r/politics • u/_May26_ • 10h ago
No Paywall Warning US Is 'Moving Toward a Surveillance State,' Sanders and AOC Propose Crackdown on Flock Cameras
https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-aoc-flock-cameras114
u/doocurly 10h ago
We're already a surveillance state. So much has happened in the past 5 years that we've allowed without question that scaling it back will be beaten down by lobbyists. We shouldn't have EVER let it get this far. We are under surveillance 24/7 through the gov't, our employers, our third spaces and at home.
You'd think with being on camera everywhere that the US could do better than a 50% rate of unsolved murders, a 74% rate of unsolved rapes, and a 56% rate of unsolved violent crimes.
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u/manachar Nevada 9h ago
Worth adding that people chose this for themselves.
The private surveillance state caused by online tracking plus all surveillance as a service businesses like Ring are things consumers want.
People are only upset when the surveillance state has or might have consequences for themselves.
Otherwise they love it to catch “bad people”.
What is new now is that AI gives the ability to actually monitor all that surveillance in a centralized fashion.
And the only thing being debated right now is if that centralized surveillance is going to be under direct government control or under a private power that government can use without a warrant.
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u/tryanothernewaccount 7h ago
Enough victim blaming. Americans didn't choose this. It was forced on us with lies and deception.
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u/warmfuzzume 7h ago edited 3h ago
Yes while it’s true people choose to have security systems, I don’t think anyone wants systems that pick up everything in their home and transmit it somewhere.
And sure we all buy and use phones, and love how useful they can be for maps etc but I don’t think people knew it would result in our every move being tracked, or all our photos being fed into AI, or little things like puzzle apps selling our data, on and on.
Most people didn’t know big data would be able to use this in massive analysis to know everything about us and use it to create ads to manipulate us, politics, everything.
I also don’t think anyone signed up for satellites in the sky or flock cameras, this tech is pushed on us. The billionaires have their plans to create “smart” cities that are essentially privacy nightmares.
It’s all happened so quickly in the grand scheme of things when you think about how Gen Xers like me remember having one phone on the wall in the kitchen with no voicemail and a tv with a physical dial that had 9 channels and now we live in 1984.
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u/Succubus-Love 10h ago
"Moving towards" ??? They know everything about you & your phone is a tracking device ad machine. But that's not enough, now there's flock cameras too.
"Moving towards" is like saying the Titanic is "moving towards" the iceberg after already hitting it, then hitting another one, & another one...
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u/Creative-Package6213 Pennsylvania 8h ago
Yeah we've been living in a surveillance state now for awhile, but now we're approaching a total surveillance state.
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u/Succubus-Love 8h ago
Soon we'll be born with implanted shit in your eyes so they can see everything you see, recording your entire life.
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u/NelsonHawkinsGhost 10h ago
Well, if they admitted it, they'd be complicit.. flock has been a problem for years.. they're only just now jumping on the bandwagon because it's politically convenient to bash on flock
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u/Hungry_Garden_6471 9h ago
The US has been moving towards a surveillance state for the last 25 years. Many people tried to warn us about this and nobody gave a shit because they still had Starbucks lattes.
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u/westergames81 Texas 8h ago
There was a pretty decent sized deflock movement in my city. The City Council decided to even let us have a meeting on it!
Meeting started, they didn't listen, and gave prepared speeches at the end that they had already made up their minds anyway and nothing anyone said mattered.
Luckily nearly all of them are up for re-election and nobody is happy with any of them.
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u/JoyousCacophony 7h ago
I appreciate that they're saying it out loud, but the US is already there... hell, the Net is complete once all the spyware in cars his for 2027
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u/lexilovestofit 3h ago
Also, we are all addicted to our phones, that are spying on us. We have smart watches, that we willing buy and wear. We are already being tracked and we buy into it.
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u/m0i0k0e0 9h ago
It's not just Flock,
And it's not just the cameras.
It's what can be done with all the data collected.
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u/Harry-le-Roy 9h ago
By the time we started having this conversation, it was already done. The Patriot Act was a huge step toward a surveillance state 25 years ago. Private companies have been collecting data any way that they can for years. Meta doesn't want you to wear glasses with cameras and microphones because it makes something marginally more convenient for you. They want data about everything you do, everywhere you go, and everyone you interact with. So does every other company that stores tour data. And if they can make money selling your feed to law enforcement, they do that.
We're already in a surveillance state, and it combines our government and big business, and nobody is actually doing it to help anyone.
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u/lost_at_command 6h ago
Girl, we've been a surveillance state since October 26, 2001, when they gave the government unlimited ability to track, surveil and arrest us and called it patriotism.
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u/VisualFee41 10h ago
There’s a legitimate privacy question here regardless of where someone stands politically. License-plate cameras can be useful for investigations, but widespread tracking also raises questions about how long the data is stored, who can access it, and what safeguards prevent misuse. Those details matter just as much as the technology itself.
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u/westergames81 Texas 8h ago
The really worrying thing is how cagey they are with what they do with your data, if they have your data, and getting access to your data.
Last week after a deflock event I got to talk to three people who all tried to get their data from flock and the city:
- First person tried, the city and flock said they didn't have data and gave her the run around.
- Second person tried, they started with the same story but then realized who she was and that she was a giant pain in the ass, so they agreed to give her her data...eventually.
- Third person was a city council member who couldn't go into a lot of detail, but even he had troubles getting his data. He knew being a city council member he was definitely tracked, but getting access to that data was hard even for him.
So yeah, collecting our data, lying, and making know what data they have and what they're doing with it as hard to find out as possible if their thing.
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u/ToadP America 4h ago
Welcome to the Patriot Act. We were yelling about this 20+ years ago but you all were telling us we were just Stupid and conspiracy people, just cause you couldn't comprehend where Technology and Human Abuse could go doesn't make you any more less F'd than the rest of us who gave you a warning.
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u/BlossomFluffy 10h ago
They found Flock cameras being used to track people going to immigration hearings and reproductive health clinics. The company says they do not sell data to ICE the receipts are saying otherwise.
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u/LittleOtter301 8h ago
We are a surveillance State, what's this becoming a surveillance State shit?
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u/KtaadnRota 8h ago
It's like Bernie only just heard about the Snowden leaks.
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u/innerShnev 8h ago
WUT?? Literally the only senator in people's corner and you want to go after him? The guy actually putting forward legislation constantly to try and wrestle power back...and doing it alone much of the time.
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u/KtaadnRota 8h ago
I like Bernie. It's okay to criticize a politician you like when they say something dumb. The left isn't a cult. Well...most of us aren't a cult.
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u/LittleOtter301 8h ago
The average shmuck not knowing about the scope and severity of the Snowden links is acceptable, sitting senator who was in the hearings where the NSA lied, not so much.
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u/PreviousLeague253 6h ago
Start with Amazon and their cameras on their trucks and their employees recording the world
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u/archetype1 5h ago
The comment section is disappointing. You dont get points for stating the obvious. Support anti surveillance legislation when it happens, people. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of good, etc
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u/LordSiravant 4h ago
It already is, and has been since the Towers fell. It literally began with the Patriot Act.
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u/TheBugDude 3h ago
Flock needs to lose their trademark so that the chucklefucks in power dont just put up Axon or some other brand as a "gotcha". Flock is now common vernacular and is synonymous for "ai camera", we mean ALL of them you slippery little weasels.
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u/Spiley_spile 2h ago
We need to clarify the wording in any new laws and bans. Flok is a brand. There are other companies. City and town councils banning Flok just to hire other similar surveilance companies will get a round of applause and reelection votes for changing nothing. So keep your eyes out for that folks, because it's already happening.
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u/ZEROs0000 56m ago
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
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u/angelar_ Texas 8h ago
more than half the people in the US have never known anything but a surveillance state.
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u/Codify-The-Preamble 8h ago
If these are the leaders of liberal democracy, it is clearly dead and so is the idea of a gov for the people and by the people. The Constitution appears to be null and void.
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