Flock cameras are joining data centers as a top midterm boogeyman, with members of Congress and congressional candidates trying to harness a sudden groundswell of grassroots anger over the AI surveillance tool. Why it matters: This blowup over the country's massive network of license plate readers illustrates how rapidly AI has morphed from a peripheral issue in national politics toward the center of the midterm campaign. Data centers have become a major issue in the midterms, with candidates racing to one-up each other in their opposition to building the energy-hungry facilities. Super PACs affiliated with AI companies have also spent tens of millions of dollars clashing with each other in congressional elections over the degree to which the federal government should regulate the technology. Now, surveillance cameras are opening a new front in the debate over AI. Driving the news: Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, posted a video to X Wednesday tying his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, to Flock cameras. "There's been this mass proliferation of Flock cameras, any and everywhere, watching your every move to collect information without you even noticing," El-Sayed says with the '80s tune "Somebody's Watching Me" playing in the background. El-Sayed accuses Rogers of supporting the practice, citing a 2013 hearing in which the then-House Intelligence Committee chair said: "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated, right?" The Rogers campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Catch up quick: Flock and similar companies are facing a public outcry over their AI-powered license plate reader cameras, particularly given reports of police officers misusing the technology, Axios reported. Municipalities across the country have already moved to sever ties with Flock — whose vast network of 120,000 cameras allows law enforcement to track the movement of vehicles — and some people have sabotaged the cameras. The company has defended its practices and said it is improving its privacy features, telling Axios it has been "listening to customers, communities, and civil liberties groups." Flock has also argued that the tool is being used for good, saying its cameras have aided roughly 1 million police investigations and helped find around 10,000 missing people. State of play: Democratic House candidates are getting in on the Flock camera blowback. Ohio Democrat Kristina Knickerbocker said in a statement that her opponent, former House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner (R-Ohio), "pushed for more Flock cameras in downtown Dayton." "Now those cameras have been caught running thousands of searches that broke our city's rules," she added. Turner's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Chaz Molder, the Democratic nominee in Tennessee's 5th district, said of Flock cameras: "That kind of big government overreach has no place in our country or Tennessee." "Politicians are cashing their checks while allowing their cameras to go up everywhere," said William Lawrence, a progressive Democratic House candidate in Michigan. Between the lines: Flock cameras are emerging as a rare area of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill, with conservatives and progressives in particular speaking out on the issue in recent weeks. A trio of House Republicans led by Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) introduced a bill last month to prohibit the federal government from purchasing Flock cameras or similar technology. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a social media post Tuesday: "Flock has installed nearly 100,000 cameras across America to track your every movement. ... STOP AI MASS SURVEILLANCE. STOP FLOCK." The bottom line: The Flock camera backlash is converging with the already prominent data center discourse to make AI one of the most potent issues on the campaign trail. Jake Johnson, a Democratic House candidate in Minnesota, told Axios he was not surprised to find voters chafing at Flock cameras given the intense feelings he has encountered about data centers. "Everywhere I go I get questions about data centers," he said. "So the fact that those two are potentially linked together, I think, really, really burns people."
Flock license plate readers