would be remiss not to mention smart city integration.
All of it is happening right now.
This isn’t a far-fetched science-fiction movie. It’s another day in the United States, where reality increasingly feels like an era of engineered overstimulation – a system that keeps people distracted, emotionally exhausted and doomscrolling while the physical machinery of surveillance is being bolted into place in our own neighborhoods.
The fact that people are beginning to wake up is promising.
For years I’ve gone back and forth with my law enforcement buddies about the Flock camera game, also known as automated license plate readers.
The law enforcement officers are all for it.
And honestly, I get it.
I respect their need for tools that can help solve crimes, locate stolen vehicles and find missing people.
But there is another side to this conversation.
The structural trap of a surveillance dragnet is that the good people get sucked into it right along with the bad people.
And eventually, everyone must wonder who is watching the watchers?
From a practical standpoint, Flock cameras themselves are not necessarily the problem.
The core issue is accountability.
As a high-ranking official in a local police department, who asked to remain anonymous, told me: “This is an added tool for officers to solve crimes and locate missing people. Systems, like anything else, can be abused if we do not have rules and accountability requirements.”
That may be the most important sentence in this entire debate.
Because technology doesn’t have morals – PEOPLE do.
And people make mistakes, abusing authority and crossing boundaries – particularly when they believe there’ll be no consequences.
Power can go to people’s heads.
Psychological research shows that power can significantly influence human behavior.
The concept of “Hubris Syndrome,” proposed by neurologist and former British politician David Owen and psychiatrist Jonathan Davidson, describes a pattern of behavioral changes that can emerge after a person acquires substantial power, including exaggerated self-confidence, recklessness, impulsiveness and an inflated sense of personal importance. It remains a debated concept in psychiatry, not a formal psychiatric diagnosis.
Research from UC Berkeley psychologists has also found that experiencing power can affect empathy, attention to others and socially appropriate behavior.
The point isn’t that every person in authority becomes corrupt, but unchecked power deserves scrutiny because human beings are imperfect.
So where is the happy medium?
I don’t know if the people who think they hold the power realize it yet, but Americans are getting tired of being told that more surveillance is the answer.
And I don’t think the answer is to trash the badge or vilify law enforcement either.
We can respect the people doing the job while still questioning the systems they are being given.
As my law enforcement friend explained, boundaries and accountability aren’t insults to those in authority.
They are guardrails and exist for a reason.
Power paired with a complete lack of accountability can become dangerous. That’s why oversight and clear boundaries aren’t attacks on law enforcement officers, politicians, lobbyists or anyone else in a position of authority.
They are protections for everyone.
Regarding Flock cameras, true balance means asking who can access the data, how long it is retained, when searches should require judicial authorization and whether communities understand what they are approving.
Flock does have safeguards, including restricted access and logged searches, while individual agencies control their own policies. But the real question isn’t whether safeguards exist. It’s whether they are strong enough, transparent enough and consistently enforced.
Let’s go a little deeper, though, because license plate readers are just the bottom rung of the ladder.
The bigger issue is the macro-level system of surveillance technology materializing around us one device at a time.
You have Ring cameras watching you everywhere else.
You have corporate Trojan horses like Smart TVs equipped with Automated Content Recognition technology tracking viewing habits.
You have acoustic glass-break detectors, smart streetlights and home hubs equipped with sensors.
You have robot vacuums using LiDAR mapping to chart the interior of homes.
You have vehicle tracking systems such as OnStar collecting driving telemetry.
You have smart meters creating detailed patterns of household activity.
And then there are retail loyalty programs, receipt-scanning apps and WiFi or Bluetooth beacon technology capable of identifying devices moving through commercial spaces.
None of these, standing alone, necessarily looks like a dystopian surveillance state.
But put them together and something much larger begins to emerge.
Flock is just one thread in a tangled web that has been woven around us.
We often blame the younger generation for our digital dependence. But the reality is that every generation has participated in building this machine. Smartphones, tracking, constant notifications and digital convenience didn’t arrive overnight. We embraced them one convenience at a time.
And here we are now, for example, paying for absolutely everything with a phone that a grid failure could destroy at any second, relying on digital IDs, and relying increasingly on automated systems that can fail when the technology, network or power behind them fails.
But you say progress is important.
Well, so is one’s sovereignty.
Which one are you willing to give up to stay comfortable outside the walls of this cageless prison?
Flock cameras are just tactical diversions.
The larger patterns are where our attention should really be focused.
First comes overstimulation – the endless stream of information, notifications, algorithms, social media and digital noise that keeps us staring at screens.
Then comes infrastructure – data centers, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and the enormous physical resources required to keep our digital lives running.
Then comes surveillance – cameras, license plate readers, smart devices, location tracking and interconnected databases.
And finally comes power.
Who watches the people who have access to all of it?
That’s where the Flock debate suddenly looks much bigger.
A small-town city council may believe it is simply approving cameras to help police find stolen cars.
But the technology exists inside a much larger digital ecosystem.
That is the part we cannot afford to ignore.
When increasingly sophisticated surveillance infrastructure meets human fallibility, the potential for abuse becomes very real.
We’ve already seen allegations of law enforcement officers misusing surveillance systems. When those stories surface, everyone becomes outraged by the individual scandal.
But perhaps we should also be asking a larger question: What kind of system makes that abuse possible in the first place?
Maybe the answer isn’t to reject technology.
Maybe it’s to stop pretending technology doesn’t require rules.
We don’t have to choose between public safety and personal liberty.
We can demand both.
Showing up at local city council meetings and asking questions before surveillance technology is approved, demanding transparency in private technology contracts, establishing clear rules about who can access data and why, requiring audit trails, setting reasonable data-destruction requirements and considering judicial warrants for historical searches when appropriate are all methods of accountability.
Technology will continue to evolve, and rules will evolve with it.
We can absolutely support our law enforcement friends while drawing a hard line against an unregulated surveillance dragnet.
The greatest danger isn’t one camera on one street corner; it is becoming so accustomed to being watched and surveilled that eventually you stop asking whether you should be watched at all.
Rita Cook is a freelance writer for The Ellis County Press. She can be reached at rcook13@earthlink.net.