Jerry Dyer Backs Flock for Crime, Not Protest Surveillance
The short version: Fresno's mayor says Flock is just for crime—but GV Wire's Bill McEwen rightly points out the company markets this same gear for watching protests.
Our Take
Jerry Dyer wants Fresno residents to believe Flock Safety cameras are a narrow crime-fighting tool, full stop. GV Wire News Director Bill McEwen isn't buying the easy reassurance, and neither are we. The problem was never whether a mayor intends to use ALPR data responsibly today — it's that the infrastructure itself doesn't care about intentions. Flock's own marketing materials and sales pitches have repeatedly pointed to monitoring "civil unrest" and large gatherings, which in plain English means protests. Once a network of plate readers exists, blanketing a city and logging every vehicle that passes, the use case can shift with the next election, the next police chief, or the next subpoena — with zero input from the public that's being tracked.
This is the exact pattern we've flagged over and over: officials sell these systems as narrowly tailored solutions to stolen cars or Amber Alerts, while the vendor's actual product roadmap and promotional language tell a broader story about persistent surveillance capability. McEwen deserves credit for pushing back on that gap in a local news setting, where these systems often get waved through without scrutiny. Fresno isn't unique — it's one node in a nationwide buildout that normalizes tracking everyone's movements regardless of suspicion.
If you want to see whether your own neighborhood already has these cameras watching, check our map, and if you'd rather not wait for a local reporter to ask the hard questions, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back before the next contract gets signed.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of GV Wire, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.