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A local beekeeper electrified a North Carolina county commissioners’ meeting with an anti-Flock surveillance speech, emphasizing the bipartisan makeup of the growing, nationwide backlash.
Tens of thousands of Flock Safety cameras and automated license plate readers (ALPRs) blanket the U.S., but have triggered pushback from concerned citizens, local activists, civil liberties groups and state and federal lawmakers. Flock’s defenders say the cameras are a crucial tool for fighting crime, but detractors believe the government could exploit the system and violate Americans’ constitutional rights. (RELATED: ‘Don’t Take The Bait’: A Whole Lotta People Aren’t Buying Flock’s Latest PR Move)
Barry Harris, a beekeeper from Wilmington, North Carolina, delivered a three-minute, anti-Flock speech at a New Hanover County Commissioners meeting earlier in August. Harris highlighted the bipartisanship on display, arguing that Flock cameras are “not a winning issue” for local politicians.
“There’s gays, straights, young, old, liberals, way-left liberals, Genghis Khan conservatives to the right here,” Harris said.
Harris was among 41 locals who spoke at the Aug. 17 meeting in protest of New Hanover County’s contract with Flock and the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office’s operation of 19 Flock cameras. Ahead of the meeting, dozens of protesters gathered outside the New Hanover County courthouse holding anti-Flock signs.
During his speech, Harris compared America’s network of surveillance cameras to that of the United Kingdom, which has one of the largest electronic and physical surveillance networks of any Western, democratic nation. (RELATED: ROOKE: UK’s Digital Dystopia Is A Warning For America — But Some Are Treating It Like A Roadmap)
“You can track the erosion of freedom in the British Isles to the increase of surveillance,” Harris argued. “It was sold the same way this is sold. Expediency. Necessity for safety — particularly the children. We gotta keep the children safe.”
“It’s very incremental,” he continued. “Just a little bit here, a little bit there. But a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, over four years, and that country is gone. We say, ‘That can never happen here.’ It is happening here.”
He also described an interaction with a liberal from Boston, Massachusetts. Although the man despised President Donald Trump, Harris explained, he also despised Flock cameras.
“I was at a grocery store making a delivery of honey last night, and the guy who I love to see all the time, an old guy from up north, from Boston, and he starts in on a half-hour rant about how much he hates Donald Trump. I’m sitting there thinking, ‘I really don’t want to hear this; this guy’s going to cancel my vote out.’ After about 30 minutes, I looked at him and said, ‘What do you think about the Flock cameras?’ He said, ‘I hate ‘em. I absolutely hate ‘em.’” (RELATED: Josh Hawley Launches Investigation Into Flock Over Surveillance Concerns)
Earlier in August, Flock Safety founder and CEO Garret Langley announced new privacy and transparency “safeguards” following reports of police officers using the Flock data system to spy on and stalk innocent people, some of whom included ex-partners. Critics, including Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, believe the announcement was largely a PR move to “create headlines about positive reforms.”
“As long as Flock continues to value profits over privacy and continues to treat legitimate privacy concerns as mere PR issues, we are going to continue to see more Flock efforts like today’s that seek to create headlines about positive reforms when few if any impactful changes are actually made,” Marlow previously told the Daily Caller.
Harris acknowledged that New Hanover County lacks the power to prevent the U.S. or the state of North Carolina from becoming a U.K.-esque surveillance state, but still urged commissioners to take action where they can.
“You can light a candle in the darkness,” he said. “Other counties have done that. You can just say, ‘No.’”
