This ongoing matter of Flock Safety surveillance cameras scattered around Eugene and Springfield is a wakeup call for our community on two issues.

The first is the constitutionality of such a deep intrusion into the public’s right to privacy and the perception — at the very least — that we are sliding into a kind of police state wherein nothing we do is exempt from having the authorities look over our shoulders all day, every day. We are living in a time where law enforcement agencies of one kind or another are stacked, one atop the other, all throughout the United States.

The second has to do with a more subtle mindset on the part of local governmental agencies — that these Flock devices were set up and even activated without a word to the general public as to how people feel about such an intrusive technology.

Thankfully, it took a single citizen to expose the Flock contract. At the least, residents of Springfield and Eugene should have been allowed to vote on this matter. They weren’t. That fact begs the question of how we, the public, are perceived by those that govern us. Are we a metropolis of scofflaws needing strict control, or just ordinary folks wishing to be left alone by “the government?”

Bob Burns
Walterville