The Movement Against Big Tech’s Flock Cameras Transcends Partisanship—and It’s Winning

When it comes to fighting Big Tech billionaires’ Flock cameras, the left and the right are finding themselves on the same side.

The company Flock Safety has been quietly putting more than 100,000 AI-powered automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) in over 5,000 communities across the country over the past several years. The company — which is jointly funded by far-right billionaires Peter Thiel and Marc Andreesen through their respective companies Founders Fund and Andreesen Horowitz — contracts with local police departments, businesses, and even the boards of homeowners’ associations. According to the ACLU, Flock cameras conduct more than 20 billion vehicle scans every month.

Flock cameras accumulate a lot more data than just license plate numbers. In addition to capturing vehicle data like whether a car has distinguishing features like racks, bumper stickers, and dents, Flock Safety has a searchable database in which police can search for things like “white car with racing stripe” or “red pickup truck with dog in bed.” Flock’s data remains on its servers for 30 days, and the company boasts that its cameras have helped contribute to more than 700,000 crimes being solved every year.

However, Flock Safety has lately come under fire for allowing what is being referred to as “side-door access” in which agencies that don’t have individual Flock contracts can still access the data collected by its nationwide camera network. According to 404 Media, this includes federal agencies like US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has tapped into the Flock network to assist in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. 

States Newsroom reported last year that Flock cameras in multiple cities are also connected to fusion centers, which are the facilities in which local, state, and federal law enforcement all share data. This means that Todd Blanche’s Department of Justice, Kash Patel’s FBI, and Markwayne Mullin’s Department of Homeland Security can all access a comprehensive searchable database that tracks virtually every Americans’ movements. One resident in Windsor, Connecticut learned through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that outside agencies accessed Flock camera data more than 500,000 times in just a nine-week period.

404 Media recently reported that searches of Flock’s “FreeForm” database go well beyond vehicles. Law enforcement agencies have searched Flock for everything from “heavy-set male with a black and white hat” to “person on skateboard.” The outlet noted that the Chamblee, Georgia Police Department searched for “female with Ugg boots” while police in Brookhaven, Georgia entered a search query for “tall man.” And as one could expect, this immense level of surveillance power has led to misuse by law enforcement and innocent people being wrongly accused of crimes.

Cops Can’t Be Trusted with Flock’s Intrusive Mass Surveillance Tech

Three police officers in Fayetteville, Georgia were fired in July after internal audits of Flock’s database showed the officers conducting searches outside the scope of official investigations. The fired officers, whose names have not been publicly released, were seen searching for the license plates of relatives and of their own vehicles. The department asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) to conduct a criminal investigation, though as of this writing no charges have been filed. That’s just one example of many in Georgia alone:

• Atlanta News First reported that several other police officers in Georgia were terminated after combing through Flock’s database for non-work-related reasons, including three Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office deputies and a Greene County deputy in June. 

• In DeKalb County, which is part of the Atlanta metro area, deputy Sgt. Kabiru Salawu — a 17-year veteran of the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office — was fired and charged with felony violation of oath by a public officer. He also faces a misdemeanor charge of misuse of license plate data. 

• Henry County, Georgia officer Patrick Isbell was fired and charged with misuse of license plate data on July 10. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution “there are substantial and legitimate questions” regarding his former employer’s compliance with state law governing the use of ALPRs. 

• In late June, the Richmond County, Georgia Sheriff’s Office announced that Deputy Jaquarius Yarbrough was fired and charged with felony violation of oath by a public officer. He also got slapped with a felony charge for violating Georgia’s law prohibiting law enforcement from retaining license plate data obtained from ALPRs.

• Former Coffee County Deputy Chris Ashley Rozar was arrested this May and charged with violation of oath, computer invasion of privacy, misuse of license plate data, and stalking. Coffee was terminated in 2024.

• Last November, Braselton, Georgia Police Chief Michael Steffman resigned from his post after the GBI found that he misused data from ALPRs. Steffman was charged with stalking and harassment hours after his resignation. The charges came several months after a woman in Jefferson, Georgia who unsuccessfully applied for a restraining order against Steffman, accused him of stalking her with ALPRs.

• In Jerome County, Idaho, Sheriff George Oppedyk tracked his wife’s movements over 700 times, and began each search query with “test” in an attempt to avoid setting off internal audit systems. He was effectively forced into retirement in April of this year, less than two years into his term.

• Holiday Hills, Illinois Police Chief William C. Copp, who also worked as a police officer in Prairie Hills, Illinois, was arrested in June and charged with two felony counts of official misconduct after he was caught using ALPR data to track people he knew, including the ex-boyfriend of a woman he dated.

• In 2025, a Texas sheriff’s deputy used Flock cameras to track a woman who traveled out of state to get an abortion. Deputies initiated a “death investigation” of a “non-viable fetus,” logged evidence of the woman getting an abortion, and consulted local prosecutors about whether she could be charged. The Johnson County District Attorney’s Office ultimately told police the woman couldn’t be charged.

In addition to police officers being caught misusing Flock’s database for purposes that weren’t related to their jobs, police also wrongly accused a woman of a crime she didn’t commit solely due to Flock cameras. NewsNation reported in July that police showed up at the home of Denver, Colorado resident Chrisanna Elser and accused her of stealing a package from a front porch in a different town. Columbine Valley Police Department Officers noted that Flock cameras showed the exact time she left her home, and the exact time of her return trip.

Officers only let up after Elser responded to their allegations with video evidence she gathered on her own from the camera mounted to her vehicle and from her friend’s Ring doorbell camera. She told reporters that the Flock cameras made her feel “guilty until you can prove yourself innocent,” and that just merely driving through town has now become somewhat unnerving given how closely her movements are tracked with Flock cameras. 

Mass Resistance Against Flock Cameras Is Widespread and Bipartisan

Americans across the country have lately been mobilizing at city council meetings to demand their local governments cut off their contracts with Flock Safety. According to the site DeFlock.org, which is an open-source platform that tracks ALPRs like Flock cameras, 89 cities and towns have already either deactivated their Flock cameras or cancelled their contracts altogether. 

Cities that have ended their relationship with Flock Safety include Democratic strongholds like Los Angeles, California and Madison, Wisconsin, as well as rural communities in deep-red states like Green River, Wyoming and Dutchtown, Missouri. In Washington, Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) have cosponsored the Surveillance Accountability Act, which would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before police could access ALPR data for any individual. The bill is currently awaiting action in the House Judiciary Committee.

One flashpoint of local resistance to Flock cameras has been in Cleveland, Ohio, where residents consistently lobbied their city council to allow the city’s Flock Safety contract to expire at the end of June. On June 17, the Cleveland City Council’s Safety Committee voted 3-1 to allow the contract to expire without renewal. But despite the vote and the contract lapsing, the city’s Flock cameras remained on and continued to collect data while Flock Safety pushed hard for a re-vote.

The Safety Committee ultimately reversed course and approved a contract renewal on July 7. The full council voted 9-6 on July 15 to keep its estimated 100 Flock cameras online through December of 2026 by extending the city’s contract with the company. Council member Jasmin Santana, whose daughter was held up at gunpoint, conducted her own canvass of her ward to gauge support of Flock cameras and said her constituents were divided roughly 50-50 on whether to keep them.

When residents perceive that their pleas to their local governments are falling on deaf ears, that’s leading some of them to take matters into their own hands. In Rio Rancho, New Mexico, 44 year-old resident Jevon Martinez allegedly destroyed at least three of the cameras and replaced them with notes that read: “You’re welcome, Republic of New Mexico.” In Houston, Texas, local ABC affiliate KTRK counted at least six Flock cameras that had been destroyed in the Greater Houston/Harris County area. 

One man recently went viral after recording a satirical video in which he urged viewers to “leave Flock cameras alone,” stressing there was “no need” to attach flyers to Flock camera poles alerting drivers that the cameras were monitoring their movements. He also sarcastically asked viewers to not put plastic bags over the cameras, saying it costs Flock Safety time and money to remove them. 

“I know you can use a high-powered $50 blue or green laser to permanently blind Flock cameras, but come on guys, why?” The man said. 

“Definitely do not use the camera map on DeFlock.org to find cameras, approach them from behind on foot with a spray paint extender and spray them. If you do do that, at least make sure that you have your phone in your pocket, so we can identify you using Bluetooth and 5G,” he added. “There’s no reason to spend $20 on a hard hat and high-visibility vest, and then buy a $30 Sawzall with diamond-tipped blades to cut down the entire pole.”

The Wall Street Journal reported in June that many Americans “have attacked the company’s cameras with saws, spray-painted the lenses or covered them with stickers.” Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley previously referred to DeFlock.org as a “terroristic organization,” though he has since walked back those comments as public outrage over Flock cameras continues to build. 

Much like the resistance to AI data centers, the resistance to Flock surveillance cameras transcends partisan boundaries, and has brought the left and the right together against Big Tech billionaires who are trying to force America into becoming even more of a police state. And in an equally similar fashion, activists are showing that the best way to deliver real results and beat back Big Tech’s assault on our civil liberties is to organize at the local level, show up at city council meetings, and pressure local elected officials to take the side of their constituents over Silicon Valley. The defining fight of 2026 may not be Democrats vs. Republicans, but rather everyday citizens vs. tech billionaires.   

Carl Gibson is a journalist whose work has been published in CNN, USA Today, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, the Louisville Courier-Journal, Barron’s, Business Insider, the Independent, and NPR, among others. Follow him on Bluesky @crgibs.bsky.social.

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