Flock surveillance cameras and Second Amendment rights clash at gun shops across America

‘We own our privacy’, says one gun store owner who took down his Flock cameras.

It’s widely known, certainly among my readers, that Atlanta-based Flock Group Inc. is violating the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans on a mass scale, and any local politicians or sheriffs who don’t realize that clearly don’t have even a basic understanding of what those rights consist of.

The Fourth Amendment protects the right of all Americans to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. It also requires warrants to be based on probable cause and to describe the place and things to be searched or seized.

But a less recognized clash is taking shape between Flock’s AI surveillance grid and the Second Amendment, which gives citizens the right to keep and bear arms, part of which the courts have generally agreed forbids the creation of a national gun registry.

But what if every gun purchase is logged on a video and stored somewhere in a central database?

The Washington Times is reporting that gun shops are pulling down their Flock cameras following a growing number of complaints from customers who believe the cameras have turned into a monitoring network that threatens their gun rights.

Michael Carter, owner of Gun Commanders in Cleveland, Georgia, installed Flock cameras two years ago to combat burglars and help law enforcement nab illegal gun buyers.

He told the Times that he recently took down the cameras, which record license plate numbers and other data such as make, model, color, and even scratches, dents and bumper stickers to track vehicles entering and exiting his parking lot. He pulled the cameras after his customers complained and posted their criticisms on social media.

This is the latest component of a nationwide privacy-rights backlash against​ Flock’s AI-powered surveillance cameras popping up on street corners, in parks, parking lots, neighborhoods or on drones buzzing overhead.

Carter has taken the hint. If he values his customers, he had better ditch the AI surveillance cameras documenting everyone who comes to his shop to buy a gun.

“I installed the system with the best of intentions — to protect the people who walk through our doors every day,” Carter told Now Georgia. “After listening to my customers, I realized that maintaining their trust is more important than any piece of technology.”

In Cudahy, Wisconsin, the Eagle Sports Shooting Range is another good example. When Flock Group Inc. was asked to remove the cameras over privacy concerns, the company said the firing range was contractually bound to keep the cameras rolling.

“To heck with this contract. We’ll deal with that later on,” Saad Jaber, general manager of Eagle Sports Range, told ABC News 12. “We own our privacy, but when that privacy gets infringed, then what are we doing? What kind of nation are we going to become?”

The Flock cameras came down, according to the Times.

John Commerford, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, told The Times there was bound to be a collision between Flock surveillance cameras and gun rights.

Flock has been operating for nine years. And that time has finally come.

“These tools dramatically expand the government’s ability to monitor and track everyday citizens going about their lives and could be used to create a de facto registry of gun owners,” he told The Washington Times.

Federal law prohibits the U.S. government from creating or maintaining a centralized national firearms registry, a statute that firearm advocacy groups have been fighting to ensure is not violated or rewritten.

Commerford wondered what happens to the video footage, where it gets stored, and who has access to it. It could serve as a backdoor national registration.

“How can AI maybe misuse that data to create a registry?” he told the Times. “The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms free from continuous government monitoring, and mass tracking of lawful gun owners threatens both privacy and liberty.”

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