Seth Bodnar, an Independent running for US Senate in Montana, is turning surveillance technology into a campaign issue.
In a new ad, Bodnar fires a shotgun at a stand-in for a Flock camera and argues that Montanans do not want a corporation logging every trip they take, whether it is to church, the doctor, the gun store, or a friend's house. He said the concern cuts across party lines and is about 'individual freedom.'
Bodnar said he supports the bipartisan Flock-Off Act, introduced this month by Reps. Thomas Massie and Eric Burlison. The bill is intended to cut federal funding used for automated license-plate readers and biometric surveillance cameras.
He says that is only a 'starting point.' Bodnar said the federal government should go further with national standards for the technology, including how long data is stored, restrictions on how it can be used, required audits, and penalties for misuse. He also wants rules for how data collected by private cameras, such as those belonging to retailers, can be used.
'We should also close the private camera loophole so police can't use a retailer's camera to do without a warrant what they shouldn't be able to do,' he said.
The ad also broadens the case beyond Flock. Bodnar points to tech companies buying and selling Americans' data and to data centers, warning that once data exists, it can be accessed, misused, or breached. He said he does not support vandalizing or destroying Flock cameras and believes the issue should be addressed at the ballot box.
Flock Safety has faced criticism over automated license-plate readers that are found in thousands of communities in the US. Critics have pointed to cases where the tech misidentified plates or police misused the data, including monitoring an ex. Business Insider also found cases where police using Flock wrongfully targeted or arrested a person who had not committed a crime. Flock and police departments have said the technology has helped address crime and find missing people, and the company recently rolled out new guardrails, including reducing the default retention period for data.
Bodnar is running to replace retiring Republican Sen. Steve Daines this November. A Montana Free Press-Rutgers Eagleton poll released last week found Republican Kurt Alme had an 8-point lead over Bodnar, with Democratic and Libertarian candidates trailing further behind.
For founders and operators, the playbook here is simple: data that can be stored forever can be searched forever. The more the administrative state and private companies collect, the bigger the risk to customers, property rights, and trust. National rules may not solve the whole problem, but the absence of guardrails leaves the burden on citizens to police a system they did not build.
