This implies that the harm caused by this broad surveillance technology is "hypothetical/theoretical", when there is long history in this country's government using private companies to launder otherwise illegal surveillance of political activists[1].
And even if you ignore the historical parallels, there are already cases of: officers using Flock systems to stalk dating partners[2][3], immigration enforcement using Flock data to track targets[4], and ICE/CBP bypassing the systems in place that let local jurisdictions choose not to share with federal agencies[5].
I'll acknowledge that there might be some abuses of the use of Flock data by authorities (thanks for sharing citations). I would argue that this is an access control problem: do police departments have broad, unrestricted, unmonitored persistent access to these video feeds? (I oppose this). Is Flock insisting that police departments should have this access?
And even if you ignore the historical parallels, there are already cases of: officers using Flock systems to stalk dating partners[2][3], immigration enforcement using Flock data to track targets[4], and ICE/CBP bypassing the systems in place that let local jurisdictions choose not to share with federal agencies[5].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Goals_Foundation
[2]: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2026/01/12/menasha...
[3]: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2026/02/24/mpd-off...
[4]: https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...
[5]: https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2025/10/21/leaving-t...