VIDEO: Abdul El-Sayed Sounds the Alarm on Flock Cameras, Slams Mike Rogers’ Record on Mass Surveillance

MICHIGAN – Today, U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed released a new video blasting his opponent, career Washington politician Mike Rogers, for his decades-long record of dramatically expanding mass surveillance by the federal government and powerful corporations.

In the video, Abdul warns that the consequences of that push are now playing out on streets across the country, where more than 120,000 cameras operated by Flock Safety, a private company that sells automated license plate readers, are tracking Americans’ movements and putting their privacy and civil liberties at risk. In Michigan alone, more than 125 cities and counties have deployed Flock cameras or similar technology.

The video highlights Rogers’ central role as chair of the House Intelligence Committee in championing warrantless surveillance of Americans by the federal government and private corporations, resurfacing a clip of the former congressman shamelessly declaring, “You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy was violated.” During his lengthy tenure in Washington, Rogers was a champion of the PATRIOT Act, which dramatically expanded the federal government’s surveillance powers, and co-authored legislation that the ACLU said would “trample on decades of privacy law” by giving private corporations broad power to spy on Americans’ online communications and pass sensitive data to the government.

Unsurprisingly, Rogers took full advantage of Washington’s revolving door, cashing out to the tune of millions after leaving Capitol Hill and parlaying his work in Congress into a lucrative career advising cybersecurity, intelligence, telecom, and government contracting firms — including a company that helped recently deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro spy on his own people. Rogers’ campaign coffers have been filled over the years with nearly $100,000 from telecommunications giants alone, including his former client AT&T, whose interests he has repeatedly prioritized over the civil liberties of Michiganders.

Watch the full video here.

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