With the recent passing of famed actor Robert Redford, I found myself thinking about the topics of surveillance and safety, and came to a frightening conclusion.
Project Insight is real, and there’s no Captain America coming to save us.
In the 2014 Marvel Cinematic Universe film “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Redford played Undersecretary of Defense Alexander Pierce, the functionary responsible for overseeing S.H.I.E.L.D., America and the world’s principal defense against all the dangers that make the MCU interesting.
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WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER ****
The story reveals Pierce to be the modern-day leader of Hydra as well as S.H.I.E.L.D, allowing the vintage World War II Nazi offshoot organization to live on following the war, thanks to the MCU’s version of the very-real Project Paperclip.
Pierce’s master plan, known as Project Insight, involved deploying a fleet of upgraded heli-carriers equipped with auto-firing weapons which would use aerial superiority along with a predictive algorithm to pre-emptively eliminate anyone who represented a current or potential threat to Hydra’s control of the world.
In the real world, thanks to the rise of cheap and effective drone swarms, combined with AI-driven monitoring which can track individual objects at to an incredibly granular degree.
Companies like Flock Safety combine their vast network of cameraswith the data insights of companies like Palantir on behalf of municipalities and US federal agencies including ICE. Last month, Flock was forced to pause a pilot program in which it was working with the Department of Homeland Security, after several cities in Illinois raised concerns over unauthorized sharing of their citizens’ data.
Hydra’s Unblinking Eyes
Flock Safety’s network covers thousands of U.S. communities using license-plate readers that now:
- Feed a national, AI-driven surveillance grid, including “Multi-State Insights,” “Convoy Search,” and pattern detection tools that flag “suspicious” behavior.
- Share data informally with federal agencies and aggregate personally identifiable details drawn from license plates and commercial data brokers.
Even though Flock paused its direct cooperation program with Homeland Security, federal agencies can still submit requests for data to local law enforcement in areas where Flock’s network is operational. Combined with their recently-announced partnership with FlyGuys, the threat of an unprecendented assault on American privacy is imminent.
Widespread aerial surveillance will provide Flock and their partners with a degree of oversight never before seen in the history of America, and may well exceed even the vaunted surveillance capabilities of the People’s Republic of China.
This unchecked surveillance mirrors Hydra’s invasive, all-seeing systems in the MCU—seeking to control and neutralize perceived threats before they emerge.
Hydra aimed to eliminate all threats before they existed. Flock’s AI-driven tools now automatically flag movement patterns as suspicious.
Hydra operated outside democracy, manipulating systems for control. Flock, though private, effectively enables surveillance powers that bypass local and federal checks through informal data-sharing and law enforcement partnerships .
Hydra targeted anyone perceived as a threat to its ideology. Flock’s networks have been used to track protesters, immigrants, and women seeking abortions. These are not hypothetical outcomes, but real use cases taking place now. These technologies are increasingly being deployed in roles that reflect authoritarian patterns.
In the film, Steve Rogers and company manage to stall the activation of the network in time to prevent it firing on the population. We are, fortunately, not yet to the point where armed drone fleets are being deployed to provide fire support against American citizens.
Unfortunately, Steve Rogers isn’t walking through that door.
It is up to communities to to defend democracy against the creeping panopticon through proactive, real-world strategies:
WHAT CAN WE DO?
1. Demand Transparency and Oversight
- Know what’s deployed: Identify where Flock cameras are located and how local agencies use them.
- Push for independent audits: Include third-party oversight and insist that data use be publicly and regularly reviewed .
2. Strengthen Legal Safeguards
- Enact strict governance: Support legal mandates that require warrants for access to license-plate data, prohibit fusion with federal enforcement, and require data minimization and swift deletion.
- Champion laws like the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which seeks to block data broker pipelines and was approved by the House in 2024
2. Leverage Civic Engagement
- Attend council meetings and sound the alarm: Engage in public hearings, challenge surveillance policy proposals, and insist on transparency.
- Support civil liberties groups: Organizations like the ACLU and EFF are frontline defenders against surveillance overreach.
5. Cultivate Community Resilience
Think critically, advocate boldly: Don’t let technology overshadow rights. Embrace the values that protect, not punish, notice, not manage.
Promote privacy-first alternatives: Neighborhood watch programs, improved public infrastructure, and restorative justice can address root causes of crime without panoptic surveillance.
(SOURCE: American Civil Liberties Union.)
The creep toward authoritarian surveillance in America, powered by tech giants like Flock Safety, should sound alarm bells. Without vigilance, we risk trading liberty for a hollow sense of security.
Democracy isn’t dead, but we must work to defend it. It is the individual responsibility of every freedom-loving person to organize, demand safeguards, and uphold transparency. By doing so, we ensure a society where private corporations don’t hold a gun to the people’s head and call it protection.
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