The Flock Safety camera hysteria is an exercise in denial of the surveillance we have lived under since the Patriot Act was passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The National Security Administration installed black boxes in major telecommunication nodes allowing it to scoop up our communications.

Promised limitations were shown to be an illusion when CIA contractor Edward Snowden leaked the scope of government surveillance in 2010. Since the 2007 release of the iPhone, 91 percent of Americans now voluntarily carry tracking and surveillance devices in their pockets. We also pay for tens of millions of Ring cameras that log visitors and surveil our neighborhoods.

Your phone and the apps on it know where you are, where you have been, who you communicate with, what content you consume, what you buy and a million other data points. The data exist on massive server farms mostly owned and operated by Google and Amazon. And Eugene residents are freaking out about 57 Flock license-plate reader cameras?

The stated concern by opponents is that the Trump administration will use these cameras to target “vulnerable communities,” and the Eugene City Council does not “trust” Flock to safeguard the data. Do council members trust Google and Amazon, or any one of the thousands of app providers? If a court says to provide the data, companies must comply. These companies have demonstrated they are more than happy to compromise to protect their profits.

We all volunteered for the privacy panopticon in the name of convenience and entertainment. Flock cameras solve crimes that disproportionately impact vulnerable communities, make for safer neighborhoods and extend the city’s limited policing resources.

Before a handful of vocal critics demand the removal of Flock cameras, they should face their own complicity in creating the surveillance state they profess to fight. Don’t make the rest of us sacrifice our safety for a meaningless performative stand against a surveillance state we have happily fed for decades.

Ted Coopman
Eugene