United States / Flock Cameras - The Surveilled Self Destroys the Mechanical Eye, Proving the Illusion of Separate Observation

Event Baseline: People in dozens of U.S. states are vandalizing, blocking, and taking down Flock surveillance cameras, reflecting growing resistance to police surveillance technology.

The state installs cameras to see everything. The citizen smashes them to be unseen. Both are trapped in the same mechanical loop. The state believes its eyes are separate from the bodies they watch. The citizen believes the camera is an alien invader. Neither sees that the camera is just an extension of the same thought: the desire to control and the desire to escape control. The vandal is not free. He is reacting to the image of the watcher. The watcher is not secure. He is fearful of the watcher being watched. This is a war of phantom selves. The real failure is the belief that there is a private self to protect from a public eye. There is no inside and outside. The camera sees only what thought projects. Smashing the lens does not end the surveillance. It only proves that the self is still hiding.