Flock sacrifices liberty in name of safety

I want to respond with a few words in response to Chief Current’s recent piece about the “Flock” system that he and his department have initiated in this city.

First, a quote from Ben Franklin: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

If you watch a sampling of the thousands of police (as often as not violating constitutional rights) videos available on the internet, one of the most common phrases you will hear coming out of the mouths of law enforcement is “in this day and age ...blah blah blah.” What they mean by this is that because of the extraordinary danger we, as a society, currently face, police violating our civil rights to protect us from these extraordinary dangers in these extraordinary times is justified. 

The fact of the matter is, while the COVID pandemic led to societal stress and upheaval that resulted in a small but significant spike in crime, those spikes have been subsiding to pre-pandemic levels. Pre-pandemic crime rates were at the lowest of my lifetime, which began in 1951.

I do not feel any more unsafe now than at any other era of my life. I do not want extra police surveillance. I do not trust ANY law enforcement agency to not use collected data in ways that violate our civil rights. I want law enforcement to first and foremost protect and defend the Constitution as all law enforcement officers swore an oath to do. I want competent and legal law enforcement that relies on legal investigations and protections. 

No Flock for this citizen, thank you very much!

– Brian Clark, Durango