Trump Comes Out In Favor Of Surveillance State’s Newest Tool

President Donald Trump appeared to come out in support of a heavily scrutinized artificial intelligence-powered mass surveillance tool in a recent interaction with the press.

“I like them [Flock Safety cameras],” Trump told reporters Sunday while aboard Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews.

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

“You haven’t talked a lot about the Flock cameras. A lot of law enforcement say they really help them,” the reporter said before asking the president, “Would you be willing to back that?”

“Yeah, I sort of like them because of that, because of law enforcement,” Trump responded. “But some people don’t; they think it’s an infringement.”

“They help catch a lot of criminals,” the reporter said.

“I like them,” Trump replied.

Trump told The Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese on Aug. 17 that he will make up his mind regarding Flock cameras “over the next couple of weeks” when asked for his stance on them.

“It’s being studied right now,” the president told Reese. “You have pros and cons, right? It’s being studied right now.”

Flock cameras’ ability to provide drivers’ personal information to law enforcement without a warrant through Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) has led to bipartisan backlash.

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, launched a probe on Aug. 26 into Flock’s use of the data that its network of over 120,000 cameras gather.

“In Missouri, the St. Charles County Police Department terminated its contract this month after an audit revealed that a civilian employee had run Flock searches for personal reasons, completely unrelated to their law enforcement duties,” Hawley wrote in the letter.

Hawley also alleged that in Milwaukee, “prosecutors charged a police officer who allegedly searched his girlfriend’s license plate 124 times and her former boyfriend’s plate 55 times, entering ‘investigation’ as his justification each time. Worse still, the officer was not caught by the company’s audit systems — he was caught because a private citizen looked up his own plate on a public website.”

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with the Democrats, promised in an X post on Aug. 26 that he “will soon be introducing legislation [to stop Flock and AI mass surveillance].”

“Totalitarianism is when a government or another entity with overwhelming power seeks to know, control and influence everything you do, say and even think,” Sanders wrote. “I fear very much that if we don’t act aggressively, that is where we’re heading.”

Meanwhile, some citizens have been taking matters into their own hands. Police in Winona, Minnesota, reported on Aug. 4 that people had destroyed eight of the city’s Flock cameras were destroyed. This followed similar cases of resistance reportedly occurring in Ohio, Texas, and North Carolina.