SB DUMPS FLOCK, EMBRACES… MORE SURVEILLANCE? PRIVACY THE NEW PROGRESSIVE RACKET!

It’s hard to keep up with the ever-shifting sands of progressive outrage, but leave it to Santa Barbara’s ruling class to make a spectacle of it. Noozhawk, ever the diligent scribes of municipal melodrama, reports the city is on the verge of 'de-Flocking.' Apparently, using a simple, effective tool to catch criminals by reading license plates is now a grave affront to 'privacy concerns.' You know, the kind of 'concerns' that magically appear when law enforcement gets too efficient at tracking down the folks who aren’t exactly contributing to the city’s tax base.

But fear not, dear taxpayer! Our enlightened leaders aren't *really* going to stop collecting data. Oh no, that would be far too logical. Instead, they’re merely considering a *different* license plate reader system. Because nothing says 'solving a problem' like replacing one identical widget with another, probably pricier, identical widget, all while claiming moral superiority. It’s the bureaucratic equivalent of ordering a new flavor of woke kale smoothie after complaining the last one was 'problematic.'

One has to wonder if these 'privacy concerns' extend to the surveillance cameras that dot every intersection, or the facial recognition tech that's already collecting data faster than a social media influencer. Or is it just when police are actually using technology to keep residents safe that suddenly the alarm bells ring loudest? This isn't about privacy; it's about control. It’s about signaling to the ever-demanding activist class that the city council is *with them*, even if it means hamstringing our already overburdened sheriff's deputies and police officers.

Meanwhile, the criminals, whom this new 'privacy' initiative seems designed to protect, are probably just enjoying the show. As for the rest of us, we’ll just have to trust that our elected officials will eventually land on a surveillance system that somehow manages to both catch bad guys *and* appease the professional hand-wringers. Or, more likely, they’ll just spend a fortune on a new system that works exactly like the old one, but with a fresh coat of progressive approval. Only in Santa Barbara.