Cops STUNNED That They Can Be Tracked With Flock Cameras
The short version: Cops upset that Flock cameras track their own patrol cars expose the double standard at the heart of a surveillance network they built for everyone else.
Our Take
Dr. Rashad Richey and Sharon Reed flagged something worth sitting with: officers grumbling that Flock Safety's ALPR network can log their own cruisers. If that feels unfair, good — now you understand why millions of ordinary drivers have been saying the same thing for years. A camera that doesn't care whether it's reading a squad car or a soccer mom's minivan is, by design, indifferent to consent. That's the whole problem.
This isn't really a story about police being hypocrites, though the irony is rich. It's a reminder that once a city installs this kind of always-on plate-reading infrastructure, nobody controls where that data goes or who ends up in the dataset — including the people who requested the cameras in the first place. Departments sold these systems as tools aimed exclusively at 'the bad guys,' but mass surveillance doesn't have an off switch for insiders. The log doesn't know who's wearing a badge.
Credit to Indisputable for putting this exchange in front of a wider audience. If you want to see how dense this network already is in your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back on unchecked ALPR deployment, our take-action page has concrete next steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.