Diminishing Liberty: How Surveillance Technology Is Creating a Digital Dragnet in America

The Rise of the Corporate Driven Surveillance State

The modern surveillance state is not being built by governments, it is being built by large technology companies that are selling that information to the government. The UK seems to be one of the furthest down the path to a totalitarian style surveillance state. Sadly, American local, state and federal governments are following the example set by the UK. These days Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are considered 10-year-old technology. Oxfordshire, England, had even created six fifteen-minute zones for residents to live in. The city council wound up removing the phrase from the plan after the residents protested. Interesting to note that what was important to the city planners was the “toxic phrase” not the actual implementation.

Non Stop Scrolling: How Digital Addiction Enables Surveillance

Significant portions of the population, including massive numbers of the 30 and under crowd, spend countless hours scrolling on their phones. Here are some of the numbers from a recent you.gov poll:

“The majority (57%) of Americans say they are spending at least five hours a day looking at screens. 21% think they usually spend five to six hours looking at screens, 16% estimate it’s seven to eight hours, 13% think it’s nine to 12 hours, 4% think it’s 13 to 16 hours, and 3% say they spend more than 16 hours a day looking at a screen.

One-third (32%) of adults under 30 spend more than nine hours a day looking at a screen — compared to 24% of 30- to 44-year-olds, 16% of 45- to 64-year-olds, and 11% of Americans 65 and older.”

When you think about it, a population that sits in front of a screen that is consistently sending telemetry data back to the corporation that made it is much easier to control and manipulate. Add to that all the data that our Smart Home devices are collecting about us.

Something to ponder: If our phones are sending telemetry data regularly, is there any need for a Digital ID in order to track us?

We are giving up our own personal liberty to the digital gods of distraction.

AI Slop: Manipulation at Scale

AI Poisoning: A New Front in Information Warfare

AI Slop is content created by AI designed to keep people scrolling on their phones. It is also being used by many different people and governments to push their agenda and to manipulate people into believing things that are false. We have seen everything from fake videos around the Israel-Hamas conflict, to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to fake news stories about anything and everything political including large quantities of AI slop created to denigrate ICE. None of this AI Slop has anything that resembles Christian ethics or morals. It is all about generating clicks and keeping eyeballs locked in on the device.

To add to the confusion and manipulation, nation state hacking groups have been known to use attacks against AI known as “poisoning the well.” This is where they insert false information into the set of data that the AI uses to generate answers. Examples include Russian, Chinese and Iranian disinformation targeted at AIs. Obvious question, does anyone think that the news media realizes that their AI chatbots are being targeted with misinformation? Benjamin Netenahu has admitted that Israel is working to combat Russian, Chinese and Iranian disinformation by spending money to get its own views promoted. If Israel is doing this, should we believe that other administrations are doing this too?

It is abundantly clear that the Biden administration was actively suppressing information that it didn’t want the population to know about and was deliberately promoting false information for its own benefit.

Using Private Companies to Circumvent the Fourth Amendment

Flock Cameras, Ring Cameras, Arlo Cameras, and many others cooperate with law enforcement creating a digital record of almost every move that we make. Flock Cameras are especially problematic as they are widely used by law enforcement. Flock, Ring, etc., are methods for law enforcement to do an end run around the 4^th amendment to the U.S. constitution.

Stop and think about this for a minute. Law enforcement is using private technology companies to violate the 4^th Amendment. The Biden administration used technology companies to violate the 1^st Amendment. This is a pattern and not a good one.

We are also seeing big retail box stores deploying camera technology, claiming that they are there to reduce crime. Home Depot and Lowes are both deploying Flock Cameras monitoring license plates. Walmart and other stores are using facial recognition technology at self-check-out terminals. Local police departments are supposed to have limits on how that data is used, private companies do not have those limits. They certainly do not have any requirement to obey the 4^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Camera Data Sharing Does Not Stop at the City Limits

Flock logs that have been released to the public indicate that searches in one jurisdiction are not just local, they are searching networks of over 80,000 cameras. This isn’t just potential misuse; there is direct evidence from system logs of Flock executives using the cameras to watch little girls’ gymnastic classes.

All this data collected by these camera networks is being used by the federal government. In locations where sharing with the federal government is banned, ICE agents have been requesting that their friends on the local police force run the searches for them. There are those that argue that the benefit of ICE having access to this data in order to locate and identify illegal aliens justifies their existence. We would say that is a poor justification for creating a surveillance state, because that is what is happening. Some of the Flock Log data can be found at: https://haveibeenflocked.com/ At some point, the same people that worked in and with the Biden administration will come back into power. Why would we want to hand them the keys to a surveillance network that would enable a totalitarian state?

The Digital Dragnet: Phones, Cameras, AI, and Digital IDs

We are being numbed into oblivion with endless scrolling on social media, using devices that are able to track our every move. Our thoughts are being shaped by AI Slop and all the media that is constantly trying to influence our every move. Social media influencers are being paid to support various causes under the table and camera networks are being used to build a digital dragnet that can be used for many nefarious purposes. At this point, 20 states are participating in Digital IDs that can be used at TSA Checkpoints. A large-scale Digital ID implementation in this country would lock that digital dragnet in place. There would be nothing preventing the government from turning on location tracking on the Digital ID app or getting access to telemetry data from Apple and Google.

Far too many people make the statement that they have nothing to hide. That’s not true. Everyone has something to hide. Nobody wants their bank account/credit card information made public. We use locks to secure our homes because there are people living there that are important to us, not to mention all of the stuff behind those locked doors. If you don’t believe you have anything to hide, ask yourself this question: Would you be willing to unlock your phone and hand it to a stranger?

In a world where there is no privacy, where nearly every aspect of our lives can be tracked and manipulated by local, state and federal authorities, the light of liberty is rapidly being snuffed out.

What We Can Do to Protect Liberty

Stand up! Speak out! Exercise your Liberty whenever possible. Choose not to be a part of tracking networks. Work with your community to end digital surveillance. Talk to city councils, talk to county commissioners, influence others, bring 10 other people with you to speak out against digital surveillance. As conservatives, we believe strongly in local control. That means we must be involved. We can’t just show up to vote, we have to actually speak up at city council meetings, we have to show up in numbers when threats to our liberty appear. As conservatives, if we are not influencing our local governments, what are we doing?

A Final Warning

Given the willingness of technology companies to violate fundamental principles of our government at the direction of government officials, when do those same technology companies decide that they no longer need the permission of government officials? When do they decide that the government officials are of no value?

The tools to put us all in a digital prison already exist. The digital dragnet is being drawn together. If Liberty minded people refuse to say no, we face a bleak future where our liberties can be eliminated by technology companies that don’t answer to governments, they are the governments.

Would this be the downfall of America? Remember, the United States is not in the book of Revelation. As believers in Jesus Christ, are we serving Him by mindlessly scrolling? Are we serving Him by spending more time online than with our family? Are we serving Him by giving up our Dangerous Liberty for chains of security?