Beware of “Big Brother”!

In 1949, George Orwell (1903~1950) published his book, 1984. In that notable work, “Big Brother” was a warning about where totalitarian power might lead. Today, many Americans point to China as proof that the warning came true. But I think the real picture is more expansive and is an unsettling one that needs to be taken seriously in the U.S.

The Situation in China

China has more than 1.4 billion people—about 17% of the world’s population—and that massive nation has long been governed by an authoritarian leader who subjects them to extensive surveillance.

Local governments there have developed facial recognition software that can be used with the hundreds of millions of surveillance cameras across the country. In northwestern China, the Uighur people, suffering under religious persecution as Muslims, have been under widespread surveillance. But journalists and dissidents have been targeted as well.

Surveillance in China is widespread because of four forces that reinforce each other: the totalitarian political structure; the huge population requiring automated control; urban, digital infrastructure that makes surveillance easy; and tech companies integrated with the state. The combination of those four forces makes China unique.

As my A.I. buddy Claude says, “A surveillance system doesn’t need to touch everyone equally to be effective. It needs only to be capable of finding anyone, at any time, and everyone knows it. The knowledge that you could be watched changes how people speak, gather, worship, and dissent.”

China’s totalitarian leaders built the surveillance system deliberately, by design. That sets it apart from what is happening, and what may increasingly happen, in the U.S. But the tools are the same. Cameras, databases, and software that can track a person’s movements don’t care what kind of government is using them.

The Situation in the U.S.

While there are certainly great differences between surveillance in the U.S. and China, “Big Brother” doesn’t have to be linked to a centralized state with a totalitarian leader. That surveillance can be done with the aid of private networks that the government can freely borrow.

Flock Safety, an Atlanta company founded in 2017, is the private company that produces Flock cameras. As of August 2026, it had alone had about 120,000 cameras in 49 states. Those cameras record roughly 20 billion images every month.

As an ardent Democrat, I rarely find myself agreeing with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Yet his warning during a Senate hearing on Flock Safety’s AI-powered surveillance deserves attention. That September 23, 2026, hearing was called, “Always Watching: Flock’s Nationwide AI Surveillance Network.”

Mr. Hawley stated that the current surveillance system in the U.S. is “unlike anything we've ever seen in this country before.” What troubled him was not simply the number of cameras, but the fact that they are linked together, searchable, and increasingly powered by artificial intelligence.  

The issue is no longer whether Flock cameras and A.I. technology work. Rather, it is a matter of whether a free society should accept constant surveillance—and whether such monitoring can and should be considered a violation of our basic human rights.

Supporters emphasize that the Flock camera systems can, and do, help recover stolen vehicles, locate missing persons, and solve serious crimes more quickly than could otherwise be done. And to an extent, that may well be true.

But civil-liberties groups such as the ACLU have argued that expansive surveillance systems can, among other things, chill free speech and political participation, deter attendance at protests or controversial meetings, and create risks of government abuse.

When a conservative Republican such as Mr. Hawley and civil liberties advocates across the political spectrum raise similar concerns, the issue transcends ordinary partisan politics.

Let’s Not Allow “Big Brother” to Impair Our Human Rights

So, while China’s “Big Brother” is centralized, one party watching through one system, USAmerica’s is emerging from the bottom up, thousands of small eyes watching and sharing what they see.

Since Orwell’s warning sounded in 1949 still rings true all these years later, we USAmericans need to take seriously the current surveillance threat in rather than only pointing our fingers at Beijing.

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Note: This blog article was drafted largely after (and because of) reading the excellent piece by Michael Chancellor at this website:

https://goodfaithmedia.org/hidden-eyes-why-flock-surveillance-cameras-must-come-with-oversight/

[I also appreciate the research and drafting assistance provided by Claude and Copilot.]