Sen. Josh Hawley Opens Senate Hearing on Flock’s Nationwide AI Surveillance Network

Our Take

When a sitting U.S. Senator opens a Judiciary subcommittee hearing specifically targeting Flock Safety's camera network, that's a signal worth paying attention to. Credit to Iowa Pulse for getting this footage out quickly — hearings like this one, convened September 23, 2026, rarely get the coverage they deserve given how much they matter to ordinary drivers who have no idea their plates are being logged thousands of times a year.

We don't know yet what specifics came out in testimony, and we're not going to speculate beyond what Hawley said on the record. But the fact that this is happening at the federal level, with a Republican senator leading the questioning, tells you something important: concern about Flock's surveillance footprint isn't confined to privacy advocates or one side of the aisle. Local police departments, federal agencies, and now Congress are all starting to ask the same question — who's watching the watchers, and what happens to all that location data once it's collected?

This is exactly the kind of accountability moment we've been pushing for. If you want to see how dense this network already is in your own neighborhood, check our camera map — and if a hearing like this makes you want to do more than watch, we've got concrete steps on how to push back locally.