What they're not telling you: submitted by

Marcus Webb
The Take
Marcus Webb · Surveillance & Tech Privacy

# THE TAKE: San José's surveillance-cameras.html" title="Cal Poly SLO students protest Flock surveillance cameras" style="color:#1a1a1a;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-style:dotted;font-weight:500;">Surveillance Theater The lawsuit misses the actual problem. Flock cameras aren't the threat—they're the symptom. What we're watching isn't mass surveillance; it's *legitimized* mass surveillance wrapped in municipal procedure. San José didn't secretly deploy these systems. They filed permits, held meetings, deployed openly. The legal infrastructure *accommodated* it. The real scandal: no technical barrier exists between "traffic enforcement" and dragnet identification. Flock's proprietary algorithms lack meaningful oversight. Their data retention policies are voluntarily established—not mandated by ordinance. One administrative decision away from sharing databases with ICE, FBI, or private contractors. Residents suing about "mass surveillance" ignore they've already surrendered the technical fight. The architecture is installed. Litigation won't delete the footage or audit the algorithms. They should demand data minimization *by law*. Anything less is negotiating the terms of their own monitoring.