As the movement against Flock cameras gathers momentum, we have reprinted a sticker attacking surveillance.
Around the country, momentum is growing against Flock cameras. People are disabling these cameras in their communities—for example, someone sawed off and removed every Flock license plate reader operated by the Winona Police Department. This is laudable, civic-minded activity.
Now that resistance to surveillance systems and data centers is gaining popularity, even far-right pundits like Tucker Carlson are selling merchandise cashing in on public opposition to Flock cameras while admitting that, as obsequious toadies of the capitalist class, they “do not endorse vandalism or the destruction of property.” In other words, they do not actually want to do anything about mass surveillance, they just want to exploit this backlash against it financially and politically, channeling popular rage toward support for the same elites that impose and benefit from surveillance systems.
The conflict inside the movement against Flock cameras, which has already escalated to physical clashes at some anti-Flock demonstrations, represents a microcosm of the contest over what will succeed the Trump era: will it be an even more bigoted and violent strain of far-right populism in the service of elites, a milquetoast liberalism that uses rhetoric about “rule of law” to justify preserving the structures of oppression, or an ungovernable movement for liberation?
Flock is not the only surveillance company, and cameras are not the only form of surveillance. There are many other corporations waiting to fill the role that Flock cameras are playing, and many other means by which those who aim to dominate us seek to monitor and control our activities. It is good to compel local governments to cancel Flock contracts or directly disable Flock cameras, but the movement against Flock must become a movement against all of the interlocking structures of domination or it will only function as a pressure valve as those structures tighten their grip on our lives.
Many people use a discourse about “privacy” to explain their opposition to surveillance cameras, as if the problem were simply that the cameras interrupt the isolation of the atomized individual—casting light on what would otherwise take place in obscurity. But anyone who reflects for a moment can see that the real problem is that the cameras enable the powers that be to impose an authoritarian order that benefits the wealthy at everyone else’s expense. Ubiquitous surveillance is only “necessary” in a social order that concentrates power in the hands of an elite class while impoverishing everyone else. A profoundly unequal society requires continuous policing and violence to maintain the gulf between the wealthy and the poor, and surveillance cameras are just one aspect of the control apparatus.
The danger is not only that rogue police officers will use Flock cameras to stalk their ex-partners, but that the state itself will be able to consolidate the abusive relationship that it imposes upon all of us.
In March 2004, we announced a sticker addressing the cause of mass surveillance. It remains relevant today:
Wherever you go, whatever you do, whoever you are, you are under surveillance because you are a potential criminal. Perhaps you secretly doubt the sanctity of corporate property, or the validity of laws made by the rich to govern the poor, or the soundness of capitalism itself—we can’t afford to assume you don’t. That’s why there are video cameras pointed at every cashier and police cars circling every block. Left to itself, a state of disorder and inequity returns to equilibrium; our job is to perpetuate this one indefinitely.
We have reprinted this sticker for today’s context. Put them up everywhere that they could help those who do not wish to be subjected to surveillance identify the root of the problem.
You can order these stickers here.
We will be sending out copies with all orders from our online store.
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Further Reading
- You Are Under Surveillance
- Blinding the Cyclops, Wrecking the Panopticon—A story about camera hunting in the metropolis
