By Michael Angelo Hernandez
What the Flock is Going On?
Mass-surveillance tech company Flock Safety made the news again here in San Diego recently. This time, due to an appearance before the San Diego City Council from the infamous villain of the widely popular Star Wars franchise, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader. Or at least someone dressed like him, to mockingly defend the city’s use of Flock surveillance cameras.
It was during a Public Safety and Liveable Neighborhoods committee meeting on Wednesday Aug. 19, that “Vader” took the podium and proclaimed “The emperor is a fan of flock”. In his comments throughout the meeting, the Vader impersonator called for a stronger police force in San Diego and the continued use of Flock Surveillance technology “so that we can follow and surveil the rebel scum as they move from playground to playground, from playground to pool, from pool to gymnasium, because we all know that the Flock Cameras are not only following the license plate readers, they are following children, they are following children in parks, and gymnasiums, and we need this, I need this so I can stalk my ex-girlfriend.”
While a tad comical, this act of protest comes in reaction to the debate currently taking place all over the nation over the use of surveillance technology like Flock and the balance between public safety and personal privacy. Here’s the latest on the fight against Flock in the U.S.
Florida Police Use Decoy Flock Camera to Catch Alleged Vandal
Amid the wave of people taking matters into their own hands to get Flock out of their communities, police in Oviedo, Florida arrested a 24-year -old man suspected of vandalizing flock cameras in a sting operation which centered around the use of decoy cameras. After a total of three cameras were vandalized in July, the Oviedo cops decided to open an investigation into the matter.
Using decoy cameras that were reportedly donated to the department by an officer with a 3D-printer at home, OPD is said to have placed them exactly where the vandalized cameras previously stood and stationed an officer to watch over each one at night. 24-year-old Evan Meyer was arrested on August 20th for allegedly trying to cut down one of the fake cameras with pruning sheers. The incident took place just days before the Oviedo City Council was set to consider ending the city’s use of Flock cameras. Of the incident, Oviedo mayor Megan Sladek put out a statement clarifying she had no idea the sting operation was taking place.
More Cities Terminate Contracts With Flock
According to data gathered by DeFlock, an open-source project designed to track ALPRs and “shine a light on the widespread use of ALPR technology, raise awareness about the threats it poses to personal privacy and civil liberties, and empower the public to take action”, at least 56 communities have canceled, rejected, or let their contracts with Flock expire this year alone.
Just this Wednesday, August 26, two suburbs in Phoenix, Arizona became the latest to join that group. The city of Tempe announced it was ending its $80,000 contract with Flock, and turning off the cameras in response to the reports of misuse coming in from other areas. Hours later, the town of Cave Creek announced that it too had terminated its contract “in the best interest of the community”
Flock CEO Calls for “Compromise”
As backlash against the surveillance company continues to grow, Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley wants the country to find a “compromise”. During a recent interview with Fox News, Langley argued how important this technology is when it comes to safety and called for the country to find a compromise saying “When people talk about just one of these, privacy or safety, they’re prioritizing the wrong thing, and what we have to prioritize as a country is compromise”.
Langley’s appearance on Fox appears to be just the latest in a string of interviews he’s done amid the pushback to the misuse and abuse of flock camera systems. In a different interview with CBS earlier this month, Langley even apologized after hearing about a case in which Flock technology was used to stalk a woman, saying “I apologize. It kills me that she went through that.”
In response to criticism, Flock announced it would be making some changes which include cutting down the default data retention from 30 days down to a week, and every search of Flock data will now require a “case code’ to be entered before being able to access it. While the data retention period may have been shortened, a setting called “evidence mode” can preserve the data for longer if it is being used in an investigation that requires more time.
In response to these changes, the ACLU said “While Flock has not shortened the default retention period to the ACLU’s recommended 48 hours, its proposal may be a step in the right direction. Whether this is a real change or just another Flock PR move, however, will depend on how its “Evidence Mode” operates.”
We as a society have camera’s everywhere. The State of CA has cameras on the freeways, people have cameras in their vehicles, Cities have cameras on traffic lights, stores have cameras inside and outside in their parking lots, neighbors have cameras on their homes and yards, and some have Ring cameras on their front doors, millions have cameras on their cell phones, businesses have cameras inside and outside their business, airlines have cameras inside and outside the airport, banks have cameras inside and outside, schools of all types have cameras outside, in hallways, in classrooms. Cameras are at concerts, and sporting events, they’re everywhere. I don’t understand why ACLU has their feathers in a ruffle over another camera.
Pats, the difference isn’t the camera, it’s who has access to the database behind it.
A store camera records people in that store. A concert camera records that venue. Neither one can pull you over, deport you, or file charges. And they can’t be searched by a cop in another state who’s curious about where you’ve been. Private cameras are scattered, siloed, and toothless. Flock is one searchable network with police on the other end of it, no warrant, no judge, and you can be looked up retroactively.
That distinction matters more right now than it did five years ago. A Ring camera doesn’t care about your immigration status. A federal agency does, and it’s been reaching into these systems.
In May 2025, a Johnson County, Texas deputy searched 83,345 Flock cameras across 6,809 networks – including cameras in Washington and Illinois, where abortion is legal, with the reason logged as “had an abortion, search for female.” One deputy had unfiltered access to cameras from Spokane to Springfield, just to pinpoint a woman who had an abortion – that’s insane.
California law bars sharing this data out of state or with immigration enforcement, and it’s been happening anyway. EFF found ICE-related searches sitting in San Francisco’s Flock data, and out-of-state agencies pulling San Francisco residents’ movements. Oxnard set its system to California-only and later found out a vendor issue had quietly turned nationwide access back on without the department knowing.
Nobody’s worried about the business down the street recording outside their store. The concern is a fascist government with arrest powers running a nationwide dragnet on people who haven’t done anything and doing it with no oversight. Those aren’t the same thing at all.
Please educate yourself and stop belittling the seriousness of these privacy issues by saying “oh, well there’s cameras everywhere” – because that’s not the argument here.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/flock-safety-and-texas-sheriff-claimed-license-plate-search-was-missing-person-it
I guess because I haven’t and don’t plan to do anything illegal, don’t have anything to hide, or run from, or any other reason to be paranoid about Flock cameras. That’s why I could care less about another camera. I really don’t have any reason at all to be paranoid about big brother watching me, so I’m not worried about my privacy in my home, or where I go.
And you can stop being snarky, it seems like a juvenile comment.
Javier’s comment was spot on. The “I have nothing to hide” argument is totally bogus for so many reasons.
Flock isn’t just “another camera” it is a network of cameras with current or future potential to correlate other data points to comprehensively track individuals throughout their life.