08/15/2026
This Isn't About the FLOCKING Cameras
In recent weeks, debate and media attention have increasingly focused on privacy laws and regulations surrounding the implementation of Flock cameras. We took the time to break down some of the most prevalent arguments in support of this technology.
But this isn't really about the Flocking cameras.
It is about something much older and far more important. It is about the relationship between the individual and the government we created to protect our natural rights.
“There is no expectation of privacy on a public road.”
That is a gross oversimplification of the principles upon which this nation was founded. The question is not whether another person can see you or your license plate in public. The question is whether a government instituted to secure individual liberty should systematically observe, record, catalog, retain and search the movements of citizens suspected of nothing. Being visible in public is not synonymous with consenting to government surveillance.
“Your phone already tracks you.”
Yes. And that should concern us too. We have voluntarily surrendered enormous pieces of our privacy to private companies for convenience. But this nation was founded on the principle that our rights existed before government, and that we instituted government to secure those rights, not exploit their erosion. Our carelessness with a natural right does not grant government permission to take what remains. A population surrendering its rights does not create new governmental powers.
“If you aren't committing a crime, why do you care?”
Because liberty was never conditioned upon proving our innocence to government. Our founders did not create constitutional protections because they trusted government to use unlimited power only against bad people. They created them because government itself must be restrained. Constitutional limits were not designed around whether we trust the people holding power today. They were designed to limit the power itself.
“They're just reading license plates.”
No. A license plate is merely the identifier that makes a much larger system of government surveillance searchable. These systems record vehicles, characteristics, locations, times and images, turning individual observations into a history of movement. The founders demanded particularity from government. This reverses that principle: collect first, identify everyone, retain the information and decide later whose movements to examine. History gives us no reason to replace constitutional restraint with trust.
“The data disappears after 30 days.”
Thirty days is a policy, not a constitutional protection. Retention periods can differ by agreement and circumstance. More importantly, a promise to eventually delete information does not answer whether government should collect it in the first place. Natural rights cannot depend upon a vendor's retention policy or today's government keeping tomorrow's promise. Additionally, all of the metrics data generated from the images has ownership transferred to the private company and is maintained for years and sold to private parties.
“Police can't just search it whenever they want.”
Then show us the law that prevents it. Show us the warrant requirement, national standards, enforceable limits and consequences when those limits are violated. Policies, audit logs and promises of proper use are not substitutes for constitutional restraint. The founders did not protect individual liberty by trusting government officials to police themselves. They restrained the power government possessed in the first place.
“It doesn't use facial recognition.”
That answers the wrong question. The issue is not what one piece of software does today, but what information government is collecting and what can be done with it once it exists. A photograph does not cease being usable by facial recognition technology simply because the camera that captured it does not perform that analysis itself. Data can be transferred, technologies can be combined and capabilities change. Constitutional restraints were designed to limit governmental power itself, not merely the technology through which that power happens to be exercised.
“It catches criminals.”
We agree. It is a powerful tool for locating known suspects and solving crimes. That does not make the power legitimate. In this country, the individual begins as innocent, not as information to be collected in case government needs it later. Our founding principles intentionally make government's job harder because protecting individual liberty sometimes requires exactly that. Efficiency does not override natural rights. If respecting that boundary requires old fashioned detective work, then do the detective work.
“Public safety outweighs the relatively minor intrusion.”
No. Public safety is a legitimate responsibility of government, but government was instituted to secure our natural rights, not balance them away whenever violating them makes its job easier. Calling an intrusion “minor” merely assumes government has the authority to decide how much of our liberty is expendable.
A warrant may inconvenience an investigation. Probable cause may allow a suspect to escape. Due process may make prosecution harder. Those burdens exist intentionally because individual liberty, not governmental efficiency, is the boundary.
Benjamin Franklin warned against purchasing temporary safety with essential liberty. The founders understood something we seem determined to forget: government must protect us without becoming the thing our rights were designed to protect us from.
