MORE FLOCKING BS - How 100,000 AI Cameras Are Turning America Into a Digital Cattle Pen
The short version: Joshua Michael's video argues Flock's 100,000+ ALPR cameras are normalizing mass tracking under the banner of safety, and we think he's onto something real.
Our Take
Joshua Michael's latest video puts a number on something we've been saying for a while: Flock Safety's camera network has ballooned past 100,000 units, quietly stitching together a nationwide grid that logs where your car goes, whether or not you've ever been suspected of a crime. His framing of these cameras as an "Overton window" into broader surveillance is worth sitting with — every rollout normalizes the next one, and every department that signs on makes it harder for the next town to say no.
The part that should worry people most isn't the cameras themselves, it's who gets to look at what they collect. Searchable, cross-jurisdictional databases with loose access controls are exactly the kind of setup that invites misuse — nosy officers running plates on ex-partners, data shared with agencies that have no business seeing it, and zero meaningful oversight when it happens. That's not hypothetical; it's the predictable outcome of building infrastructure faster than the policies meant to constrain it. Michael's skepticism about the "safety" trade-off is fair: safety from what, exactly, and at what permanent cost to due process?
Where we'd push back slightly is on leaning too hard into culture-war framing around migration and manufactured chaos — the surveillance-state argument stands on its own without it. The infrastructure is the story. If you want to see how close this network already is to your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action guide has concrete steps for your next city council meeting.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Joshua Michael, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.