It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself – anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence.
—George Orwell, 1984
As an estimated 110,058 Flock Safety cameras have gone up over recent years in the United States, citizen vigilantes are increasingly taking it upon themselves to destroy what they view as unconstitutional transgressions against Fourth Amendment privacy protections.
Via WUSA9 (emphasis added):
A growing number of Flock surveillance cameras are being intentionally vandalized across the country, including in Virginia, as critics raise concerns about privacy and how the data collected by the cameras could be shared among law enforcement agencies.
Arlington County police confirmed to WUSA9 that two Flock cameras were spray-painted on May 31. No suspect description has been released.
Flock cameras are automated license plate readers that use artificial intelligence to record when and where a vehicle is seen, along with its license plate, make and model. The cameras can also identify distinguishing characteristics, such as roof racks, bumper stickers and other visible features…
"I think the police need these tools," said Sean Kennedy with Virginians for Safe Families. "These tools aren't new, and the hysteria around Flock cameras and some of these surveillance tools is overblown."
Kennedy also noted that courts have consistently held that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on public roadways, making the recording of vehicles traveling on public streets constitutional.
"This vandalism or any type of vigilante action against these license plate readers is unwarranted," Kennedy said. "You have every right to change the law and change the allowances, but you have no right to destroy public property."
Rash of vigilante attacks on Flock cameras across American cities pic.twitter.com/Ap6Fhs0iju
— Ben Bartee (@BenBartee) July 13, 2026
Related: German Minister Announces Pre-Crime Surveillance, Prosecution of ‘Far-Right Extremists’
Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley, who includes the arguably Orwellian phrase “safety is a fundamental right” in his X bio, whatever that means, in a Forbes interview last year likened the group called DeFlock, which maps Flock cameras across the country but is not implicated in any vigilante vandalism, to Antifa terrorist groups:
You’ve got organizations like the ACLU… who take an above aboard [sic] approach to fight for their point of view. And thankfully we live in a beautifully democratic, capitalistic country where we can fight in court. And I have a lot of respect for those groups because they have reasonable debates and we follow the law…
And then unfortunately, there's terrorist organizations like DeFlock, whose primary motivation is chaos. They are closer to Antifa than they are anything else and that I think is unfortunate….
I like law and order. I like a society that is a bedrock of safety.
Flock CEO Garrett Langley disparages opponents of his mass surveillance regime as "antifa" terrorists pic.twitter.com/XeXE3Wfce9
— Ben Bartee (@BenBartee) July 13, 2026
Related: Google to Release 32 Million AI-Bred Mosquitoes on California, Florida
If you’ll indulge the tangent, I’m frankly disappointed in what has become of jack-booted tyranny.
These are the foppish nellies that rule the world now?
Garrett and Sam Altman?
At least in the olden days, you’d have a tough guy with a hell of a mustache, dressed to kill in shiny boots, having his goons goosestep through the streets in formation with precise, tight, mechanistic movement.
You could respect the hustle.
Now we get for an overlord this metrosexual nerd in a T-shirt doing the classic effeminate hand gestures, obviously an intentionally performed aesthetic, pioneered by the king of foppish psychopathic nellies cosplaying as Mr. Rogers, Bill Gates.
Communist China at least has the decency to name its panopticon Beast system “Skynet” so there’s no pretext of altruism or “safety.”
Related: Chinese Communist Party Literally Names Its Domestic Surveillance Program 'Skynet'
Subjects of the CCP understand the state is going to monitor them at will. When they inevitably violate whatever arbitrary behavior standards the state sets and are caught by the Beast, they understand that their social credit score will be downgraded and they’ll be begging for a cup of rice on the street because they will no longer be allowed in grocery stores.
At least it’s honest.
But no, that’s too much to ask.
Here in the liberal technocracy, we get fruitcakes like this guy who swear to God they just want to make the world a better place by violating basic constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure.
