Surveillance State S2 Ep.048
The short version: A podcast deep-dive from That's Effin' Weird puts Flock Safety's ALPR network under the microscope, and the plain-language breakdown is exactly the kind of mainstream attention this issue needs.
Our Take
Credit to That's Effin' Weird!! for devoting a full episode of their Surveillance State series to Flock Safety. Most people have no idea that a wall of cameras quietly photographing every car that passes has popped up in their town, paid for by HOA dues or city budgets nobody scrutinized too closely. Shows like this are doing the work local news often skips: explaining in plain terms what these devices are, who's selling them, and why a growing list of departments and homeowners associations are deploying them without much public debate.
What makes Flock different from the license plate readers of a decade ago isn't just the cameras, it's the network. One city's data can flow into a searchable national database, shared across thousands of agencies with few guardrails on how long it's kept or who gets to query it. That's the part that should worry anyone who cares about due process, not just activists. A system built to catch stolen cars just as easily becomes a tool for tracking protest attendance, immigration status, or an ex-partner's movements, and the public rarely gets a vote on any of it.
If this episode left you wondering whether your own neighborhood is wired up, check our camera map to see what's already been documented near you, and if you want to push back on a local deployment, our take-action guide walks through how to raise it at a city council or HOA meeting before the cameras go up, or get them taken down if they already have.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of That's Effin' Weird!!, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.