Senators Call Out Surveillance CEOs For Skipping Flock Camera Hearing

Our Take

When the people profiting off a nationwide camera network won't even show up to answer questions about it, that tells you something. Newsweek's coverage of this hearing is worth watching because it's rare to see bipartisan agreement on anything surveillance-related — Hawley and Durbin don't agree on much, but they agree that Flock and its peers owe the public some answers. These companies have spent years selling local police departments on 'just a few cameras to catch car thieves,' while quietly building one of the largest privatized tracking systems in the country.

Skipping a hearing isn't just bad optics, it's a pattern. Flock and friends have gotten used to operating without real oversight: no federal privacy law covers this stuff, state rules are a patchwork, and local city councils often approve these contracts without knowing how the data gets shared, stored, or sold. When the CEOs who built that business model won't sit in front of Congress and explain it, that silence is the clearest signal yet that scrutiny is working — and that they'd rather dodge it than defend it.

This is exactly why we built the map — because if Flock won't tell you where its cameras are watching, we will. And if your city council is about to sign another contract without public input, our take-action page has what you need to show up and push back before the cameras go in.