Former Flock Employee Speaks Out: "I Was Lied To"

Our Take

404 Media's Joseph Cox sat down with Jonathan Paz, who used to work inside Flock Safety trying to convince city councils to buy license plate readers before quitting and now running for Congress in Massachusetts. That's a genuinely rare vantage point — most of what we know about Flock's sales machine comes from public records requests and council meeting minutes, not from someone who was in the room pitching the product. When an insider says the pitch didn't match the reality, it deserves attention.

This matters because the entire ALPR expansion across the country runs on trust: cities are told these cameras will only be used for specific, narrow purposes, and that data-sharing with other agencies is tightly controlled. Every time someone with firsthand knowledge says that trust was misplaced, it chips away at the sales pitch local officials keep repeating to skeptical residents. A former employee's account of internal culture and how contracts actually get closed is worth more scrutiny than another corporate statement.

We'd encourage readers to watch the full conversation and draw their own conclusions — 404 Media has done solid work here. And if you're wondering whether this kind of camera has already shown up in your town, check our map before your next city council meeting.