一个议题将左派、右派和自由意志主义者团结在了一起：废除、禁止和限制Flock摄像头的使用，这是一种由Flock Safety公司制造的自动车牌识别系统。这些摄像头安装在街道和电线杆上，能够捕捉车辆牌照、品牌、型号、颜色和独特特征，将行程数据记录到可搜索的数据库中。警方可以搜索特定车辆，查看其被检测到的时间和地点，从而追踪车辆轨迹，为从盗窃到凶杀案再到失踪人口等各类案件提供侦查线索。
One issue has been uniting the left, right and libertarians: abolishing, banning and curtailing Flock cameras, an automated license plate reading system made by Flock Safety. Installed on streets and poles, they capture vehicle plates, make, model, color and unique features to log travel data into a searchable database. Police can search for a specific vehicle and see where and when it was detected, allowing investigators to trace a vehicle's movements and develop leads in cases ranging from thefts to homicides and missing persons.
请看一个近期Flock发挥作用的实例。8月，在俄勒冈州森林格罗夫郊外的一处农场发生五人遇害案后，嫌疑人驾驶从一名受害者处盗窃的皮卡向北逃窜近200英里。手机数据显示嫌疑人可能在华盛顿州伊纳克劳地区。伊纳克劳警方随即查询其Flock系统，发现前一晚有多条该被盗车辆的记录。次日下午，警员在一家杂货店后方找到该卡车，嫌疑人在车内，疑似自杀身亡。
Consider a recent example of Flock in action. In August, after five people were killed on a rural property outside Forest Grove, Ore., the suspect fled nearly 200 miles north in a pickup stolen from one of his victims. Cellphone data led investigators to believe he was in the Enumclaw, Wash., area. Enumclaw police then checked their Flock system and found multiple hits from the stolen vehicle the previous night. Officers found the truck behind a grocery store the next afternoon, with the suspect inside, dead from an apparent suicide.
一场本可能拖延更久的五重谋杀案大搜捕，仅用一天多一点时间就告破。那么，为什么有人会反对一个帮助侦破五重谋杀案、让受害者家属得以释怀的工具？为什么左派、右派和自由意志主义者会在这个问题上达成共识？答案是：错误的逻辑。Flock的批评者在公众脑海中编织出各种场景，将Flock贴上通往“1984式”极权国家的标签，在这种国家里，每个公民都可能被迫遵循政府批准的严格生活方式。
A quintuple-homicide manhunt that could have lasted much longer was over in little more than a day. Now, why would anybody be opposed to a tool that helped bring closure to a quintuple homicide case? Why have the left, right and libertarians formed common ground on this issue? The answer: faulty logic. Flock critics have conjured up scenarios in the minds of the public, labeling Flock as a gateway to a 1984-type totalitarian state, in which every citizen could be made to conform to a strict government-approved way of life.
任何被Flock硬件检测到的不服从行为都可能被扼杀，所有不合规行为都将迅速面临牢狱之灾甚至更糟的后果。政府可能宣布宗教非法，并利用Flock追踪和平信徒。政府可能取缔特定群体，并利用监控技术追踪他们。
Any form of disobedience detected by Flock hardware could be stamped out and all noncompliance swiftly met with prison time or worse. Governments could make religion illegal, and Flock could be used to track down peaceful worshipers. Governments might outlaw specific groups, and surveillance technology could be used to track them.
政府官员可能会将信息用于私人目的。痴迷的前任爱人可能利用他人的行踪进行跟踪。Flock 可能会让此类滥用行为更容易实施。但这正是 Flock 批评者犯下危险逻辑谬误的地方：打包交易。打包交易将两个独立的观点视为同一个：“Flock 记录了这些信息”以及“这些信息可能被以伤害他人的方式使用”。这两者单独来看都是真的，但因为后者令人担忧，整个“包裹”都被视为令人担忧，其中包括第一部分——这仅仅是技术系统在执行其设计功能：收集和整理关于现实的信息。
A government official could misuse the information for personal purposes. An obsessive ex-lover could use someone's movements to track them down. Flock could make such abuses easier to perpetrate. But this is where Flock critics commit a dangerous logical fallacy: the package deal. A package deal treats two separate ideas as though they were one: “Flock recorded this information” and “this information could be used in a way that harms someone.”Both are true on their own, but because the second one is alarming, the whole package gets treated as alarming, including the first part, which is simply a technological system doing what it was built to do: collect and organize information about reality.
为了进一步解释，上述两个概念——“Flock 记录了这些信息”和“有人利用这些信息作恶”——可以综合为两个词：“工具”与“哲学”。工具——Flock 摄像头——能够识别、分类和整理信息，但它们不决定信息被用于何种道德目的。另一方面，哲学指导着一个人对现实的反应。当个体面对现实的事实时，其所选择的哲学会告诉他如何根据该信息行事。
To explain this further, the two concepts above, "Flock recorded this information” and “someone used this information to do harm," can be synthesized into two words: “tools” and “philosophy.”The tool — Flock cameras — can identify, classify and organize information, but they do not determine the moral purpose for which that information is used. Philosophy, on the other hand, is what guides a person's response to reality. When an individual is presented with the facts of reality, his chosen philosophy tells him how to act on that information.
一位虔诚的天主教徒和一名伺机作案的罪犯，面对不属于自己的车里的钥匙会做出不同反应。对于 Flock 而言，相同的位置数据可能传达到侦探、跟踪狂或腐败官员手中。相同的事实产生不同的反应，是因为不同的哲学在进行解读。如果痴迷的前任爱人利用 Flock 定位意图跟踪的对象，其错不在于该人的位置被记录下来这一事实。
A devout Catholic and an opportunistic criminal will respond differently to finding keys in a car that isn't theirs. With Flock, the same location data could reach a detective, a stalker or a corrupt official. The same facts produce different responses because different philosophies are doing the interpreting. If an obsessive ex-lover uses Flock to locate someone they intend to stalk, the wrongdoing is not contained in the fact that the person's location was recorded.
错在于有人获取该信息并将其用于不道德的目的。顺便说一句，Flock 的审计系统有助于精准揭露此类滥用行为。
The wrongdoing occurs when a person takes that information and uses it for an immoral end. On that note, Flock's auditing system can help expose precisely that kind of misuse.
其日志记录数据库中发生的一切，正如摄像头记录道路上发生的一切。当执法人员不当查询某人的行踪时，该行为会留下可被审查和揭露的记录。批评者可能会回应说，这偏离了重点。Flock 不仅仅记录信息，它使收集、搜索和使用这些信息变得容易得多。Flock 扩大了信息的规模、速度和可及性，这些信息此前分散在数千个独立的观察记录中，从而增加了被滥用的可能性。
Its logs record what happens in the database, just as its cameras record what happens on the roads. When an officer improperly searches for someone's movements, that action leaves a record that can be reviewed and exposed. A critic might respond that this misses the point. Flock does not merely record information; it makes that information far easier to collect, search and use. Flock increases the scale, speed and accessibility of information that was previously scattered across thousands of individual observations, which increases the potential for misuse.
但工具的力量并不决定其服务目的的道德性。再次强调，这种“一揽子”观点混淆了工具与指导其应用者的哲学理念。汽车让出行变得更容易。电话让沟通变得更容易。计算机让信息处理变得更容易。Flock 摄像头让抓捕罪犯变得更容易。这些技术中的每一项都让个人更容易完成某事，因此也让个人更容易滥用它。如果让不当行为变得更容易就足以成为淘汰某项技术的理由，那么我们最终将不得不拒绝所有技术本身。
But the power of a tool does not determine the morality of the end it serves. Again, the package deal confuses the tool with the philosophy of the person directing its application. A car makes it easier to travel. A telephone makes it easier to communicate. A computer makes it easier to process information. A Flock camera makes it easier to catch criminals. Each of these technologies makes it easier for an individual to accomplish something, and consequently easier for that individual to misuse it. If making wrongdoing easier were sufficient reason to eliminate a technology, we would eventually have to reject all technology per se.
罪犯可以利用汽车逃离犯罪现场。跟踪狂可以利用电话骚扰他人。小偷可以利用计算机窃取信息。但这些可能性存在，并不意味着汽车、电话或计算机是不道德的。答案不是技术倒退，而是追究故意滥用技术者的责任。如果一个政府决心侵犯其公民的权利，无论有没有 Flock，它都会寻找手段来实现这一目的。拆除 Flock 摄像头并不能消除政府或任何个人可能导致权利侵犯的腐朽哲学。在秉持尊重权利理念的个人手中，工具将有助于破案，从而保护人民的权利。
A criminal can use a car to flee a crime scene. A stalker can use a telephone to harass someone. A thief can use a computer to steal information. But the existence of these possibilities does not make the car, telephone or computer immoral. The answer is not technological regression — it is to hold individuals who deliberately misuse the technology responsible for what they do. If a government is committed to violating the rights of its citizens, it will seek the means to do so, with or without Flock. Cutting down Flock cameras does not eliminate the government's or any individual's rotten philosophy that could lead to a rights violation. A tool in the hands of individuals with a rights-respecting philosophy will solve crimes and, consequently, protect the rights of the people.
我们可以生活在一个世界里，被盗车辆、被绑架人员和暴力罪犯能在几分钟内被找到，而不是几个月甚至永远找不到。摆在每一个权衡 Flock 利弊的人面前的选择，不是监控与自由的对立。而是一个自由的人民，是选择通过惩罚作恶者来回应邪恶，还是选择自毁双眼。Kevin Babicz 是一位企业家，也是 Young Capitalists for the World 的创始人。
We can live in a world where stolen cars, kidnapped persons and violent criminals can be found in mere minutes, rather than months or not at all. The choice before every person weighing Flock is not surveillance versus liberty. It is whether a free people answers evil by punishing evildoers or by cutting out its own eyes. Kevin Babicz is an entrepreneur and founder of Young Capitalists for the World.