Fusion Centers Are Writing Bulletins on Flock Critics

Our Take

If this reporting from Verified Privacy VPN holds up, it's a genuinely alarming escalation: the same fusion-center apparatus built to share terrorism leads is apparently being pointed at people posting TikToks and Instagram clips about license plate cameras in their own neighborhoods. Four bulletins, six agencies, an FBI headquarters distribution list, an account named by handle, a list of eleven cities — that's not vague chatter, that's paperwork with names and places attached, built around lawful speech about a surveillance system taxpayers are funding.

This is exactly the dynamic we keep warning about with Flock and its ALPR peers: once a network of always-on cameras exists, the temptation to treat criticism of that network as a security concern in itself becomes almost automatic. Watching a camera, photographing it, mapping it, or just complaining about it online is not a crime — it's accountability journalism and civic participation, the same instinct that built our own camera map. When fusion centers start compiling intelligence products about the critics instead of the cameras, the chilling effect is the point, whether or not that's the stated intent.

Credit to Verified Privacy VPN for pulling these documents together and putting them in front of people. We'd encourage you to watch the full breakdown and read their source material, then take it as one more reason to document what's in your own town and push back through official channels — our take-action page has practical steps for doing exactly that.