SURVEILLANCEThe Digital Panopticon: Why Automated Surveillance Threatens a Free Society
Flock Safety, a manufacturers of cameras used in automatic surveillance, is merely one piece of a vastly expanding surveillance state. The company’s potential downfall should not be blamed on legislation targeting ALPRs specifically but through the firm enforcement of the Fourth Amendment itself. In a free society, companies that thrive on infringing upon constitutional rights should not be economically viable.
In an essay in The Atlantic titled “In Defense of Flock,” the Manhattan Institute’s Charles Fain Lehman rightly recognizes a foundational principle of criminology: The certainty of apprehension serves as a potent crime deterrent. Yet, in framing automated surveillance as a technological panacea, Lehman ignores the critical trade-off at the heart of a free society. As Benjamin Franklin famously warned: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
To test Lehman’s thesis, one need only apply his logic to his own doorstep. Imagine if the local police department installed a high-resolution pole camera directed squarely at his front door. By his own logic, Lehman should be elated: The camera would deter prospective burglars and, should an intruder ignore it, capture their every movement in crisp detail to ensure swift apprehension.
Naturally, this arrangement requires government officials to observe every detail of Lehman’s private life. With sufficient resolution, operators could log the packages delivered to his porch, track his every departure and return, note when he walks his dog, and monitor when his children leave for school. Under Lehman’s framework, none of this should disturb him; it is simply the price of crime suppression. His home might never be burglarized, but the cost is continuous state surveillance of his castle.
Lehman suggests that ubiquitous cameras will ultimately reduce the number of citizens entering the criminal justice system. While reducing crime is universally desirable, his thesis rests on a dangerous premise. In attempting to soothe public anxiety, Lehman contrasts American oversight with the pervasive surveillance apparatuses of authoritarian regimes such as the People’s Republic of China—inadvertently highlighting the troubling trajectory of his argument. Taken to its logical extreme, the absolute prevention of crime would require proactive, universal confinement: If no individual enjoys freedom of movement, no crime can occur. A free society deliberately accepts a baseline of risk to prevent state-sanctioned oppression.
The rapid expansion of automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks across American cities—spearheaded by private vendors like Flock Safety—represents one of the most radical expansions of domestic tracking in modern history. Proponents frame these networks as objective, impartial alternatives to subjective traffic stops, promising to curtail crime while eliminating human bias. In doing so, they routinely dismiss public concern as populist paranoia or an implicit defense of lawlessness.
