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Musings, Cries of Outrage, Annoying Opinions, etc...
Frank(n)rants
July 7, 2026
Remember the novel, 1984 by George Orwell that served as a powerful warning against authoritarianism, surveillance, and the manipulation of truth?
We can debate whether or not we are already experiencing authoritarianism and the manipulation of truth. What is no longer up for debate is that Big Brother is indeed watching us. We, as a country, are being surveilled. Hyperbole? The majority of people have no idea that there are already more than 100,000 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) installed nationwide across the United States. The vast majority of these systems consist of distinctive black, solar-powered infrastructure designed and maintained by Flock Safety, the dominant corporation in the vehicle surveillance market. Flock alone accounts for over 80,000 of these active systems, covering more than 6,000 distinct communities across 49 states. These combined networks perform roughly 20 billion license plate scans every single month. There are more than 4,000 automated license plate reader cameras operating across the Chicagoland area. This regional surveillance network consists of a heavily intertwined web of city, county, state, and local suburban municipal law enforcement systems. Proponents justify ALPRs and systems like Flock Safety primarily as highly efficient tools for crime prevention, vehicle tracking, and rapid law enforcement response.
That’s just the law enforcement. Major retailers like Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart, Target, Costco, and Meijer use Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) in their parking lots to “combat organized retail crime”.
And all of that information goes into a database. More on that later. But doesn’t stop with license plates. Modern ALPR hardware uses AI to record vehicle colors, specific manufacturers, vehicle models, and personal details like rooftop racks or bumper stickers. They are expanding into reading your “digital signature”, working on integrating hardware that pairs optical plate scanning with the capture of nearby Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals. Your phone or car's internal hardware broadcasts these identifiers. This allows modern cameras to pair passing physical plates with the "digital signature" (MAC address) of the electronic devices inside the car.
Just like every issue there are positives and negatives.
They can be effective in fighting crime by automatically cross-reference scanned plates against state and federal "hot lists". This instantly alerts law enforcement to stolen vehicles, active warrants, and suspects in violent crimes. The network can immediately flag vehicles tied to active child abductions (Amber Alerts) or missing senior citizens (Silver Alerts) to accelerate recovery efforts. Those are both very good things.
So what’s the problem? Where is all of that data going? What else is it being used for? Who can access the data?
I brought this up on a recent podcast where Ken expressed what most people seem to say – “I’m not worried about it because I’m not someone doing anything wrong.” There’s merit in that viewpoint. Here are just a few of the problems.
There have been lots of abuses, many of them by members of law enforcement. Officers have been found to have stalked and surveilled love interests. Locally a McHenry County, IL, police officer, aptly named Copp, was reportedly arrested for misusing Flock: Copp used the Flock license plate readers to track a love interests ex-boyfriend 140 times; 86 of those alleged uses occurred while Copp was off duty, prosecutors said. Copp also allegedly called the man and told him to have no contact with a woman with whom they both had been romantically involved. In Milwaukee officer Josue Ayala used his department login to track a woman he was dating and her ex-partner nearly 180 times over a two-month period. He resigned in early 2026 after being criminally charged with misconduct in public office and hit with multiple restraining orders. She discovered it only after using the website - https://haveibeenflocked.com/
I simply don’t trust that the data being captured is secure and being used for the agreed purposes. More hyperbole? Even when Flock agrees to specific sharing of data they don’t abide by those agreements. They’ve been sued many times. Locally Evanston, Illinois became embroiled in a major surveillance controversy involving Flock Safety. They were sharing data with other agencies violating Illinois law. The dispute culminated in the city terminating its $200,000 contract and forcing the removal of all 19 Flock cameras. Last year, Evanston deactivated its entire camera network and issued an early termination notice on its multi-year contract. A month later In September 2025, Flock defied the city, challenged the contract termination, and reinstalled 15 to 18 of the cameras without authorization. Yeah, we can certainly trust these guys- NOT!
Finally, often times law enforcement simply gets it wrong and innocent people are arrested. There are lot’s of instances. I’ve linked a few stories below, one of a man that was jailed for a month even though he could prove he was 5 miles away from a crime scene at the time of a crime and a woman charged by police with stealing a package from someone’s door, claiming he had video evidence. Of course it wasn’t her but they got it wrong and it was up to her to prove it. So if you think that you don’t have to worry about being arrested since you’re “not doing anything wrong” - Think again.
June 21, 2026
Renewable energy is a good thing. The whole world seems to think so. With one exception, that is our leadership, specifically Donald Trump. In China, renewables account for just over 40% of their total electricity generation and make up more than 50% of the country's overall installed power capacity. While coal remains the largest single source of power, China is investing more in clean energy than the rest of the world combined. Iceland, Paraguay, Norway, Albania and several more get almost 100% of their energy from renewables. European countries overall are working hard to get there. The United States? Only 26%. But even that seems to be too much for DJT. He has been PAYING companies to cancel contracts. So far, the Trump administration has actively blocked or canceled at least 30 gigawatts (GW) of planned onshore wind power projects and paid out nearly $2 billion in buyouts to energy companies to abandon offshore wind leases. There's an argument to be made that renewables will benefit all of us through less pollution but let's just talk about money. Yours and mine.
You read that right - $2 billion of our tax dollars to cancel agreements! This seems like such a great idea when gas prices are skyrocketing because of the war with Iran. About 25% of the world’s oil flows through tankers in Strait of Hormuz. Well, it used to until the conflict functionally closed the strait. I’m not an expert but it seems to me that developing more of a renewable infrastructure would make us much less vulnerable to the machinations of a foreign power. But hey, then the oil and gas industry wouldn’t have a chance to profit. People ask, ”Since the US is now the largest oil producer in the world, why are our prices going up?” The simple answer is that oil is sold on a world market and the US producers love the fact that they can charge more due to supply and demand. That’s the policy of this administration which has appointed numerous officials with direct ties to the oil, gas, and fossil fuel industries. There’s Chris Wright (Secretary of Energy): Founder and former CEO of Liberty Energy, a major Denver-based fracking company. He was appointed to lead the Department of Energy with a mandate prioritizing domestic oil and gas production. Then there’s Doug Burgum (Secretary of the Interior): Former Governor of North Dakota and an oil industry ally. He has personal ties to the fossil fuel industry, owning and leasing land to major producers, and was chosen to oversee the Bureau of Land Management and federal energy leasing. Finally, here’s what Trump said to oil and gas executives while campaigning. During a private dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Donald Trump told top oil and gas executives that they should raise $1 billion for his reelection campaign. He called this amount a "deal" because the tax breaks and regulatory rollbacks they would avoid under his presidency would save them significantly more. In exchange for the financial support, Trump promised to immediately reverse Biden’s environmental rules, stop new regulations from being enacted, and nix incentives for electric vehicles. He also offered to fast-track fossil fuel industry mergers and acquisitions. Didn’t he run on “Draining the swamp?” Asking for a friend…
June 9, 2026
Ken and I have discussed the prospect of the Bears moving to Indiana. Our opinion is that the McCaskey family is being greedy and doesn't care about the history and most of all, the loyal fan base that has stuck with the team in spite of fielding some pretty lackluster teams over the years. The most recent valuation has the team worth $8.9 billion. Yet they want tax breaks and perhaps financial help building a domed stadium. Should we have a bake sale too and contribute the proceeds to the new stadium fund? I don't think think the Illinois taxpayers should be subsidizing a wealthy business that owes much of it's glory and value to the fans that have stuck with it through thick and thin. I don't want to pay a penny more in taxes for this project. What do you think? Let us know.
Click on links below to read.
Bears Evaluation at 8.9 billion
Paris Schutz: ‘The Bears miscalculated the political reality’ in stadium pursuit | Mully & Haugh
