Over the past several months there have been countless articles, videos, and social media posts decrying the arrival of Flock cameras—the license plate readers and AI-assisted surveillance systems appearing in communities across the country.
They’re called by many everything from crime-fighting tools to digital spy devices, capable of reading license plates, recognizing faces, and quietly documenting the movements of ordinary people.
This post isn’t meant to argue whether Flock cameras are inherently good or bad. Instead, it’s simply meant to ask us to pause for a moment and think.
The reality is that, whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, mechanic, politician, salesperson, or simply someone driving to work every morning, you’ve almost certainly already become part of countless databases. Your license plate has likely been photographed more times than you realize. Somewhere, algorithms know where you’ve shopped, where you’ve traveled, and perhaps even what medications you’ve picked up. AI systems observe us in airports, stores, parks, and intersections. Individually, they’re just fragments of information—little glimpses into our lives.
But perhaps the story becomes stranger when you start connecting those fragments.
Recently we came across a social media creator who demonstrated just how surprisingly accessible some of these public camera systems can be. In some cases, people were able to view live streams from cameras overlooking community parks and other public spaces, and even interact with portions of the database through publicly exposed portals. Whether those examples represent widespread security flaws or isolated mistakes isn’t really the point.
What struck me was something much simpler.
While this was from several months ago, the information is still as relevant now as it was then..
If the purpose of these systems is to make communities safer, does leaving the front door open for strangers to casually watch a neighborhood park accomplish that goal?
You can certainly debate the value of surveillance technology for law enforcement until we’re blue in the face. That’s a conversation worth having. But allowing people to sit at home and watch families, children, and ordinary citizens going about their lives seems to undermine the very safety these systems claim to provide.
Watch the video and decide for yourself.
Near the end, however, something happens that has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with humanity.
The creator notices an adult man enter the park. He looks around to make sure he’s alone.
Satisfied that no one is watching, he walks over to a swing and begins swinging like a child.
It lasts only a few moments.
The creator points out something profound: had that man known a camera was recording his every movement—or that strangers might someday watch the footage—he probably never would have climbed onto that swing.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that.
We know absolutely nothing about him. We don’t know whether he’d just lost a parent, celebrated a promotion, gone through a divorce, received bad medical news, or simply wanted to remember what it felt like to be ten years old again. We don’t know his story.
What we do know is that, for a brief moment, he reclaimed something innocent. Maybe it was nostalgia. Maybe it was therapy. Maybe it was joy.
And he probably would have denied himself that experience if he’d believed someone was watching.
I have, on more than one occasion, intentionally sought out places where I believed no one else was watching. A cemetery. The abandoned streets of Centralia. Places where I could simply sit in my car or stand alone and cry. Not because I was doing anything wrong, but because grief is often something we experience in private. I don’t know if I would have allowed myself those moments if I knew a camera was quietly recording me or if there was even the possibility that someone, someday, could watch it. Maybe I’d have driven away. Maybe I’d have kept the tears in. Maybe I’d have never gone there at all.
That’s the part of surveillance we don’t often discuss.
Whether you support or oppose Flock cameras, it’s difficult to deny that being watched changes human behavior. We become more cautious. More guarded. More performative. We stop dancing in empty parking lots. We think twice before singing in our cars. We hesitate before acting silly with our children. We slowly edit ourselves.
Humanity changes when it believes it’s under constant observation.
Surveillance states have always had that effect. They don’t necessarily need to arrest people to alter behavior. Simply convincing people they’re being watched is often enough.
But here’s the irony that bothers me most.
Many people who passionately argue that Flock cameras are morally repugnant would probably laugh if someone posted footage of that man on the swing. They’d share it. Turn it into a meme. Mock him for enjoying a quiet, innocent moment.
In that instant, moral outrage over surveillance becomes participation in it.
Perhaps that’s the greatest lesson of all.
Yes, we are increasingly flocked.
But our reaction to that reality may be creating something even more powerful than the cameras themselves—a culture where we willingly become each other’s surveillance system.
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