AI Summary
5 min readFlock cameras have become one of the most controversial surveillance technologies in America, and the backlash is now coming from all sides. There are roughly 120,000 of these AI-powered license plate readers across the country—in every state except Alaska—and they capture the plate of every single car that drives past them, whether that driver is suspected of anything or not. The company behind them, Flock, is a privately held Silicon Valley darling worth billions, and it has sold its system to roughly 7,000 police departments. But this year, dozens of cities and counties have started cutting ties. Some people are so angry they are cutting the cameras down with pole saws or shooting them with shotguns. The question is why a tool that police say helps solve up to a million crimes a year has sparked this kind of fury.
What Flock cameras actually do
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:05) **What is Flock and why are people mad?** - Host introduces reporter Drew Harwell to explain the basics of Flock’s AI-powered license plate cameras and the growing backlash.
- 2 (06:25) **The dark side: cops using Flock to stalk women** - Harwell explains how the surveillance tool is being abused by police officers in domestic and personal contexts.
- 3 (09:00) **A specific case: Marcy Bakley stalked by her police chief ex** - Harwell tells the story of a Georgia woman whose ex-boyfriend, the local police chief, stalked her using Flock more than 500 times.
- 4 (10:53) **How easy is the system to abuse?** - Harwell details the lack of safeguards that makes Flock ripe for misuse by any officer.
- 5 (16:22) **Beyond domestic abuse: ICE, abortion, and mission creep** - New guest Jason Kebler from 404 Media expands the scope of Flock abuse far beyond romantic stalking.
- 6 (18:07) **The vigilante backlash: people are cutting cameras down** - Kebler describes the creative and sometimes violent ways Americans are fighting back against Flock surveillance.
- 7 (21:04) **The political backlash is bipartisan** - Kebler explains how the opposition to Flock unites both the left and the right.
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Show Notes
Law enforcement agencies are using a vast network of AI-powered license plate cameras to track drivers. You may not have noticed them, but they have noticed you.
This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy and Kelli Wessinger, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tatasciore, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.
A Flock surveillance camera in a Lowe's parking lot in Lawnside, New Jersey. Photo by Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
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