Flock Cameras Are Now Watching Gun Ranges? #juliandorey #juliandoreypodcast #privacy

Our Take

Julian Dorey's clip cuts to the heart of why ALPR dragnets worry people across the political spectrum, not just the usual privacy crowd. His theory — that building a surveillance net doesn't require banning an activity, just quietly cataloging who engages in it — applies just as well to gun ranges as it does to abortion clinics, churches, or protests. Flock's pitch has always been "stolen cars and violent crime," but the infrastructure itself doesn't care what you're driving to. A camera on the road to a range logs every plate the same way one outside a mosque or a union hall does.

That's the uncomfortable part Dorey is pointing at: once a nationwide, retroactively searchable plate database exists, it becomes a tool for whoever has access to it, for whatever purpose they decide matters that year. Flock has already acknowledged agencies misusing searches for personal and out-of-scope reasons, and audit logs have shown lookups tied to reproductive-rights and immigration-related queries that departments couldn't fully justify. There's no technical reason a 'frequent visitor to shooting range' profile couldn't be built the same way — and no law currently stopping it.

Whether you're worried about gun rights, reproductive rights, or just not wanting your daily movements warehoused indefinitely, the lesson is the same: the time to ask questions about this infrastructure is before it's everywhere, not after. Check our map to see if Flock has already rolled into your area, and hit take action if you want to push back at the local level.