To the editor:
Two related issues have been making the rounds in the news cycle recently: data centers and Flock surveillance cameras.
These two issues are connected, as the AI-enabled Flock cameras rely on the AI data centers to perform their surveillance tasks.
Every poll shows that we, the people of Maine, are broadly united against both the establishment of data centers and the use of Flock cameras in our state. This is a rare example of wide bipartisan support. Mainers of all political stripes realize that a free society and a constant surveillance state are incompatible.
Thankfully, Maine statute already prohibits state, county and municipal government from contracting with third-party facial recognition surveillance systems. We need to expand on this with a ban on new construction of data centers and an outright ban on Flock-style cameras.
When I traveled throughout Eastern Europe, I saw firsthand the remnants of the old Soviet surveillance state. The Soviet surveillance systems promised to keep their people safe. In the end, they were used by authoritarian government to track and control every aspect of the people’s lives.
This is America. We don’t need to follow Soviet-style ideas. We don’t need to live confined within a digital prison. We need to follow the ideals of our founders all of whom would have broadly condemned the kind of surveillance state being built today.
Jeremy Hiltz
Cary Township
