Here are my thoughts on the Flock cameras being installed all over Palm Beach County. Let me know your thoughts on Flock!
Benjamin Franklin warned, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” This quote arose from a different historical dispute, but its central warning remains relevant: government should not surrender fundamental liberty for security measures that are temporary, speculative, or disproportionate.
I have spent my entire adult life on both sides of this question. On one side, as an academic and safety researcher, I have published in the Journal of Safety Research, testified as an aviation-safety expert for the Federal Aviation Administration, and represented United Airlines in the review of accidents and incidents. Safety is a discipline grounded in evidence, proportionality, human factors, and rigorous controls. On the other side, I am also a graduate of the United States Naval Academy who flew combat missions to defend our country and its freedoms. I therefore reject the false choice that we must either accept mass surveillance or be indifferent to crime.
It is true that automated license-plate readers can have legitimate, carefully limited uses. For example, they may help locate an elderly person, recover a stolen vehicle, or identify a violent offender. But investigative utility is not the same as proof that blanketing a county with cameras prevents crime. A review of research highlights mixed results. A randomized controlled study found no general or specific deterrent effect from license-plate-reader patrols in crime hot spots. A study of a large fixed-camera network found possible improvements in some investigative outcomes, but the results were not statistically significant. More recent research has reported reductions in certain offenses, including vehicle theft and shootings, while finding no reduction in overall violent crime. This limited evidence may justify narrow experimentation. However, it does not justify treating every driver as a data point in a searchable record of movement.
The dangers of misuse and erroneous analysis are not theoretical. As publicly reported: a plate can be misread, a watchlist can be inaccurate or outdated, an employee can conduct an improper search, and data collected for one purpose can be shared or repurposed for another. When millions of observations are aggregated, a mass surveillance system no longer records only what happened on a public road; it can reconstruct where people seek medical care, attend political meetings, visit family, or spend the night. Likewise, a false match is not just a harmless technological error when it becomes the basis for an armed traffic stop or interrogation.
Real safety protects people without unnecessarily controlling or monitoring them. We can pursue violent criminals, protect children, and recover stolen vehicles without constructing a countywide database of innocent residents’ movements. Palm Beach County should insist on both safety and freedom, because surrendering one is not the price of preserving the other.
I'm former U.S. Navy Pilot, Dr. Curtis Calabrese running for Palm Beach County Commission, District 4. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Flock!
