Flock Around and Find Out

Ever since the invention of the modern camera, our culture has produced an abundance of stories, songs, and art about the fear of being watched. This concern has deep historical roots—people have dreaded the all-seeing eye at least since Bentham invented the panopticon—but the twentieth century supercharged it as technology enabled new, more convenient forms of mass surveillance. As the warnings expressed in cautionary tales evolved over time, from 1984’s Big Brother manifesting Cold War totalitarian anxiety to Enemy of the State channeling nineties conspiracy-theory paranoia, the theme stayed the same: being monitored against your will really fucking sucks. Nowadays, the technologies depicted in those works seem almost quaint, their dystopian visions less far-fetched than ever. We’re all Rockwell, feeling like “Somebody’s Watching Me,” and the worst part is that we’re right. 

Unless you’ve spent the last several months off the grid blissfully communing with nature in a state of pure innocence not experienced since the Book of Genesis, you probably know that we’re talking about Flock cameras, several dozen of which have been installed across Alexandria. These things are automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, a technology that works quite differently from traffic cameras (which only take photos of vehicles that commit moving violations) or CCTV security cameras (which don’t generate searchable data)—ALPRs indiscriminately record every vehicle that passes them and use AI to create a database of their movements over time. In other words, if traffic camera data tells us “a Honda ran this red light,” an ALPR says “oh, that Honda? I know her. She lives in Carlyle but her boyfriend lives in Van Dorn, she stays at his place every Friday. Also he’s cheating on her.” 

There’s been a mountain of press coverage about Alexandria’s Flock cameras in recent weeks, so we won’t belabor the facts other than to sum up the current state of play: people are mad about them, advocacy groups have formed, City Council seems committed to getting rid of them, APD is reportedly looking into alternatives. Caught up? Good, because that’s very much not the end of the story. The question facing us now is: what do we do next? Do we just switch to another brand of ALPRs? There’s no question that Flock is a uniquely problematic company, but other vendors offer basically the same service with varying “safety” policies that tinker around the margins of data storage and access. They just do it with even sillier names, like Axon, Verkada, Voxel, Dataminr [Editor’s note: you’re making these up, right?], AutoVu [Editor’s note: oh my god they’re real], Cloudastructure [Editor’s note: what], Citizen [Editor’s note: NO], and Vigilant [Editor’s note: *throws computer into incinerator*].

Many others have documented the practical concerns with these systems, ranging from how many errors they make, to their crime-solving efficacy, to the entities able to search our data and the purposes for which they’re allowed to use it. We won’t repeat all of that here—suffice it to say we share those concerns. The guardrails on this tech, to the extent they exist, are essentially voluntary and could disappear faster than the FBI’s job applicant bestiality ban. Any system that relies on norms to prevent abuse leaves us vulnerable. When we adopt potentially dangerous tools and presume benevolent actors will keep us safe, what happens when leadership changes? It’s infrastructure for authoritarianism and we don’t want to roll the dice on who has access to it. Let’s just say that when Rockwell sang “I wonder who’s watching me now, the IRS?”, he was not thinking broadly enough about the range of law enforcement agencies able to access Flock information.

But even if these technologies were legally subject to the best possible safety and reliability standards, with data totally locked down, zero errors, and no discriminatory placement, what we’ve heard from members of our community makes us think that this technology would still provoke objections leaning more philosophical than pragmatic. Mass surveillance is existentially upsetting! There’s a reason why an entire branch of constitutional law revolves around our expectations of privacy—we collectively hold this value to be very important. If we’re going to give it up, we want to feel like it’s for a damn good reason. One reason the backlash has been strong in Alexandria may be that the level of intrusion doesn’t feel proportionate to our local crime rate, which has been falling since 2024 and remains below national averages. There’s a sense of: why are we, specifically, doing this? And if we’re going to let the state intrude in intimate aspects of our lives, at the very least we want to discuss and consent to it first. As Alexandrians, we’re conditioned to expect a certain level of public input. This, even more than our standing as the nation’s foremost George Washington appreciators, is our heritage!! Feeling like we have no control or say in the matter creates the kind of frustration that leads someone to smash Flock cameras and be hailed as a folk hero, or to spend their Wednesday night doing elaborate supervillain cosplay just to make their voice heard.

At the bare minimum, whatever happens next, Alexandrians deserve transparent decisionmaking and a chance to weigh in on the right balance between privacy and policing in our city. To be clear, the best time to have that conversation would have been before putting the cameras up. The fact that we had [checks notes] 74 opportunities to comment on the Ewald Park improvements but zero on the pint-sized Eyes of Sauron posted on every arterial roadway within municipal limits was certainly a choice. But the second-best time to do it is now!! The discussion has already started in living rooms, community meeting spaces, and online forums across the city, but we hope our leaders start to incorporate that feedback in a more official and intentional capacity, because the time for making decisions is upon us. APD just announced they’re working on scheduling some public listening sessions, which is a good start.

Our position, for what it’s worth, is that Flock and other ALPRs don’t have “a role in this community” (in the words of our mayor) because that’s what we are—a community. As we’ve written many times, we love Alexandria because this city isn’t just an assemblage of random people who happen to live in the same 15 square miles; we’re bound together by relationships and shared values and a mutual sense of civic responsibility. By treating all of us like suspects, indiscriminate monitoring breaks that social contract. It sends a message that none of us can be trusted, and in return we lose the ability to trust those who monitor us. It chills our freedoms, making us feel nervous about going where we need to go—the health clinic, or a protest, or the restaurant that’s actually a strip club that you can’t even claim you thought wasn’t a strip club anymore since they added a clarifying sign to the outside of the building—because we don’t know who’s watching. 

Throwing it back to the 18th century panopticon, the reason it was such an effective idea wasn’t because the guards in the central watchtower could see every cell in the prison. It was because the prisoners themselves couldn’t see inside the tower, so they had to assume they were always being watched, forcing them to self-police their own behavior. This was later used as a metaphor by Foucault for how surveillance destroys the human psyche [Editor’s note: all right, you read Discipline and Punish and college, we fucking get it] and it’s the same effect that continuously monitoring people with cameras has today. On a slightly different sociological note, losing public trust also creates operational difficulties for policing, so there’s a strong case that these cameras do more harm than good on that metric alone. To get to the point, none of this is what we want for our community here in Alexandria.

Fortunately we have the opportunity to act now—not just to dump Flock, as other jurisdictions across the country (even, ugh, Arlington) have already done—but to nip this whole practice in the bud before committing to another surveillance company named Eavesdroppr or PrivacyTheef or BigBro3000. As it is, we’ve taken too long to take basic steps like reducing data storage times and eliminating data sharing with Virginia jurisdictions that cooperate with ICE. Yes, it takes some courage, vision, and leadership to make this kind of change because the stakes around the decision feel high. But come on, guys. Read the room!! Even Republicans hate this shit. Do you know how rare it is to get DSA (“I don’t want cameras reinforcing carceral oppression of the working class”), MAGA (“I don’t like the government tracking me to the gun store”), and libertarians (“I demand privacy so I can drink raw milk in peace”) on the same page about something these days??

This issue feels fundamentally connected to several other concerns facing our community today, from artificial intelligence and data centers to immigration enforcement—like all the plotlines coming together in the season finale of some fucked-up HBO drama starring Ed Harris as a lightly fictionalized version of Don Beyer who chain-smokes. They’re all connected by the feeling that we’re losing local control over questions that shape our day to day lives, and the frustration with tech billionaires and Trump administration officials using Minority Report and Black Mirror as instruction manuals. But it’s important to remember that none of this is inevitable, and we have the right to say no. The answers to these questions are ultimately up to us, which is why the ACLU recommends that all decisions regarding the use of mass surveillance should be voted on by elected officials who are accountable to the public. It’s our prerogative to be like Rockwell, singing “All I want is to be left alone in my average home.” It’s not too late to reaffirm our shared humanity and values, and to make sure Alexandria stays the kind of community that feels like home.

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• It’s not even October 1st and Spooky Szn is ready to tear out of the gates, with the recent opening of our first horror bookstore, the return of Nightmare on the Ave in Del Ray, and the Clerk of the Court bringing back Halloweddings. Last year Halloweddings sold out, so if you’re aiming to tie the knot in front of our smartly costumed Clerk you’d better sign up soon. And while couples costumes are encouraged for the soon-to-be-wed, we’re told that this is not a contest and you will not win an award for arriving dressed as 3600 and 3600 ½ Russell Rd.
• Port City brings back Wunderfest tomorrow from 11am to 10pm, their free to attend annual celebration of Bavarian culture featuring music, games, food from La Tingeria, and contests like stein holding and *awkward cough* bratwurst tossing. 
• It’s Hispanic Heritage Month and Visit Alexandria put together a great list of some Hispanic, Latina and Latino-owned businesses to support in the city. No word yet on whether the city’s celebrations will include the incorporation of a Bad Bunny-style casita into the Market Square renovation. 
• Elizabeth Bennett-Parker was tapped as the legislator of the year by the Virginia Restaurant, Lodging & Travel Association in recognition of her work to reform a much-derided out of date rule on food-to-booze sales ratios. At press time ALXtra staff had not yet received a response to our question to the senator’s office if being Jesse’s neighbor was driving her to need to drink more and thus motivating this bill.

Local Discourse Power Rankings

1. You Idiots Are Doing This Street Address Wrong (Last week: 3). We already mentioned this above, but few things burned up local social media last week more than discussion about an appeal for a house renumbering on Russell Road that comes before Council at their public hearing tomorrow. Covered in exhaustive detail by Belmore at The Brief (for real read this piece if you haven’t yet, it’s a barn burner) the issue concerns neighbors at 3600 and 3600 ½ Russell Rd. seeking a resolution to years of confusion and missed deliveries at the 3600 ½ address. When we first heard about this we initially thought it was another example of how we can’t seem to consistently get the right grain size of what should actually end up in front of our Councilmembers. There’s been a yearslong trend of them being asked to engage on seemingly picayune matters, often at the expense of them having the necessary bandwidth to grapple with the more profound work of the city. But then we read the details in Belmore’s story and realized how wild this situation actually was. Litigious grocery orders! Eight-decade family history! Billboards listing multiple addresses! World-class shade-throwing in comparison to previous neighbors! We do honestly hope this issue can resolve in a manner that is acceptable to all parties involved, but no matter what we all got to gawp in astonishment at the audacity required to simply ask that the city give you your neighbor’s house number.
2. Virginia Really Is For Lovers (Last week: NR). With amendments to the Virginia constitution on our midterm ballots this November, mobilization and get out the vote efforts have begun to ramp up, including canvassing. This past weekend many of us received a knock at the door from enthusiastic members of the local DSA chapter, distributing lit in favor of Vote Yes. Everything about this was great—from their energy, to their initiative, to their messages explaining the amendments… except for the bit where they talked about lovers. Listen, we get it. Space is at a premium and you’re trying to conserve words. Virginia has a famous tourism slogan that uses the word “lovers” so why not couch the language in support of Question 2 on marriage equality by saying “the right for all lovers to marry”? So far, so correcting a historical injustice. But the thing is… lovers is just a very funny word. It is! Try it out. Stop reading this and turn to your significant other right now and say “Hello… lover” and see what happens. It’s a very funny word!! It just is. We are sitting here giggling right now having had to write “lovers” so many times in the previous few sentences. Anyway, the important thing here is that these amendments are really important and you need to vote for them in November and it’s awesome to see the DSA out there putting the work in to make that happen. You love(r) to see it.
3. Merger Mania (Last week: 2). Since our last issue, shareholders of Dominion and NextEra approved the proposed mega-merger between the two utilities, state regulators announced the unusual step of holding in-person hearings on the proposal, and both companies promised to give customers free money to go along with all of this. They even said they would build a whole-ass office tower in downtown Richmond if the state approves the deal. Which is obviously bribery, and it’s shameful, but also… where are our bribes?? Let’s spread the love around a little. Alexandria is an official intervenor in the proceedings so it’s not like we don’t have any influence here! In exchange for some supportive testimony we’re sure we could find a way to surreptitiously accept enough funds to construct the NextEra Alexandria City Second High School. Meanwhile, Dominion is practically making us beg for a new Electricity Daddy by turning the power on and off across the city for no reason. We see right through you Dominion, the “weaponized incompetence” trick doesn’t work when Jesse conveniently “forgets” how to format his em dashes in Google Docs and it’s not going to work here either!!
4. Is Our Children Learning (Last week: 1). It’s Back to School Night season and good lord, is there anything more humbling than trying to follow your kid’s bell schedule for a couple of hours? You’re wandering back and forth across this enormous school building, wondering how they have the hamstring strength let alone the mental fortitude to make it through a day, teachers are throwing the names of like nine different educational apps at you telling you to check their assignments on Clever which you get to through Canvas after you’ve logged into PowerSchool but only after they send the Parent Square message that it’s ready for review… school used to be simpler! We’re certain of it! Nothing has made us feel more like old codgers than being exposed to what and how and in which manner our kids are learning these days. Listen, while only one of us strictly identifies as a millennial, in this particular instance we’re both going to plead TI-83 calculators and Trapper Keepers. Whatever, at least they’re off school on Monday [Editor’s note: wait, WHAT?!].

Alexandria’s Hottest Club is… Goats

Our city has recently found itself in a golden age of visiting spectacles. From a fleet of tall ships to a world-class soccer team there’s been no shortage of interesting groups to go gawk at and photograph. Yet even the heady days of this epoch of marvels, nothing could have prepared us for the arrival of the goats. 

Previously covered in these pages and others, the goats—technically a mixed herd of ruminants that also included sheep, but “goats” for short—were a pilot program by the Department of Recreation, Parks & Cultural Activities (RPCA) to remove invasive species from an area that would be challenging for employees [Editor’s note: human employees] to access. Yet even the excitement and anticipation of this novel approach to park maintenance could not approach the reality of seeing these billy goats eating-the-rough in person. Lest the opening essay left you with a mistaken impression we are opposed to every Flock in Alexandria, in fact it turns out we are extremely enthusiastic about this four-legged kind.

People were rolling through every day, all day long, to check out the goats. They were taking pictures of the goats. They were documenting the progress of the goats. They were bringing their kids to see the goats. The goats were, quite simply, the hottest ticket in town.

Now that’s not to say we don’t have a few notes on this overall endeavor. To start with, there was a jailbreak at some point and the workers started wandering off the jobsite in search of something tastier than kudzu, like sheet metal or plastic road bollards (we assume). Fortunately their supervisor [Editor’s note: human supervisor] was able to corral them and restore power to the electric fence, which had allegedly been unplugged by some misguided busybody worried about the possibility of making DIY fried chicken out of migrating songbirds. So the next time we have some ungulate laborers on payroll, let’s spring for the upgraded security system. 

Secondly… why weren’t we allowed to name them?? It’s bad enough our winter moods are dampened by T&ES’s continued resistance to bestowing the plow fleet with jaunty noms-de-guerre, must we also be denied the pleasure of putting airtags on these adorable weedwackers so we can track the real time progress of Mow Money, Mow Problems or Lawn and Order or Munch Ado About Nothing? Unforgivable, really.

But these quibbles aside, this truly was a delightful city activity and a very creative pilot program. We hope RPCA was satisfied with the results (and if you look at the last picture below the goats appear to have a similar efficacy to a plague of damn locusts) and will decide to approve a return engagement. Honestly RPCA is on a bit of a heater recently—between the goats and the long-awaited opening of the Colosanto splash pad they’re racking a serious set of wins with kids [Editor’s note: human kids] and adults alike.

Overheard in ALX

From the Zebra:

“Come Hungry—and Bring the Dog”

While the article itself is an otherwise lovely promotion of the upcoming pet-friendly Taste of Old Town North tomorrow (Sept. 17), we confess to somewhat of a jump-scare at the headline that could have otherwise been the topper on a Fox News piece about Springfield, Ohio in the fall of 2024. Not since that peckish panda in a rush to flee a manslaughter charge have we encountered a sentence so full of implied animal violence.

One Awesome Thing in ALX

Earlier this week, Northern Virginia Families for Safe Streets (NoVAFSS) released a new report on near-misses between pedestrians and drivers, finding there were 241 such incidents reported in the last 18 months (you can read more detailed coverage of the report in both The Brief and WUSA9). And while this new evidence of our ongoing pedestrian safety problem is not an Awesome Thing, NoVAFSS most certainly is.

The group was founded by Mike Doyle after he was struck by a car in Old Town back in 2017, and now operates across Northern Virginia. They run a reporting system for near-miss incidents (hence the new report) and other safety concerns, as well as publish resources for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. Their advocacy contributed to the City of Alexandria adopting its Vision Zero plan and their ongoing engagement plays a big part in the city’s ongoing attention to these issues.

Progress in this area has been real—earlier this year the city released data that showed pedestrian crashes were down 14% and bicycle crashes were down 28%—but safety is more complex and less binary than crash data alone, and there is still lots more work to be done to ensure everyone in Alexandria can move around the city without risk of injury or accident, as this week’s report shows. We’re fortunate to have a group like NoVAFSS helping to lead and coordinate these efforts, and if you want to get more involved there’s information on their website.

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.

ALXtra is a free-to-read newsletter about current events in Alexandria, Virginia. Subscribe to get it delivered directly to your inbox. Paid subscriptions give you access to the comments. Revenue from subscriptions gets used in the following ways: 1) a third goes into a charity fund, and every time that fund hits $500 we’ll make a donation to a local nonprofit in the name of ALXtra’s readers and we’ll feature and write about that organization, like we did here, here, here, here, here, here and here; 2) another third of the money will go toward investments in the newsletter; and 3) the final third of the money goes toward self-care for your two intrepid authors.