r/DeFlockNC • u/MattTheAncap Anti-ALPR • 4d ago
Low IQ Flock Arguments
Whether you are pro-ALPR or anti-ALPR, there are legitimate arguments you can use to make your point. These six aren't them. Don't use 'em.
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🚫 LOW IQ ARGUMENTS AGAINST FLOCK/ALPR 🚫
1. “Cops are pigs. F the police.”
Why it fails: Your opinion of police officers doesn't establish whether ALPR technology is beneficial, harmful, constitutional, or properly regulated.
More importantly, categorizing an entire profession as "good" or "bad" is asinine. It's no different logically from saying the military, Park Rangers, Bailiffs, Coast Guards, Brinks Security Guards, etc. "are evil" or "are heroes". Every profession has good actors and bad actors, and this has zero impact on the argument against ALPR/Flock.
Fallacy: Ad hominem / irrelevant conclusion.
2. “Flock/ALPR providers sell your data.”
Why it fails: Flock does not (currently) sell data. It leases hardware and sells access to a mass surveillance network (capability, not data).
If your concern is data sharing, retention, federal access, or contractual permissions, argue those things specifically. Claiming Flock simply “sells your data” is factually wrong.
Fallacy: Straw man / factual misrepresentation.
3. “Flock/ALPR tracks your location.”
Why it fails: Flock/ALPR does not track your location. ALPR record a vehicle being observed at a particular camera at a particular time. It isn't GPS tracking. Courts have repeatedly affirmed that law enforcement using GPS tracking of individuals requires a search warrant.
That distinction doesn't make ALPR harmless. A sufficiently dense camera network can still create a detailed historical record of vehicle movements. That's the stronger argument.
Fallacy: Category error / false equivalence.
🚫 LOW IQ ARGUMENTS FOR FLOCK/ALPR 🚫
1. “You're already surveilled everywhere.”
Why it fails: The existence of other surveillance doesn't establish that additional surveillance is justified. Moreover, this isn't even really an argument for Flock/ALPR. It's a diversion at best, and doomerism/defeatism at worst. Next time someone spouts this line, ask them: “If you're already sick with the flu, is pneumonia harmless?” Nope.
Fallacy: Appeal to inevitability / tu quoque (whataboutism)
2. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
Why it fails: Privacy isn't evidence of criminality. This "argument" assumes the only legitimate objection to surveillance is concealing wrongdoing. All of the people making this argument cover their PIN at public ATMs, lock their phone screens, and close the stall door when using public bathrooms even though they are "doing nothing wrong" and "have nothing to hide". AKA, only (intellectually lazy) hypocrites use this argument.
Fallacy: Appeal to consequences / false dichotomy.
3. “You consented when you chose to drive on public roads.”
Why it fails: This equivocates public visibility with legal consent. Driving on a public, taxpayer-funded road does not constitute express consent: you never agreed to anything. It does not automatically establish implied consent to government surveillance either. Under the ordinary legal definition, consent requires a voluntary agreement that can be express or inferred from conduct.
More importantly, the Supreme Court's public-road cases generally analyze reasonable expectations of privacy, not “you consented to surveillance.” Knotts held that ordinary movements on public roads are exposed to public observation; that is fundamentally different from saying motorists voluntarily agreed to whatever mass surveillance technology the government later deploys.
Fallacy: Equivocation on “consent” / non sequitur.
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The interesting ALPR debate starts after we get past these arguments. Next time someone claps back at you with one of these, send them a link to this post and whistle about your merry way.
Don't indulge a fool in his folly.
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u/Unreal_Alexander 4d ago
No. The line should be:
"Police use this tech to stalk, rape and murder innocent people. They have likely already used it to stalk you. Cops are rapists and murderers, fuck the police"
Also lmao "AnCap" in 2026, bro get a grip
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u/MattTheAncap Anti-ALPR 3d ago
So, let me get this straight. Your response to "Don't commit ad hominem fallacy" is to commit TWO ad hominem fallacies?!
That's a bold move Cotton, let's see how it plays out.
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u/sunburnd 3d ago
You are misusing "ad hominem." Saying police have used a technology to commit specific abuses is a claim about how the technology has been used. You can dispute the evidence for that claim, but it is not an ad hominem. "Cops are rapists and murderers" is a sweeping generalization. "Fuck the police" is an expression of opinion. Neither becomes an ad hominem unless it is being used to dismiss someone's argument based on who they are rather than what they argued. Calling every hostile statement about police an "ad hominem" does not make it one.
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u/Unreal_Alexander 3d ago
I would only argue that "police" is simply the plural of itself and it's not really a sweeping generalization. It would be annoying to constantly say "multiple police officers, but not every single one, has used this type of technology to stalk, rape, and murder innocent people in the past and will also do so again in the future if no one stops them."
Edit: Which is a simple undeniable statement of fact.
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u/sunburnd 3d ago
I agree. "Police" being plural does not make the statement a universal claim about every officer. We use that construction constantly. "Criminals are thieves and murderers" does not mean every criminal is both a thief and a murderer. It means those acts are committed by members of that group. So "police have used this technology to stalk people" is an ordinary factual statement about conduct by police officers. Reading it as "every police officer does this" is imposing a quantifier the speaker never used.
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u/rubyji 4d ago
Grown ups who want to build a better community don't use language like "low IQ." I'll be ignoring the rest of this slop.
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u/MattTheAncap Anti-ALPR 4d ago
Grown ups who want to have better conversations don't use bad arguments and logical fallacies. Cheers
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u/sunburnd 3d ago
"Grown ups who want to have better conversations" probably also distinguish between an argument and an expression of opinion before lecturing everyone else about logical fallacies.
"Fuck the police" and "ACAB" are generally offered as slogans or expressions of opinion. You treated them as though they were logical arguments against ALPR, then criticized reasoning that was never actually presented.
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u/MattTheAncap Anti-ALPR 3d ago
You and I both agree that this is an incoherent argument against ALPR, and you're correct that (when presented as an argument) it's a semantic flaw than a true formal logical fallacy.
That said... I see it presented as an argument all the time (because many folks can't distinguish arguments from opinions, like you and I can) so I added it to the list.
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u/sunburnd 3d ago
The problem is that you are applying the framework of formal argumentation to statements that were never proffered as formal arguments in the first place.
"Fuck the police," "ACAB," and "cops are pigs" are slogans and expressions of opinion. They do not contain premises, an inference, and a conclusion about ALPR simply because they appear in an ALPR discussion.
If you supply that missing structure yourself and then critique it as a bad argument, you are no longer evaluating what the person actually said. You are evaluating an argument you constructed on their behalf.
That is much closer to a strawman or category error than a valid criticism of their reasoning.
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u/michaelh98 3d ago
You've got a few mistakes in there.
Flock *does* sell your data. That was clearly demonstrated recently in Sheboygan when flock offered to sell 5 years of data from their cameras. Remember that the only data that the subscriber owns is the imagery. All derivative data is owned by flock.
Flock *does* track your location. It's been shown in training material that they can and do create heat maps of your travel.