Imagine leaving a first date, a job interview, or just grabbing groceries. You get into your car and drive home. But someone is watching your every turn, logging your stops, and mapping your life. Not a stranger in a dark van. A police officer. Your ex.
This isn’t a dystopian movie plot. It’s the alleged reality in New Bedford, where a police officer is accused of using Flock safety cameras to track and follow his former romantic partner.
When you give a thousand people the keys to a surveillance network, you don’t get public safety. You get a thousand potential stalkers with badges.
You’ve probably seen the comments on every surveillance debate. Some mindless commentator inevitably chimes in: ‘If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.’ It’s the ultimate thought-terminating cliché. It assumes the only threat is a faceless government monolith hunting for terrorists or mastermind criminals.
The ‘nothing to hide’ mindset assumes the government is watching you. It misses the fact that your ex with a badge is watching you.
The debate around license plate readers (ALPRs) like Flock is always framed as ‘good cop vs. bad cop’ or ‘Flock vs. no Flock.’ But that misses the structural rot. The technology’s entire value proposition to law enforcement is that it’s easy to search. Low overhead. No friction.
But that friction is exactly what protects us. Why does a regular patrol officer have unrestricted access to search numerous networks over and over again without extra authorization? They aren’t detectives running an open investigation. They are people with personal lives, grudges, and bad days.
When access is broad and accountability is only reactive, abuse isn’t an anomaly. It is a foreseeable outcome. The officer’s alleged behavior isn’t a one-off glitch in an otherwise perfect system. It is the system working exactly as designed.
Safety is a marketing pitch; unrestricted surveillance is the reality.
The real-world cost of automated public surveillance is that your movement data is only as secure as the most abusive, careless, or vindictive person with access. If a domestic grudge can be weaponized into city-wide tracking capability, we aren’t safer. We are all just targets waiting for someone to decide we’re worth looking at.
FAQ
Q: Don't we need these cameras to catch actual criminals and solve real crimes?
A: Yes, surveillance tools can solve crimes. But giving unrestricted access to patrol officers without a warrant or active investigation log creates more victims than it catches criminals. If a tool designed to catch violent offenders is used to stalk an ex-girlfriend, the access governance is fundamentally broken.
Q: How should these systems actually be restricted?
A: Access should require a documented, active case number. Every search should be audited, and unauthorized searches should trigger automatic flags and immediate disciplinary action. No case number, no search. Period.
Q: Isn't this just one bad apple?
A: No. 'One bad apple' implies the system is healthy and the individual is defective. This is a defective system that empowers the individual. If a man with a badge can track his ex without raising a red flag until it's too late, the system is the bad apple.