Alice Runs From Injustice: A Traffic Camera Sees Me Naked and Nobody Cares

I want to be very clear about something before I say another word: I DID NOT CONSENT. Nobody asked me. Nobody sent a form. There was no checkbox, no signature line, no little pop-up that said "Alice, before we proceed, we would like your permission to photograph your automobile at forty-seven intersections between your home and the Trader Joe's." That conversation never happened. And yet here we are, in a country where machines I never met are apparently on a first-name basis with my license plate.

I am talking, of course, about the Flock cameras. You may have heard about them. You may not have, because apparently the entire point of a surveillance rollout is that you're not supposed to notice it, which — I want to flag this immediately — is itself an outrage. If you're going to track my Honda Civic across state lines like it's a fugitive from a made-for-TV movie, the LEAST you could do is send a card. A little "hi, we see you" card. Is that so much to ask? Evidently, yes. Evidently that is a bridge too far for the law enforcement-industrial complex.

Let's talk about what's actually happening here, because I've read the reporting and I want to be scrupulously fair to the facts even as I lose my ENTIRE MIND about them. These are camera systems, deployed by police departments, that read license plates and build a rolling record of where cars — specifically, MY car, but let's not make this only about me even though it absolutely is — have been. Law enforcement says it helps them solve crimes. Fine. Wonderful. I love a solved crime as much as the next law-abiding woman who has never so much as rolled through a stop sign on purpose. But here's my question, and I want whoever is in charge of this to answer it directly, on the record, preferably while standing: WHO APPROVED THIS FOR MY STREET?

Because I didn't. And I live on my street. I pay taxes that may or may not directly fund this technology, I haven't done the math, the math isn't the point, the point is the PRINCIPLE. Somewhere, in some meeting, in some fluorescent-lit conference room I was never invited to, a decision was made that a camera should know what time I drive to get iced coffee. And nobody in that room thought to say, "hold on, has anyone consulted Alice?" That's not a policy failure. That's a PERSONAL FAILURE OF EVERYONE INVOLVED.

I want to speak to the manager. Not the manager of the police department — although yes, also them, put them on the list — I mean the manager of the whole apparatus. Who runs surveillance in this country? Who is the human being whose desk this lands on? Because I have complaints, I have them typed up, I have them in a Google Doc titled "THINGS I AM OWED," and I am prepared to read them aloud at a public meeting if that's what it takes. Someone is getting an earful. I don't know who yet. I'm workshopping the org chart.

Here's what really gets me, and I need everyone reading this to sit with the sheer AUDACITY of it: these cameras don't even have the decency to be SELECTIVE. They're not just tracking suspects. They're tracking EVERYONE. Every car. Every commute. Every 2 a.m. drive to the pharmacy because you ran out of the good allergy medicine and the store brand doesn't work and you know it doesn't work but you keep buying it anyway out of some misplaced sense of frugality that, frankly, is a separate personal issue I'm working through with a professional and NOT the subject of this piece. The point is: a system built to catch bad guys is currently learning my ENTIRE ROUTINE, and nobody thinks that's a problem because I haven't done anything wrong? That's not the standard! The standard is CONSENT! The standard has always been CONSENT!

Civil liberties groups are raising alarms, which, good, thank you, at least someone in this country still has a working sense of outrage, but I'll be honest, even their concern doesn't feel personal enough. They're worried about mass surveillance in the abstract, the systemic implications, the slippery slope. I don't care about the slope right now. I care about the SPECIFIC AFFRONT to ME, a private citizen who was simply trying to drive to Trader Joe's without being cataloged like a specimen in some dystopian insect collection. This isn't a policy debate. It is a VIOLATION, and it happened to me PERSONALLY, and I am DEMANDING SATISFACTION.

Let's talk about the apology I am owed, because I am owed one, and I would like it itemized. First: an apology for the surveillance itself. Second: an apology for not TELLING me about the surveillance, which honestly might be the worse offense — the sneaking around, the quiet rollout, the little cameras just materializing on poles like nobody was going to notice, like I wasn't going to notice, like I don't notice EVERYTHING. Third: an apology for making me find out about this from a NEWSPAPER, which, by the way, is humiliating. I should not be learning about the tracking of my own car from the New York Times. That is not how due process is supposed to work. I should have gotten a certified letter. I should have gotten a knock on the door. I should have gotten, at minimum, a customer satisfaction survey afterward asking how my surveillance experience went, on a scale of one to five, with a comment box, because BOY do I have comments.

And a refund. Obviously a refund. I don't fully know what I'm being refunded FOR — some kind of emotional tax, a dignity rebate, the psychic toll of knowing a folder somewhere has a timestamped map of my Tuesday — but I want it processed. I want it processed PROMPTLY. I am not going to be one of those people who lets an institution slow-walk her out of what she's rightfully owed. I have already started documenting everything. Screenshots. Timestamps. A running log titled "EVIDENCE," all caps, because subtlety is for people who haven't been personally wronged by a pole-mounted camera.

Someone is going to hear from me about this. I don't know who yet — again, working on the org chart — but when I find them, and I WILL find them, I am going to explain, calmly and at LENGTH, exactly how this feels. It feels like being watched by something that doesn't even have the courtesy to introduce itself. It feels like the DMV and the NSA had a baby and nobody threw them a shower. It feels like NOBODY ASKED ME, and I cannot stress enough how far that phrase extends in my mind — it is not just about the cameras, it is about a society that has apparently decided consent is optional as long as the surveillance is technically legal, and let me tell you, TECHNICALLY LEGAL IS NOT THE SAME AS OKAY WITH ALICE.

So here is my ultimatum, and I want it on the record: fix this, tell me who's watching, get me my apology, get me my refund, and next time — NEXT TIME — somebody puts a camera on a pole that's going to look at my car, they had better send a card first. A nice one. Cardstock. Maybe a little illustration of a traffic light on the front. Is that so much to ask? I already know the answer. The answer is apparently yes. The answer is apparently that in this country, my car can be tracked block by block by a machine with no face and no manners, and I'm supposed to just accept it, quietly, like a woman who doesn't keep a running document titled "EVIDENCE."

Not today. Not on my street. Not without my consent.

— Alice, watching the watchers, and taking names