Dear Editor,
We need to call a hard stop on the quiet policing and expansion of automated block (or Flock) cameras and license plate readers on our public roads. What’s being sold to the public as a “crime fighting tool” has slowly “morphed” into a national surveillance network.
These AI-assisted cameras build a permanent digital dragnet of where everyday citizens go, tracking our daily routines without any individual suspicion of a crime.
Multiple reports across the country have already highlighted police personnel misusing these databases for personal reasons, such as stalking.
Once you build a massive surveillance apparatus, the potential for tracking abuse is inevitable. The public trust and our constitutional right to privacy are far more valuable than ANYTHING these automated networks can collect.
So, what to do now? First, stop, remove and suspend the cameras that are up now, and second, get a referendum to put it to a vote by the Town of Rockford, NOT just the city, but the town, to keep Flock or block cameras and forget about our constitutional rights to privacy, or remove them entirely and remove one more of the governments invading our personal privacy.
Sign or create a petition to remove them. Sign up to speak on block or Flock cameras – yea or nay – at the next Town Council meeting on October 20. I’ll be there.
Make sure you get on the agenda by stopping in at Town Hall anytime before a week before the meeting. They will let you speak for only four minutes. Make it count.
If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
Thank you,
Privacy Advocate
