The answer. Privatised surveillance. Of course if anything like setting up ai cameras to monitor people was an official government act they would be uproar so instead they get private companies to make deals with each local municipality. We all know no one really pays that much attention to what happens locally anymore. We are so tuned into the bigger picture that we fall the register the enemy at the gate. We warned about face scans and the constant surveillance in China yet it seems to be quietly becoming a reality in the US as well.
Capitalism is so engrained in us that we never stop to think about what putting our safety into the hands of for profit companies even entails.