These days, you can’t step foot outside without someone either telling you about Flock Cameras or seeing the goddamn things in public. Depending on who you ask, the controversy over Flock’s Automatic License Plate Readers and their databases are either the most heinous violations of privacy in the last 150 years or the whole mess is just a big conspiracy theory designed by blue-haired pot-smoking libertarians.
Here’s my stance on the fucking things: So what?
Yes, they take pictures of your car. Yes, they do so on a regular basis. Yes, people have been caught abusing the hell out of Flock’s searchable databases that allegedly let someone look for a white guy with a tattoo of a dead fish on his right forearm (not that anyone needs to care about such things). Yes, they’re probably tracking your every single movement.
Why do YOU care?
Let’s be honest about this. Brutally, transparently honest. The majority of you complaining about Flock cameras probably have an Amazon Echo in your home, at least one camera pointing at your face daily either on your TV or on your computer, and you probably have an Instagram page that documents everything you ate or did for the rest of the world.
You take photos on your iPhone 16 pro max, ask for directions using Apple or Google Maps, and have at least six AI bots set up in Claude or something similar to handle your emails and family schedules.
And let’s not forget how many times you’ve asked Chat GPT if a particular celebrity had “work done,” or who would win in a fight between Batman and Goku from Dragonball Z.
Most of you are using Gmail accounts and have a Twitter Premium account that gives you access to Grok, which is probably monitoring all the shit you do on Elon’s platform anyway.
And NOW you’re going to tell me you’re big mad about an invasion of your privacy?
No. You’re mad because someone with access to camera technology and AI came up with an idea, lots of police departments bought into the idea, and now you want to claw back some of your precious privacy because ACAB or something.
Guess what, muffin cakes? You’re being tracked everywhere you go. There’s Ring cameras on every door these days. You’ve got houses loaded up with more cameras than Afroman when the Adams County Sheriff’s Department raided his house. And when you go take a shit in a gas station bathroom? I’ve got news for you: they’re probably tracking whether or not you wiped.
Photo obtain via FOIL from FBI file on Seaton, Christopher.
But because a few cops tracked their significant others who were stepping out on them you think it’s okay to start sounding an alarm about how this is the technology that will send us all to hell if we don’t rid ourselves of it.
Everyone wants to pound their little fists into tables just because they don’t like the idea of someone taking pictures of them. No, they want to post that shit themselves on Instagram, TikTok, or whatever the social media shithole of choice is these days.
No, we’ve created this surveillance state ourselves. It wasn’t the Flock CEO who caused this mess, nor was it anyone from any specific federal agency. We’ve been pissing away our privacy for decades going back to when we agreed to let grocery stores track our purchases with their blessed loyalty cards just so we got a few extra cents off gas here and there.
And those of you who are just becoming privacy hawks now? You’re doing it out of fear of something you probably use daily. So chill out. It’s not as bad as you think.
So relax, pour yourself a glass tonight* and remember this: no matter how bad your week’s been, at least county executives in East Tennessee haven’t publicly stated America won’t be great until you’re hung on Main Street.
Which totally happened to someone from Flock recently.
Talk amongst yourselves and be good to each other. See y’all next time.
- Ed. Note: Bowmore 18 recommended.
