Flock's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Summer w/ Jon Padfield
The short version: Banish Big Brother's Zach and Elizabeth sit down with Jon Padfield to unpack a rough stretch of bad press, data leaks, and public pushback for Flock Safety.
Our Take
When a company built entirely on quiet, pervasive camera networks starts having a visibly bad few months, that's worth paying attention to. Zach and Elizabeth of Banish Big Brother bring on Jon Padfield of Business Reform for a conversation-style breakdown of what's gone wrong for Flock Safety lately, and the format matters here almost as much as the content: two independent creators comparing notes instead of a company spokesperson controlling the narrative.
We don't have the transcript in front of us, so we won't pretend to know every point they raise. But the broader pattern tracks with what we've been documenting for a while: a rapid, under-scrutinized rollout of ALPR cameras into towns and neighborhoods, followed by the slow drip of incidents, misuse, and local pushback that tends to surface once residents actually learn what's bolted to the pole at the end of their street. A 'bad summer' for a surveillance vendor usually just means the public is catching up to what's already been installed.
That gap between installation and awareness is exactly why we built our camera map — so you can see what's already watching your block instead of finding out after the fact. If this video gets you asking questions about the cameras near you, our take-action page has concrete next steps for raising it with your city council or police department.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Banish Big Brother, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.