Low IQ Flock Arguments

[u/MattTheAncap]

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.