They Flock Us, Why Can't We Flock Them? Two Phoenix Cops Arrested—Who's Watching the Watchers #Flock
The short version: A viral video asks why ALPR surveillance only ever points at citizens, never at the cops and systems that deploy it.
Our Take
"Smokin With The Monster" taps into a question we get asked constantly: if license plate readers are such a great accountability tool, why is the accountability always flowing one direction? Two Phoenix officers getting arrested is the kind of story that should trigger more scrutiny of police conduct and the surveillance tools they control — not less. Instead, the cameras stay pointed at the public, logging our movements thousands of times a day while the systems watching the watchers remain thin, voluntary, and largely toothless.
The "flock them back" framing is more rhetorical gut-check than policy proposal, but the underlying grievance is real. Flock Safety's network was sold to city councils as a neutral crime-fighting tool, yet audit logs are rarely public, misuse cases get buried in internal affairs paperwork, and the agencies running thousands of plate scans a month face almost none of the transparency they demand from everyone else. When trust in law enforcement is already strained, handing them a mass-surveillance system with minimal oversight doesn't rebuild that trust — it just adds another layer of unaccountable power.
Credit to the channel for putting a sharp, viral spin on a frustration a lot of Americans share. If you want receipts instead of rhetoric, check our camera map to see what's actually watching your neighborhood, and hit take-action for concrete steps to push your local council toward real oversight.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Smokin With The Monster, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.