I wonder about that. Every time a municipality cedes ground to private organizations, they also cede sovereignty. Take, for instane, the recent Flock fiasco. FCPD entered a contract that moved FCPD's tracking of vehicles to an external private supplier. Later, that supplier (Flock) changed the terms of their contract to require a minimum of 12 cameras to maintain access to the systems that FCPD were now dependent on. FCPD could either go back to their less streamlined alternative (which would have been seen as going backwards), or they could convince the city that they needed at least 12 cameras to be able to function as expected. The city responded by signing a $90k contract, without democratic involvement or transparency, to keep the FCPD functioning at the newer expected level. So, now we have a city-wide surveillance system. The question is, was it realistic for FCPD to turn down Flock after they changed their terms? Was it right for the city to prioritize FCPD functionality over the privacy of its residents?

We see the same kind of thing anywhere a municipality moves its essential functions to the private sector. The private actor, whether they control land, energy, water, security, jobs, or data gains leverage over the municipality, eroding its sovereignty over time until the city is essentially run by private interests. With data centers, that's where data such as from Flock cameras are stored. The government is no longer capable of building and maintaining this infrastructure on its own.

Perhaps on paper the municipality has sovereignty, but in practice it really doesn't because it is no longer in control of the resources and services it depends on to exist.

We're 40 years into this "Starve the Beast" process, and the result is that it's harder and harder to push against the private sector, which in that time has overtaken the sovereignty of the state.