Flock cameras hacked and what they found is law enforcement lied about what these cameras do.

Our Take

Texas Paul's latest investigation digs into claims that researchers or hobbyists got hands-on access to Flock Safety hardware — and found the gap between what police tell the public these cameras do and what they're actually capable of. We can't verify the specific technical claims in the video ourselves, but the pattern it describes is familiar: agencies sell ALPR networks as narrowly targeted tools for stolen cars or Amber Alerts, while the underlying systems quietly log, store, and share far more than that.

This matters because the entire public case for Flock's expansion rests on trust — trust that retention windows are short, that access is logged and audited, that data doesn't leak to federal databases or get resold. Every time a hack, leak, or whistleblower account contradicts an official talking point, it chips away at the idea that these networks are accountable by design rather than by accident. Credit to Texas Paul for pushing on that seam instead of just repeating the vendor's press release.

If you want to see how dense this surveillance grid already is near you, check our camera map, and if this kind of discrepancy bothers you as much as it bothers us, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back at the city council level.