Flock You

Let’s begin with the word itself. Because it conveys what they see us as. A flock – as of sheep or other animals to be herded. It is said of psychopaths that they have a need to tell us what they really think (and intend) so that when they do it, they can say they told us so – and we were too dumb to listen to them. Thus, we deserved what we got.

Garret Langley, the CEO of Flock Safety – the private company that is erecting cameras in public spaces and “sharing” the “data” with the government – has called people who oppose being treated like herd animals “terrorists” for publishing the location of these cameras, so that people are aware they’re being watched. It’s another iteration of the cop crying Stop Resisting! as he pummels his victim into a bloody mess.

Some people are taking defensive action against these cameras. The italics are there to emphasize a key point. Ordinarily, it is wrong to damage private property and those who do so deserve to be held accountable. This is not the same as that. If Flock were selling its cameras to be used on private property, they’d be within their rights and it would be wrong to take action – for exactly the same reason it’d be wrong to take down your neighbor’s private security cameras. They are not only his private property. They are on his private property. These Flock cameras are not like that. They are being erected on public property – the “commons,” to use the old term – and then used against us, by the government (and also by private companies; the insurance mafia, for instance).

This treads across an important line.

Neither Flock nor any other private company has the right to erect cameras on public property because – for one thing – private companies do not own public property, the open spaces all around us. The situation can be seen – ought to be seen – as waking up one morning to discover your neighbor has erected a camera on your property and is watching you. You’d have every right, in that case, to fire up the Sawzall and cut down the son-of-a-bitch and throw it in a dumpster. If your neighbor called you a “terrorist” for doing it, everyone (hopefully) would laugh at his deranged, cognitively dissonant hysterics. So why the hysterics over private citizens doing the same to cameras being erected on their property – public property, the “commons” – by Flock?

A man in Virginia has been caught doing exactly that and he is being persecuted (the right word) as a “criminal” for doing it. Jeffrey Sovern got caught acting defensively toward more than a dozen of these private cameras erected in public. He argues that these cameras are “unconstitutional,” which may be so – in that an argument can be made that they violate the 4th Amendment as well as other parts of the Bill of Rights – but his argument does not fixate on the proper argument.

Private companies have no standing to monitor the public in public areas. Nor does the government, arguably – because such monitoring is premised on the idea that the public must be monitored, which is another way saying the public (that’s you and me and everyone else) is presumptively criminal. Monitoring people used to be restricted to criminals; i.e., people in jail or prison who’d been convicted of a crime serious enough to warrant not just confinement but also constant watching. Criminals have established that they need to be watched. They have forfeited their right to privacy is another way to put it. People who’ve not been convicted of anything or even suspected of having done something have a right to not be monitored – in public areas, at least.

It is both understandable and legitimate for a privately owned store to have security cameras because there are shoplifters but – this is the important part – it’s a private space and if you don’t want to be on camera, you do not have to go into the store.

People have no choice about going out in public – unless they wish to live in a prison of their own and never leave their house or apartment. In other words, these private companies are imposing on our space and our right to not be recorded by private companies, our comings and goings monetized and used against us for other, more sordid purposes (e.g., the comings and goings of women cops are interested in being “shared” with the cops).

So, tally ho!

There is nothing to feel ashamed for in acting in self-defense. In fact, it is the right and honorable thing to do. We will not comply our way out of this. If we continue comply, we will only get more – and worse. A message has got to be sent that there are limits to what can be done in public areas by private companies, especially when these private companies act in cahoots with the government.

Flock Them and the horse they rode in on.

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