With the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), demands by those who understand the threat for a Digital Bill of Rights are moving to the top of political discourse and the court of public opinion. Intrusions into privacy have reached a high point on the creepy-meter.

A “60” ranking is arbitrary, but it is set there to demonstrate that things can only get worse when it comes to government and even private sector intrusion.

Even AI is capable of expressing concern.

When Grok, one of the main research assistant platforms, is asked if it thinks AI is a threat to personal privacy, the response is telling.

“Yes, the potential for AI systems to erode personal rights is a real and legitimate concern. It deserves serious attention rather than dismissal or hype. AI does not possess independent will or moral agency. The risks come from how humans design, deploy, and regulate it. Key pressure points include:

  • Surveillance and data extraction: Large-scale pattern recognition can enable continuous monitoring of behavior, location, speech, and associations far beyond traditional tools. When this is combined with government or corporate incentives, it can chill free expression, association, and privacy.
  • Automated decision-making: Systems that score credit, filter job applicants, flag content, or influence legal outcomes can affect liberty and opportunity without transparent accountability or meaningful appeal. Errors and biases in training data become institutional.
  • Identity and authenticity: Synthetic media (deepfakes, voice clones) can undermine the ability to trust evidence of one’s own actions or words, which touches core rights around reputation, due process, and consent.
  • Concentration of power: When a small number of entities control the most capable models and the data pipelines that feed them, the capacity to shape information environments and individual choices becomes highly asymmetric.

At the same time, AI is also a tool that can strengthen personal rights when directed that way: privacy-preserving techniques, better accessibility for disabled people, rapid detection of rights violations, and amplification of individual speech against institutional gatekeepers. The same capabilities that enable surveillance can enable verification, encryption, and decentralized systems that reduce reliance on trusted intermediaries.

The decisive variables are institutional incentives and legal constraints, not the technology itself. Societies that treat AI as an excuse for expanded state or corporate power will see greater intrusion. Societies that insist on clear limits, transparency requirements, individual ownership of personal data, and competitive markets in AI tools will constrain the worst outcomes. Concern is warranted. Complacency is not. The useful posture is clear-eyed scrutiny of specific deployments and power structures rather than abstract fear of AI.”

How bad can it be?

What started out as a fairly benign idea of automatic license plate readers capable of capturing a “pattern of life” for vehicles used by criminals has turned into a surveillance state behemoth. Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are a major focus of recent media coverage, with stories centering on rapid expansion, crime-solving claims, officer misuse, data-sharing controversies (especially with federal agencies), and a wave of cities canceling contracts.

An effort to severely restrict the use of what are commonly known as “Flock cameras” in Arizona by Legislators brought the issue forth, only to see the attempt die. So now, there is no restriction whatsoever on their use. The roadway cameras have been credited with saving lives and finding criminals by locating their movements on public roadways. But the LPR’s can do much more than just track the movement of vehicles by reading their license plates.

Scale and Expansion

According to TechTimes, Flock’s network has grown to more than 100,000 cameras across the U.S., used by thousands of law enforcement agencies and some private entities. Reports note it processes tens of billions of vehicle scans monthly. Coverage also highlights use by major retailers (Lowe’s, Home Depot, Target, Walmart, Costco) for theft prevention and security, with some sharing data access with local police. Rural agencies have adopted the systems at high rates as well.

Crime-Solving and Public Safety Stories

CNN is correct, reporting that police and Flock frequently point to investigative successes. Media reports credit the cameras with helping recover stolen vehicles, locate missing people (Flock claims support for over 10,000 missing persons cases), track suspects in serious crimes (including a Brown University shooting case), and resolve child abductions or other emergencies. Some local departments release statistics showing use in dozens of cases per month and associations with drops in certain property crimes or shootings in specific studies.

Misuse by Officers

The Arizona Legislature’s focus was on preventing the recurring theme of abuse by individual officers. There are internal investigations that have documented cases where police used Flock systems to track romantic partners for obvious personal reasons. “Recent examples include officers in Milwaukee, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina who were arrested, fired, or forced to resign. The Institute for Justice has tracked many of these incidents, according to CNN.

Data Sharing, Federal Access, and Privacy Concerns

Major controversies involve how data is shared beyond local agencies. Audits and reporting (including by 404 Media and others) have shown federal agencies such as ICE, CBP, ATF, and others querying local Flock networks, sometimes in ways that conflicted with city policies barring immigration-related use. This has driven significant backlash.

  • Dozens of cities (reports cite 50+ overall, with many in 2026) have terminated, rejected, or deactivated Flock contracts. Examples include Dayton (Ohio), San Francisco, Woodburn (Oregon), and others across roughly 20 states. Some cities covered camera lenses or sued.
  • The LAPD suspended use amid privacy and oversight concerns.
  • Additional worries include tracking of activists, people seeking reproductive care, false positives leading to wrongful stops, and the creation of a searchable national movement history of vehicles (make, model, color, stickers, damage, etc.).

Critics from the ACLU, EFF, and privacy groups describe the systems as mass surveillance infrastructure. Flock and many police departments reject that framing, arguing the cameras capture public vehicle data (not people or faces via facial recognition), support targeted investigations, and include audit logs and retention limits (often around 30 days by default).

And then there is grocery shopping…

Have you heard about “surveillance pricing?” Imagine your FICO credit score and income/expense data fed to a data center that the local grocery store and big box stores like Wal-Mart can subscribe to so they can predict how much you can afford to pay for an item, then adjusting the price of that item for you at the moment you check out, so that it is diffetent than what your neighbor might pay.

You’ve probably noticed it without realizing. You pull up the same TV for sale on your phone and your laptop and the prices don’t match. Your buddy gets a lower fare on the exact same Uber ride. The grocery delivery app quotes you one total and your neighbor another for an identical basket. That’s not a glitch. That’s not “the market.” That’s surveillance pricing and it’s quietly turning everyday shopping into a personalized tax on the people the algorithm decides can afford it. Read more at the Prescott Pulse

Yes, Walmart smart carts are coming. Click Here Companies feed that data into algorithms designed to estimate the highest price you’ll tolerate before walking away. Then they charge you that price. Same product. Same moment. Different customer. Different number.

By The Prescott Pulse

“If a recent Walmart patent application becomes reality, watching your every move is far from the most intrusive way shoppers will be monitored. According to the patent, the idea is to put biometric sensors in shopping-cart handles. These sensors would track the shoppers’ heart rates, temperatures, grip strength, and stress levels, not to mention the cart’s weight, speed and idle time. Next, that info would be sent to a server where the data could be analyzed and compared against baselines obtained when the customer first grabbed the cart.” NetworkWorld

Who should set the limits?

Ordinarily, Congress would set the limits through a regulatory framework, but that dysfunctional body can’t even agree on securing elections through the SAVE Act. Congress is the likely body because this matter touches on interstate commerce, a federal area of authority. But it will be up to the states, and most likely state constitutional amendments pushed by the People, not fearful and feckless legislators, to protect public writ large from technocracy abuse. This is a public policy that only the courageous will pursue because there are big bucks at stake.

Patrick Wood, is the author of Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation and Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order, and principal at Citizens for Free Speech. Patrick Wood and Courtenay Turner have drafted a model Digital Bill of Rights that is intended to be a constitutional amendment at the state constitution level. It is technical and detailed, certainly worthy of examination and consideration by legislators who recognize the threat of AI and the misuse of this tool. Digital_Bill_Of_Rights_Printer_Friendly

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