OPINION: The ties that bind us — How Flock cameras and data centers are uniting the right and the left

Something interesting is happening in our often-divided political world. People who ordinarily find themselves on opposite sides of many issues are discovering they have more in common than they thought. And it isn’t happening because anyone has abandoned their convictions.

There is growing controversy surrounding Flock cameras and large data centers. These may seem like unrelated issues. One involves surveillance technology used by law enforcement. The other involves enormous facilities supporting artificial intelligence and our ever-increasing digital world. Yet both are causing concerns that cross political boundaries.

Conservatives who worry about government overreach are finding common ground with liberals concerned about civil liberties. Fiscal conservatives questioning the public costs of data center development are discovering similar concerns among environmental advocates and community activists. The philosophies my differ but the questions are remarkably similar.

With Flock cameras, those questions involve privacy, public safety, and how information about ordinary citizens is collected, stored, and shared. There’s a legitimate argument for technology that helps law enforcement locate stolen vehicles, find missing children, and solve crimes. There’s also justifiable concern about creating databases capable of tracking people’s movements when they haven’t done anything wrong.

Even here in North Idaho, the conversation is taking place. A local mayor publicly distinguished the city’s limited use of Motorola license plate readers from Flock’s surveillance network, while also questioning Idaho’s data retention requirements.

Meanwhile, proposed data centers are creating unlikely alliances elsewhere in Idaho.

A major proposed artificial intelligence data center in Pocatello has prompted serious debate over electricity costs, water resources, and environmental impacts. Supporters of these projects point to investment, economic development, and technological progress. Those opposed want to know whether surrounding communities could bear the brunt of costs and other consequences they didn’t agree to assume.

People arrive at these discussions with different priorities, but many are asking the same fundamental question: Who stands to gain, who pays the price, and who gets to decide?

What interests me most isn’t whether these groups ultimately agree on a solution. They probably won’t, at least not entirely. It’s that they’re discovering they have more in common than they realized, despite their political differences.

I wonder how many times we’ve dismissed someone’s concerns simply because we knew which political camp they belonged to. How often have we assumed that disagreement on one issue meant disagreement on everything?

I’ve certainly caught myself making assumptions about people before fully understanding their positions. It’s an easy habit to develop when political labels have become shortcuts for deciding who’s worth listening to. But those shortcuts can keep us from recognizing legitimate concerns, even when they’re similar to our own.

The person concerned about government surveillance most likely values effective law enforcement. The person questioning a data center’s environmental impact might also support economic development. Neither position necessarily fits the political narratives we’ve created.

None of this means every concern is equally supported by evidence or that every solution offered deserves the same consideration. Facts still matter, as do consequences and the difficult tradeoffs involved in governing.

But listening doesn’t require agreement. Finding common ground doesn’t mean compromising everything we believe. We’ve become so focused on identifying what separates us that we’ve forgotten to recognize the ties that bind us.

Those ties aren’t necessarily political. They’re the ordinary concerns about our families, our communities, our freedoms, and the kind of future we’re leaving behind. We may or may not agree on the answers. But recognizing that we’re sometimes asking the same questions is a worthwhile place to begin.

That’s the Idaho way.

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Becky Funk is a member of North Idaho Republicans and is a former Legislative District 4 Republican Chair.