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It's probable that most Blair County residents who, in recent weeks, heard references to Flock cameras believed that the devices would be just a big-city thing or an immigration-control mechanism confined mostly to states in close proximity to the Mexican border.
Imagine the surprise and pangs of concern that were immediate reactions to the disclosure that such cameras already were here -- that five such devices already have been installed in the area of Penn State's Altoona campus and, apparently unbeknownst, have been spying on everyone who passes by.
No doubt many people have been asking who authorized placement of the cameras, why installation wasn't publicized to the point that most county residents were knowledgeable that something like that would be happening and, probably most important, who is footing the bill for the cameras and their operation -- and how much that bill might be.
People here and elsewhere have been caught up in concern over artificial intelligence, what it truly means now, and what it could mean for and in the future. In the minds of many, rightly or wrongly, it's clear that AI is more troublesome than beneficial, especially in their new dealings with companies, stores and other entities with which their previous contacts were met by human responders, not an electronic voice.
Now Flock cameras have come on the scene, making many people suspicious and jittery about what government or governments are trying to eventually do to them.
Feelings like that already are evolving in Logan Township, as an Aug. 28 Mirror article made clear.
It's also clear that the Aug. 28 article opened many eyes to the realization that people of Blair County need to ponder and speak out about how such devices might affect their lives directly in the future.
"As Flock cameras surge, bipartisan anger rises" was the headline over a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal's Aug. 26 edition.
"The same bipartisan public anger that has risen up from towns and cities to stall data centers is now aimed at its (Flock Safety Co.'s) spreading camera network," the Journal said.
Reporting by the Journal also revealed that in August, Flock, the license-plate reader company, barred the media from its annual conference with law-enforcement agencies. An appropriate question is "Why?"
Flock reportedly has 120,000 cameras in 49 states that capture 20 billion license plates a month, as well as much more additional information.
Benn Jordan, a cybersecurity researcher who the Journal said "has racked up millions of views on YouTube criticizing Flock Safety," said in an interview that, apart from privacy issues, his ultimate concern is that "vulnerabilities in systems like Flock's will someday 'lead to the greatest infrastructure attack we've ever seen.'"
According to the Journal, Flock opponents, including local-level chapters of DeFlock, an opposition group that tracks the precise locations of cameras, have held rallies in at least 44 states, while a number of towns, including two in Massachusetts in recent days, indicated that they would stop using the cameras.
The Journal article mentioned camera-based abuses such as people having been wrongly flagged then wrongly detained.
At the Logan Township supervisors' Aug. 27 meeting, a township resident told the supervisors that "the people in this area are very upset, as they are learning that this is something that we have already had installed in multiple areas around Logan Township and Altoona."
All considered, it is clear that the Flock cameras issue needs to be the topic of much more debate here, going forward.