FLOCK SAFETY CEO APOLOGIZES AFTER CALLING DEFLOCK.ORG A “TERRORISTIC ORGANIZATION”
The short version: A YouTuber named Devin reports that Flock Safety's CEO called DeFlock.org "terroristic" before walking the comment back, exposing how surveillance companies react to scrutiny.
Our Take
Credit to Devin for surfacing this one. When the CEO of a company that sells automated license plate readers to thousands of police departments reaches for the word "terroristic" to describe a volunteer-run mapping project, that's not a slip of the tongue — it's a tell. It shows how uncomfortable Flock Safety gets when ordinary people start documenting where its cameras actually are.
DeFlock.org exists because Flock won't publish a public, independent inventory of its own network, and because transparency about mass surveillance shouldn't depend on a corporation's goodwill. Branding citizen journalism and crowdsourced accountability as "terrorism" is a classic move to delegitimize scrutiny rather than answer for it. An apology after the fact doesn't erase what the instinct reveals about how the industry views the public's right to know where it's being watched.
If this clip makes you want to see the scale of ALPR deployment for yourself, check out our camera map and consider contributing what you find in your own town. Then head to take action for concrete ways to push back on unchecked plate-reader surveillance in your community.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Devin, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.