The United States is currently facing two sharply directed backlashes against technology.
The first targets automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), largely deployed across thousands of local police departments by the vendor Flock Safety, though not exclusively.
The second targets data centers in general: sizable, boxy complexes housing vast arrays of servers that power everything from streaming services to cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
These technologies are not new by any measure. ALPRs have a long history in policing, and data centers existed long before the era of the internet.
Yet the public’s sudden drag toward opposing both is striking.
Late last year, most people paid little heed to data centers. Today, as many as three-quarters of Americans oppose having such facilities built in their communities. A growing share even says they would prefer living beside a steel mill or a nuclear plant over a hyperscale data center.
A fresh YouGov poll, highlighted today by The Washington Post, shows an about-face for ALPRs as well. In August of last year, 45 percent supported the technology and 33 percent opposed. This year, 46 percent oppose ALPRs while 38 percent back them.
When Data For Progress asked specifically about Flock, the company’s technology registered a net negative 19 percent in favorability.
The shift in sentiment follows a wave of reporting on police misuses and abuses of ALPR cameras (including coverage by Reason).
It would be tempting to lump these two backlashes into a single, generalized rebellion against technology.
Yet surveys on AI and tech firms generally show only a modest cooling of public sentiment toward them, not the dramatic collapse seen for Flock and data centers in particular.
When people are asked why they oppose data centers, environmental concerns top the list, not anti-technology sentiment.
What seems evident is a popular uprising against two forces Americans fear: intrusive oversight by the state and unchecked development.
Concerns about government surveillance are natural. Equally, there’s a broad predisposition to resist new construction, regardless of its purpose.
In a nation experiencing a rapid buildup of data center projects alongside a nationwide deployment of ALPRs, a grassroots backlash may have been almost inevitable.
And make no mistake, these are indeed bottom-up revolts.
When Senator Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) floated a nationwide pause on data centers last year, even fellow progressive Democrats were skeptical. The sudden shift in public opinion is now pushing governors—formerly supportive of data centers—from both parties to implement restrictions, though with varying degrees of severity.
Ron DeSantis has emerged as Flock’s most vocal critic, despite Florida’s police force extensively employing ALPRs for immigration enforcement.
Dozens of communities are terminating Flock contracts early or choosing not to renew them.
That politicians lag behind public opinion demonstrates that populism still holds real sway in American politics. When citizens unite in anger, elected officials often align with them, even if it means reversing positions just moments earlier.
If the backlash against Flock and against data centers shows how populism can push policymakers, it also reveals its limits in safeguarding liberty.
There’s a meaningful difference between government tracking people in public spaces and private landowners developing their property. A furious public, however, seldom makes that finer distinction.
ALPR technology raises serious privacy concerns, and its numerous misuses have sparked scrutiny. The public’s shift away from ALPRs is prompting a delayed conversation about the benefits, costs, and constitutional questions surrounding the roughly 120,000 Flock cameras already deployed.
By contrast, it’s far less clear what, if anything, can be positively gained from the sudden revolt against data centers.
Critics of data centers are advocating not merely tighter controls on externalities but sweeping actions that go beyond addressing unfair subsidies or tax incentives some projects receive.
Instead, misplaced fears about data centers’ environmental footprint are pushing states and localities to enact some of the most stringent land-use restrictions seen in relation to—arguably—the most innocuous forms of development.
In extreme cases, New York has halted hyperscale data center development, and Nashville has even contemplated using eminent domain to block a project.
None of these reactions scale with the actual impacts of data centers. None fully accounts for the substantial economic benefits they provide. Some responses, such as Nashville’s land seizure, may even be unconstitutional.
Moral panics are a natural feature of a free society. They will, in time, shape policy. That isn’t intrinsically good or bad, but it isn’t uncommon.
There is a reason a constitution exists to temper sudden surges of public opinion. In this light, constitutional limits would tend to constrain ALPR use and protect data-center developers to a far greater extent than is currently the case.
