A Modest Proposal: End All Unsolved Crime — Just Watch Everyone, Always

A modest proposal, in the spirit of the genre.

Defenders of Flock have a favorite argument: if a camera catches even one criminal, it’s worth it. We’ve decided to take that seriously — more seriously, frankly, than its authors ever have. Because if catching criminals is truly the goal, plate readers are a timid half-measure. They only see cars. Criminals, notoriously, also walk.

So here is the plan that finishes the job.

The proposal

Every resident — man, woman, child, jogger, dog-walker, churchgoer — is issued a department body camera, worn at all times. It streams live audio, live video, and GPS coordinates to a Government Monitoring Center, around the clock, forever. Artificial intelligence reviews every second in real time. Violation detected? Citation issued automatically. No officer required. No warrant required — you consented by existing.

The benefits are undeniable

A 100% clearance rate. We make no promise that crime will drop — deterrence is for optimists. We promise something cleaner: never again an unsolved crime. Every theft, every assault, every jaywalk — on tape, time-stamped, GPS-pinned, pre-confessed.

Breathtaking efficiency. No detectives. No witnesses. Eventually, no juries — the new film Mercy (2026) already imagines an AI judge delivering a verdict on a 90-minute clock, and we’d hate to fall behind Hollywood.

Found revenue. Twelve over the limit? Cite. Littering? Cite. Crossing against the light? Cite. A salty word in a school zone? As the prophets foretold in Demolition Man (1993): “You are fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute.”

Addressing the skeptics

“I have nothing to hide.” Marvelous. Then you won’t mind the microphone in the bathroom. Innocence, after all, is merely surveillance you haven’t been asked to review yet.

“What about abuse?” We’ll write a policy. Policies have never once failed — please don’t read any Flock audit before forming an opinion.

“Who watches the watchers?” Another camera, naturally. It’s cameras all the way down. Safety through surveillance.

And the best part: we’re nearly there already

This isn’t a new world — it’s just tidying up the gaps in this one. Flock already watches your car. Real-time crime centers watch the street. Doorbell cameras watch the porch. Your phone watches the rest. The universal body camera merely connects the dots that — through sheer government modesty — remain unconnected. Every move. Every word. Everywhere. Always. Because freedom is risky, but control is safe.

… Okay. Mask off.

Obviously we don’t want this. The point is how short the distance is. Read back through the proposal: every justification for the universal body camera is an argument being made today, in earnest, for Flock. If it catches one criminal. You’re in public anyway. Nothing to hide. Trust the policy. The only thing separating “a Flock camera on every road” from “a camera on every chest” is a line we have to draw on purpose — a warrant, a suspicion, a limit, a public vote. Surveillance does not stop where it becomes unreasonable. It stops where we stop it.

Mercy and Demolition Man still play as fiction because we still think they’re absurd. Mass plate-tracking is how the absurd gets built — one reasonable-sounding camera at a time. New Hanover County’s Flock network was searched nearly three million times in about sixteen months. No one voted for that. It simply… accumulated.

A free country accepts that some crimes go unsolved — the same way it accepts that some risk comes with every liberty. “No unsolved crime” was never the goal of a free society. The alternative is the Monitoring Center, the chair, and the ninety-minute clock. We’ve seen the movie. We don’t have to star in it.

This is satire — a deliberately absurd proposal made to illustrate a serious point. No one at DeFlockILM is proposing mandatory body cameras, and we’d thank you not to give anyone ideas. The films referenced (Mercy, 2026; Demolition Man, 1993) are works of fiction; the Flock figures are not. “Flock” here means Flock or any comparable ALPR network — the concern is the system, not a single vendor. Last updated June 30, 2026.