Town Councilmember Proposes Internet and Phone Ban After Flock Contract is Cancelled

After the town of Bandera, Texas voted 3-2 to end its contract with the dystopian surveillance company Flock, a pro-Flock councilmember proposed a ban of phones, cameras, the internet, and nearly all technology in a childish outburst more fitting for a pre-school student than a public representative.

The vote came after months of outrage from residents, who join many other cities in cancelling their contracts with the up-and-coming surveillance nightmare company.

Councilmembers Debbie Breen, Deanna McCabe and Tammy Morrow voted in favor of banning the surveillance apparatus, while council members Lynn Palmer and Jeff Flowers voted to keep the contract with Flock.

After the vote, Flowers felt it necessary to release a satirical statement calling for a ban of cellular devices and the internet. The statement very bluntly references the famous satirical piece A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, except instead of the target being politicians ignoring the poor, it instead makes the citizens of Bandera concerned about their basic constitutional right to privacy the butt of the joke.

The piece essentially equates his constituents to unreasonable anti-technology luddites who want to return to the 1800's.

Among the arguments presented are a "total ban on all cellular and GPS-capable devices," a "total ban on all outward-facing cameras, including residential doorbells and all commercial CCTV or security camera technology," and "A total termination of all internet services and electronic record-keeping."

He also makes the argument that the city is throwing away "free money" (the Flock system was being paid for by a government grant), essentially confirming that he is willing to sell the privacy of his constituents out for a quick buck.

It's a view into the mind of someone who seems to have a simplistic, binary view of technology: either it's all good, or it's all bad.

People who have actually looked into the security of Flock cameras have found incredibly embarrassing vulnerabilities that belie a company that doesn't consider security at all when implementing their surveillance system.

Flock cameras have also been responsible for several false arrests now, with more surely to come in the future.

Despite the mountains of evidence that Flock cameras are a bad idea, politicians like Flowers seem incapable of even considering the other point of view. I wonder how he would feel if he or one of his family members were falsely arrested and kept for months in jail under false pretenses.