They Say It’s for Safety… But Cops Are Using It to Stalk
The short version: Institute for Justice's new video lays out how Flock's ALPR networks let police reconstruct anyone's movements without a warrant, and why they're suing to stop it.
Our Take
Credit where it's due: the Institute for Justice is doing the unglamorous legal work that actually moves the needle. Their federal suits in Norfolk and San Jose aren't abstract privacy griping — they're built on real plaintiffs whose daily movements got vacuumed up by a dragnet they never consented to and never did anything to deserve. When a camera network can tell the government everywhere you've driven for the last month, 'it's just for solving crimes' stops being a credible defense.
The title's framing — safety pitch versus stalking reality — is blunt, but it's not wrong. Flock and its law enforcement customers market these systems as neutral tools, yet the underlying capability is the same regardless of who's behind the badge: persistent location tracking of ordinary people with no judicial oversight. That's the gap IJ is trying to close with the Fourth Amendment, one camera network at a time.
If you want to see how far this has already spread, check our camera map to find deployments near you, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action page has concrete steps for pressuring your city council before the next contract renewal.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Institute for Justice, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.