Grassroots Activism and Contract Termination

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know Production of IiHarR radio Hello. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. My name is Noel. They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Welcome back. is a two chapter series for us. This is our second episode on flock safety or flock cameras. And guys, I think one thing that astonished all of us when we were digging into the research is that this company is not even a decade old. They were formed in twenty seventeen. and over less than ten years, they have had the kind of explosive growth that every startup dreams about. They're disruptors. We love a disruptor Well, and when you look at the technology, it does seem to be basasically ring cameras with license plate readers on them plus the shot spotter technology we talked about All rolled up into one thing. I guess that's the thing, right? Like they didn't exactly reinvent the wheel. They just kind of combined the wheel with some other stuff that already existed and did it in a little bit more of an elegant and efficient way that was scalable. Like I don't know what their bottom line is, but I was telling you guys off air, I noticed my first flock yesterday And I know that we here Alanta are kind of at ground zero for this stuff because it's sort of been the biggest proving ground for the technology. And I'd never really saw one before or never really seen one before, but I guess it's that Ber Meinhoff thing where since we were talking about it now I was maybe a little more subconsciously looking for it. and it is kind of low profile. It's just this camera on a pole with a big old sideways facing solar array at the top. Can you talk about where you found it? It was in my neighborhood. it wasn't I mean I wasn't like I was actually biking because I've been I'd got an electric bike and I've been biking around a lot. And maybe that's why I noticed it because I wasn't going quite as fast. And it just kind of it was on my mind. So it was Somewhere in the part of town I live in, D Cator East Lake adjacents, which is not far from Atlanta proper, but sort of its own little community. But yeah. And this is I love your point there about maybe going a bit more slowly And then, you know, you're able to take in more of the environment surrounding you we know that Once you know what to look for, you're going to see flot cameras everywhere in a city near you. There are tens of thousands of them. permeating all kinds of towns, municipalities, and of course, big cities. And inst step with this explosive growth, Flock's controversy also grows. So please, please, please folks, check out chapter one of Flock before you continue to this one and segue, speaking of seeing everyone We'd love to see you on Virgin Voyages. Virgin Voyages. H. There's lotots of cameras on that ship. Wait a minute. That's not this that's not the selling point of this. But they're not slock safety for for your. Well, what I'd say is we would love to see you on Verge of Voyages folks because we are going on a cruise that we're very excited about from october second to the seventh with our other stuff colleagues, like some real Re heavy hters. headliners, Josh and Chuck, stuff you should know. and of course Annie and Sam from Stuff Mom never told you. I know we've been hitting this hard, but we're super excited about it and we really would love to hang out with you So do check out virginvoyages. com and search for these what is it called Stuff at Sea? Stuff at C. Yeah, your ticket. And on the back end of it, coming back into New York City, it is Cicon time. So you can always double up and make a little comicon trip out of it too. And you might see us there as well. So we're gonna to pause for a word from our sponsors, give everybody a second to check out Stuff at Ce, and we'll be right back This is an IHart podcast. guaranteed human. I turned off news altogether I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the range bit feels like it's trying to divide people If we got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little NBC News brings you clear reporting Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there NBC News orting for America Moving day' going great until the couch won't fit through the door. That's when I turn to Air Tasker. Post your task and find local help for packing, cleaning, furniture assembly, errands, and more. Go to airtasker. com or download the app. Air Tasker. 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Guys, I'm so excited that we made this a two chapter series because When we last left you, perhaps without a dope beat to step to, we were discussing some of Floock's specific capabilities, in particular, of course, the A L P R. st The automated license plate reader technology, the increasingly acrimonious court cases that I know we're going to dive into in chapter two. And of course, the misuse of this technology. And one thing I think that we were all very fair about is that the founders of Flock who are Fellllow Georgia tech folks They are not Peter teal level jerks. They genuinely seem to have noble intent. If you have spent time in the Georgia Tech area of Atlanta, you already know crime was and is a serious issue. classic Georgia teech type solution was to look at all the other existing surveillance technology out there and figure out how to combine it, to aggregate it into a massive fully integrated system of audio and visual surveillance. It wouldn't just help law enforcement close cases potentially it could help stop the bad guys before a crime occurred. And this leads us to something I think we'd all love to spend a little bit more time on the grand dilemma of the greater good. How much liberty should we sacrifice in pursuit of security? I mean, you can certainly see this quandary pondered in a lot of science fiction. like mininority repeport is a good example where you've got this whole concept of pre crime and, you know all of the moral and ethical dilemmas that go along with that greater good question. becausecause at a certain point, it just becomes like penopticon of it all, the surveillance state of it all, like is that actually liberty? Like are you able to live freely if you are constantly being monitored and people are taking advantage of that Um it's a tough one because you want to live in a safe community you want to be able to feel safe, but I've never felt unsafe to the point where I feel like this stuff is fully justified. Well, it's tough it's really tough. and I think about schools often because schools are another place where flock safety ends up going into and getting pretty big contracts And when you think about places that have potential danger, if you think about the incidents that have occurred over the last fifteen years, twenty years, especially at schools and places where we gather a lot, malls Home improvement stores, p box ar protests. yeah you imagine there is There's a looming potential fear in all of those places, but it isn't necessarily justified, right? If you look at the statistics However, there is a Um, We did that story about the Brownies and a non detect level of laxatives in the brrownies. There is a somewhat detect level of mass shootings and terrible things that occur around us in this country So the thought of of the need for something like this or maybe even the desire from a public to have something like this exists. But this is not going stop mass shootings. It might help you catch the shooter Yes, but it's not gonna to stop mass shootings. There's a whole thing A wholeother thing that needs to be I mean, I'm not going to be mister like, you know, drraconian gun control here, but like something needs to happen in that department if we are going to expect any kind of of downntick in these mass shootings and you know shootings to your point. But I think it is so right to say it's a response. No like it is a response to that terrible thing, right? And it's an enterprising opportunity. Now you can protect these areas theoretically, right? with real time cameras and mics that will pick up everything and even scan the license plates of everybody who comes in and out of an area. So like the offer there, I think is just so valid for a lot of reasons. Can we also just point out that like how often do they not catch the shooter in mass shooting situations? I don't I can't think of an example where the shooter has gotten away or you know, on a, you know, took taking their own n. It' DC sniper The DC sniper, if so just if you imagine your head, if this technology existed in Virginia, Maryland, the Washington, DC area sucher though, Mat. I know I know But I agree. But it's the kind of thing that that can be pointed to as a valid point. If this stuff was there and license plates were being read at each one of these shootings The vehicle that was being used in those shootings would have been caught the second time that it happened. And also, you know, eventually, the DC snipers were apprehended as we know. we also I love the point we're making here, the points we're making, but we have to point out folks, all of us understand that statistics are one thing and personal experience is another. So if you lost a loved one in a mass shooting or a spree killing, then it doesn't necessarily make your life better to know that it doesn't happen that often because you have lost something irreplaceable. And that's why there's such a dilemma about security versus liberty and privacy. And America's founding fathers, as imperfect as they were, they spent so much time arguing about this both in public and with one another, like Benjamin Franklin By the way, probably not a serial killer, but check out our episode, he was fond of saying, they who can give up essential liberty to attain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. And the famous Thomas Paine rode with him on that. He said the greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes. kind of Years ago, I can't remember if it was an episode or strange News, we were talking about how various governments, the UK, in particular wanted to anonymize, excuse me, deanonymize the internet. and they were often using the sheep's bull of prrotect the children to hide this Orwellian wolf of a surveillance state beneath because the same stuff, the exact same technology you use to protect innocent people can be used to persecute people that you don't like, even if they are innocent as well. It's just so crazy way back in the seventeen hundreds These people had zero knowledge of the internet, AV technology, creepy algorithms, drones, even machine guns, and even they were like This stuff is gonna be terrifying. Dude Just speaking of how far we've come, right? two hundred and fifty years Did you guys check out UFC two hundred fifty Freedom two hundred fifty last night? Did I saw the highlights and I sa think it rained out. No. No, no, no There was a delay. Not enough. There was a delay in that one guy got in trouble for just showing up. Maybe, I don't know. I just know the spectacle of it all to see it happen on the White House lawn, you guys, to watch the live cameras track Dana White and the president of the United States saunter slowly out from one of the wings out to the little balcony, like We've seen kings and popes come out on the balcony We're in the bread and circuses phase of this particular collapse of emmpire. And I saw a really good quote in some of the coverage that I was seeing this mning. I hadn't heard this before, but I think it's quite good. It says when a clown moves into the palace He doesn't become a king, The palace just becomes a circus. I like that. And we've also got to point out to that Bad in Circus' note People are increasingly unable to afford bread, right? So I was gonna to say more of a circus ecomy. Well, that quote, Ben, as you know is give them bread and circuses and they'll never revolt. We've got plenty of circus, but it doesn't appear to be enough bread. So we may be looking at a revolt. I think you're right I just want to make some kind of parallel here guys between that display of because it was mostly attended by if you looked at the shots that they would give you in the pre show before the fight started. It was mostly military members that were in the audience So a ton of people in uniform that were there attending and they're showing to you on television They The national anthem is sung by a country star and I don't even know how many jets flew over right as they climaxed that song The the thing is sponsored by Trump coin and by RAam trucks where they polymartates the betting platform and monster energy drrink, the idiocracy of it all. Oh, and the military members had to pay, by the way But the whole point that I'm trying to get to you guys is that it is a display of military might of The American Lberty spirit of freedom but of might associated with that freedom of danger and like we will we will destroy anyone that comes near us and we will fight all the bad guys It was this real bravado thing, right? which is you would just associate with a combat sport like that But it was also America's birthday celebration. as well as the president's birthday celebration And to see all of that on display reminded me of kind of what flock safety can represent that like that the theoretical unstoppable force. If you want to come and do crime in this area, we are going to stop you because we have this technology. Yeah. And I think the to that point, Matt, I think the founding fathers would have honestly despised fllock, even though we've been very fair in chapter one and endeavor to be fair in today's episode Because the foundounding fathers, their closest analogue was probably the infamous panopticon of Jeremy Bentham's philosophy. and they didn't dig that concept Either. So they hated this kind of idea. they were so concerned about it, we should say, that they eventually enshrined this caution into the Bill of Rights, most notably the Fourth Amendment, which I think we could casually refer to as the mind your business law. It basically says, we gave you the quote in chapter one, but it basically says You have to have a reason or probable cause to go into someone's home, to apprehend them, to go through are now their computers and their online activity. You have to describe what you're looking for and why you're looking for it. And it's funny because as any legal beagles in the crowd know, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they both have this confounding habit of being either incredibly specific, like explicit, All men are created equal but then they also become cartoonishly vague Bear pretty much any weapon get about it, you know, wouldould they have written the right to bear arms into the into the into the founding documents, if they had known AK forty seven's and Kalishnikovs would be this easy to purchase. I mean There was method to the madness though. Well I think they still would have though, because isn't the point to stop anyone that would try and take the system over ight? R government overreach. Yes. So so like you would whatever weapon that is at anyone's disposal would be in there because the concept is to prevent this thing from being corrupted to the extent which I would argue and I think we might all argue is being corrupted and has been corrupted for a long time. Um, But what do you do against that kind of thing? And if you imagine all of the U ways working within the system to change the system that have been attempted over you know, a century and a half, two centuries now attempting to fix things to be a little more meaningful for everyone and functional for everyone. They don't seem to be working. So like they put that in there because I'm assumed look, I don't know, you know, It's hard to know exactly what they were thinking, but I do imagine the argument would be whatever means you have otect this thing That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, they doubtlessly knew something we've been saying on the show for years, technology would inevitably outpace legislation And they were genuinely prescient about so many things. So it's pretty clever that they would keep stuff loose enough to allow for innovation, which not every country has done. They wanted to get everyone on the same page. They wanted to, most importantly, to your point, allow future generations to update those fundamental axioms as time went on Yeah, Flock is inarguably saving lives. It is inarguably, in many cases, stopping crimes. So of course law enforcement adores it all departments, though, as we'll see And without getting in your business, fellow conspiracy realist, it is statistically nigh certain One of us in the crowd tonight had or will have a crime solved, a name cleared, or a criminal caught in your area due to this technology can't help but wonder panopticon haters would have thought about Flock. and since our Oija boards keep getting a missed call every time we hit up the foundounding Fathers. Let's get back to flock in the present day. What do you guys say? Take a takeake a little ad break for our sponsors. I wonder if one of them' Flock. I hope not. I actually hope not either. This is George Seeveris and Sam Taggart from Stradio Lab. 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And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations, with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. Rcharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning, It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you ady to finally clean out your closet With trrashy, you can donate your clothes, reduce waste, and earn cash rewards. All in one simple step Just fill a take backack bag, send it in, and get rewards cash back for every bag. And now with trrashy Unlimited, you get unlimited bags for just forty eight dollars your first year Clean out, donate, earn rewards Visit trashy. io to get started Here's where it gets crazy. All right, we talked about the license plate reading tech. That was one of the big things we hit toward the end of our first episode. Again, as we said, it's not by any means original the true innovation here is intntegration, integration with other systems. and that includes the systems of their bigger competitor, Axon Right? We mentioned Axon in the past it can integrate into free crime predictive policing networks like Palantir Do check out our very strange episodes on Peter Tial. You mentioned a thing we always brush up against with stuff like this, the idea of technology outpacing legislation, But it seems like in this case, through you the current administration and a lot of the rollbacks of certain protections and oversights that they have been responsible for We're almost getting to a place where the legislation is kind of a moot point Right? Because we remember when it was such a hubub and such a kerfuffle when we found out that all this metadata about our, you know Tlephone calls and things were being, you know observed by the NSA, etcetera. I mean, that was a huge Bad moment for the Obama administration and they had some explaining to do. And Americans were really up in arms about it, but now it's like I guess through this rollback and through just the change in attitude and kind of this realization that maybe the legislation was just a matter of people behaving themselves and kind of exercising good judgment and decorum and saying, no, we need this to be legislated in order to you to spend the appropriate amount of time on it to make sure that we know how to protect ourselves from this kind of stuff. But now it's just kind of like I don't know, just seems like there's nobody cares anymore And And we're just kind of going down this surveillance rabbit hole and there's really no looking back People do care, but when I say people I just, you know what I mean? They're not getting the headlines. It's almost like the mass media is downpling some of the concerns Guys, I wonder if I could share a quick local news story about integration before we get into it. and like why it is bigger and scarier than you may think Absolutely. This comes to us from WRAL News posted on june eighth, twenty twenty six U Ill just put it this way is from the article. as North Carolina rolled out a license plate reader pilot program with multiple law enforcement agencies across the state This is the license plate readers only And it is being used across the state of North Carolina with multiple agencies, okay? The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation also gained access to flock safety cameras from Lowe's home improvement stores, in the entire state as well as the entire state of South Carolina, as well as the entire state of Virginia. which Yeah. is crazy to think about. a state's Bureau of investigation, an FBI, but on the state level gained access to the flock safety cameras at Lowe's home improvement stores from three states Now think about how many lows there are out there, right? Th Th about just The number of cameras out there in the middle, you guys have probably seen these before. The mobile security stations that kind of sit in a parking lot They look like a tiny, I don't know, just a Um, almost like a tiny little vehicle that has these big poles that go up with the exactly as you described earlier, Noel But what I was saying was it was a mini version of that. I know exactly what you're talking about. We see them in a parking lot near where our offices are where the there's that place that does those auctions. You go up the stairs there and there's one right there. It's got like tires and like kind of like it almost looks like a trailer. And then it's got this big old pole and a solar array and then clearly kind of like a camera There's supposed to be deterrerence anywhere like that, construction sites, warehouses, a place of business They have an AI technology that detects All kinds of different things, basically movement after a certain time period when the business is closed and when they want to have that alert system setup and It has twenty four hour video and license plate readers in the same way just imagining that All of these lows are already in there, and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is also attempting to get access to these same cameras in Home Depots across all these states And it's literally email exchanges guys. between the SBI and you know, a big corporate person like Lowe's or Home Depot. and then negotiating access to these cameras. And we're talking about integration and potential dangers here We're talking about ice, right? Because we know for sure in the past Flock safety cameras have been used in IC operations as well as other things. And we know Home Depot and Lowe's are two of the biggest places where folks go to gather to get work you can see all of that stuff coming together and then realizing that it's not just local Law enforcement It's the it's the big boys in every state. Yeah. let's talk a little bit more about that guys. So We're talking in specific about something called Fock Nova This is their look upp tool. They've been hard at work on they will allternately call a public safety data platform or a search engine. built for police. It supplements the ALPRs with information from public records, right? likeike who bought a House Win, all the kind of stuff you could normally look up as a civilian or request as a member of the public about somebody else alsoso we're going to They originally were going take information from data breaches as well as, and I think we can all catch this phrase, commercially available data in order to track these specific individuals without a warrant ever necessarily coming into play. That's a lot of linguistic parkour. so to unpack it What do we mean by data breaches? We mean that Flock was originally going to use data pull from the dark Web, the kind of sites that will ransomware somebody's financials or their sensitive information luckily They clocked untenable that position would be and they pulled out of that before running into any legal Firestorms, but another one of the ones that worries me and I think it worries all of us or I hope so is the phrase commercially available data That means all the stuff that your government and your favorite private companies are not explicitly prohibited from selling And they're they're they're relatively few things in the U S now that private companies are explicitly prohibited from selling about you. And For example, here in the States, we have this thing called HIPA probablyro heard the acronym, but We often, you know we just hear the acronym, our eyes glaze over and we don't talk much about it. It's short for Health inssurance, Portability and Accountability Act of nineteen ninety six. It's a very soft tooth attempt to uphold the concerns of those founding fathers All it does really is give you certain rights to privacy regarding your personal health. And yes, spoiler Private insurance companies hate it But everything else Myy guys, everything else bros. It's up for ras. boom, boom, boom. unless you opt out. you should assume that every private institution with which you engage financial institutions and telecoms, especially, they consider your activity and interactions its own separate revenue stream. And I wasn't aware of this until far later than I should have been But did you guys know when you sign up for a credit card you have the option to opt out of selling your data. And if you don't opt out justust like organ donation experiments. if you don't opt out, then it's again, it's another way for them to make money. and it's actually it's kind of hard to find Doub oion Yeah, but I've had like the same credit card for years now before all of this was much of a conversation. So do I get grandfathered in? Do I have to opt out after the fact? I'm actually looking at that as well, Noel. and I'm hoping that I'm hoping I could come back with a good answer, but if you're a financial Bffin Let us know And we we I'm going toward this. We've got to get to this point because It was you Matt pointing out interactions, the interstate, state to state interactions, this gets so complicated when we look at discrepancies between federal versus state level policies because some states have way better privacy protection laws than other states. The top three with the best laws are going to be California, Maine, and Nevada, just an alphabetical order But according to places like security. org, which is a great source on this, the other forty seven states have weak or non existent consumer data privacy laws This like, how does this apply to Flock system? They're everywhere except for Alaska for now So is it possible for another version of our hypothetical example here, is it possible that the info gathered on an individual is legal. in South Dakota but the same info about the same person is illegal in California. This is a legal minefield. Yeah, there's a story coming out of Stockon, California as they expanded their flock. to include these first responder drones and spend three million extra dollars on the system. U There's a little piece in here from Stocktonia on june eighth And it's talking about the national lookup feature that Flock has and how that feature has been disabled for California agencies back in March of twenty twenty five uh, and they also block federal agencies from discovering or requesting sharing relationships with any California agencies So theoretically some of the flock information that is captured in California won't be shareable to, let's say the Feds or other agencies that even want to look at it because of these these laws you're talking about Europeen. Yeah. and we're going to run into even more of that as we continue, but there's there's an important point we got to hit there in relation to the story you just shared. the way that the flock NoOVA program works. The way the search engine works is that you interact with approved partners like other members of law enforcement But your price for interaction isn't just financial In order to participate in the network, you also have to give up all of your data to the system. So with every new partner grows and grows and grows. That's how Nova coordinates across what they call approved agencies. So if you're looking for a specific individual or a specific vehicle NoOVA can connect law enforcement across the United States into the search. So Fock, if you go to their own website For Nova, they specifically cite success in arresting twenty six suspects and success in recovering seventy victims of human trafficking, which is honestly also And Flock' been in use since May of last year. Here's the weird thing. Okaykay If we're the local cops now and we're running a search, right I'm Noel Brown, I'm a local cop I don't just get the license plate of Johnny Red lat blue jeans I get everything about the car he's driving. I get a ton of personal information about his life even if he never actually pushes that red light if he just drives through the intersection and I want to see what pops up on NoVa about him This can happen anywhere he happens to drive by. in a area where Fock is deployed with those very few flimsy privacy protections. So how can We as Americans successfully walk the line and tow the tightrope of public safety versus privacy overreach. That's where we get to, of course, you know The fllock Raven the gunshot detector. We mentioned, I think that we have all seen these especially in the area of Atlanta where I reside They look similar to the shot spotter thing. They're solar powered like the cameras, so they don't depend on the utility grid and they use AI also integrated with these other Fock systems fiveive second incremental u sound clips. and play the old fireworks or firearms game. and when a gunshot is detected and confirmed by their system, the device estimates its location, it alerts police. and in some cases, the police can send that first responder drope which could help save the lives of officers as well I don't know. it's a lot of stuff. The NSA obviously tapped smartphones and landlines way before And you can't hide your internet activity from them, but we all raise such a fuss when we learned about Prism from Snowden. So why pretend it's okay when it's a private company You know I'm looking through here, Ben, trying to understand the difference between flock Nova and flock freeform because I've seen freeform cited M than Nova. So I'm going to read from their website. so I understand and we can all understand. free form accccording to their own website on flocksafety. com You can search existing video and LPR systems using natural language Free form helps. teams quickly find relevant footage without complex queries Th Nova I think is the is the more targeted complex version. it says Flock Nova search across existing agency systems to support investigations and operations It brings case context, dashboards and maps together so teams can coordinate and work faster. Okay Hmm. So I guess like mayaybe on an in I don't know. I don't I see I don't understand the like full difference between the scenarios. You would need one or the other. or just use one as your standard version. I think we could probably think of freeform as me if I'm off base here, folks, freeformm as sort of the earlier version or freeform as the less complex version maybe, like it's the duplo to the Lego. That is NoVA Nover seems to be the next step in evolution here But I think they still use them concurrently because it's again, it's a private company. so all their clients are going to have their own mix and match of systems in which they participate. And u It's still, you know, it's it's not just confusing to us. It's confusing to lawyers.'s going to be confusing to the Supreme Court at some point. I think we can make that prediction because it is so easily misused you know, just like law enforcement, u some members of law enforcement Some few members have been caught with their hands in the surveillance cookie jar of other databases for non work reasons, right? I'm a jilted lover I'm staling an X I'm a cop who has a crush. I want to learn more about this beautiful so and so I pulled over on a routine stop or And this happens a lot O secret. It could be guys doing a favor unofficially for a buddy either as a friend or in some cases taking a little money on the side and under the table where you could You could be pursuing vengeance. You think someone has wronged you or there someone you just don't like for some reason you can use the power of surveillance learn a lot about stuff to compromise these people. I mean we I think we loosely mentioned it in chapter one. There's a there's a quintessential case of this and the problem of flock It's taking place in Milwaukee. There's a police officer named Jose Ayala just earlier this year He got charged with misusing the flock database a hundred and seventy nine times. personal reasons and he knew better is an eight year veteran of the department He got convicted ofpe of what they call misdemeanor, attempted misconduct in public office which esn't sound that serious, but it's a very, very serious charge So at least he encountered consequences, but again, How many people How many officers or agents get away with doing that every day. And how like if we don't know what we're trying to stop, then how can we stop them Flock has their reports. they have a They have a rubric in place, right? So you have to be approved to use NoVA or similar systems to access the cameras. You have to work with approved partners Honestly guys K reminds me of People go to like an adult or graphic website and you get the little pop up that says you have to be over eighteen, cllick yes or no How many people admit that they're not eighteen. it's self regulation, ultimately. Yeah, if you go to the Institute of Justice, they found eighteen documented cases since twenty twenty four of an officer or someone who had access to flock safety doing some form of personal use stocking essentially. There's another guy named Jam Marcus Brown They ran his girlfriend's plate sixty nine times and her mother's twenty four times and her brother's fifteen times and you know, including an airtag in the wallet kind of thing. So you know pretty standard form of stocking Um He got probation for doing those things There is some stuff you can do, which is pretty interesting. We found this website called H been Focked com like FLOcK ED d. com pulls all the public records that exist out there to see if your plate has been searched and when and all you know, as much information as publicly available. So at least if you if you're worried that maybe something like this is happening to you or you've got someone in your life, maybe that's an LEO that There's some bad blood there or something or maybe you're just nervous about it. We would recommend checking out that site. And this this is a great segue toward our next question to flock or not to flock feedback and activism. So why don do we take a quick break for word from our sponsors And we'll get back into the people who are pushing back. against Fock This is George Saeris and Sam Taggart from Stradio Lab. Okay, picture it. your apartment after a Saturday workout, the gym bag, the couch, maybe even the car. Miamod, it's a full novella of odors and not the glamorous kind. That's where Fabrie comes in. 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It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you Ready to finally clean out your closet? With trashy, you can donate your clothes, reduce waste, and earn cash rewards. All in one simple step Just fill a take back bag, send it in, and get rewards cash back for every bag. And now, with trrashy Unlimited, you get unlimited bags for just forty eight dollars your first year Clean out, donate, earn rewards Visit trashy. io to get started We're back. Okay, dozens of cities across the nation have already taken a stand and they've cancellled their flock contracts or they've attempted to, I believe it was on strange newews recently. We had a story about a local municipality that had cancel their flock. subscription or the contract, but Flock kept the cameras going and didn't take them down. so eventually The local law, the shheriff's Department went around and put garbage bags, like translucent garbage bags over the cameras because they kept begging Flock to take them down. And we found out why Flock hasn't taken those cameras down. because theoretically a client who has been a part of Flock and had a subscription fee and paid all of There are individual line item expenses for having a single poll installed and a camera installed. There's also a five hundred dollars termination fee to quote, retrieve a camera. for every camera So you're talking twelve times five hundred, and I'm assuming the local municipality there that we were speaking of would have to put that like pay that money in order to get those cameras taken down. Yeah. So there are a lot of examples of local city councils doing stuff like this, as well as more grassroots direct actions. So to add to our previously mentioned Have you B Flocked website, you can learn more at outfits like fight for the Futures Fock out initiative. And if you are against flock And it is in your neck of the global woods we do recommend partnering up with other like minded people in your community Please do so in a legal way because remember, committing a crime against this company and its clients will put a target on your back. and these folks are very good at aiming. Which yeah, I wish it didn't sound hyperbolic because it's absolutely true There is positive stuff though, you can search around and find stories coming out of places like Mneap a suburb in Minneapolis called Columbia Heights. where again, twelve cameras, twelve flock cameras, licenseed plate readers There was a city council meeting and there was enough of a pushback from the public at that meeting to have The decision be made that the flock cameras will no longer be in use and they're going to cancel the contract So just, you know, theoretically from a local government standpoint, because you are dealing with suburbs, you're dealing with individual neighborhoods. Maybe an entire city, maybe sometimes, you know, just a store somewhere That's the kind of stuff you're dealing with. And if you push back enough Maybe there's change that can be made if you're nervous about these things or you think they're wrong for whatever reason. U if you want to get them in your town and you're excited about the tech, you're just going to need, you know pockets or some kind of grant like a lot of the local law enforcement agencies are doing, getting specific human trafficking grants or other forms of federal or state money like that to be able to even afford these things. Yeah, absolutely. and we know You know, for every positive anti flock movement, there are even at local government levels There are examples of the authorities shutting down overwhelming public outcry against FlOocks. So there's a dark side of this too I'd love to recommend four hundred four media. co. They've been doing some great work on Flock. There's an article by a guy named Jason Kubler over that came out on june twelfth, twenty twenty six. I'm just I'm reading it here a county commissioner refuses to let residents opposing flock speak at meeting. And this comes to us from North Carolina, where the county commissioner of Madison County, guy named Michael Garrison said How many people are here for public comment? dealing with license plate readers AKA Flock Everybody prettytty much everybody raised their hands And he said, lookook You guys could talk with each other But You' we're going to only let one person speak at the meeting So we're going shut you down which is by the way, not how those meetings are supposed to work. No, not at all. But according to the San Francisco Stard, there this movement is happening You can read Berkeley, the first U. S sanctuary city reconsiders surveillance expansion with Flock. It was published may eleventh, twenty twenty six And in this they describe Between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty six, eighty two flock contracts have been terminated in twenty eight different states over that time. So there is a pushback against this kind of thing and you can you can see it happening So you know, I gu I guess Ben just my only point is there There is some positivity here. I think no matter how much the big pushback is, you know, from people who are trying to stop. The pushback. I think I think it's working at least to some extent. Yeah. like I always say, I think there's, I mean, we have to acknowledge the dark side what I see is the dark side, but we also we can practice at least nihilistic optimism, which is my favorite brand of philosophy, because current legislation is at a crossroads. It's not just grassroots activity, though I think that is tremendous and powerful and must go forward In July of last year, Flock announced that it was restricting access to its national lookup tools, effectively blocking agencies from searching cameras in California, Illinois, and Virginia. And this came about as a direct reaction to this debate about privacy, state sovereigny and the ethical boundaries of Orwellian surveillance. I mean, Tracking there this is why state level folks are so concerned Even champions of Flock will readily admit it has been used in dodgy activities tracking individuals involved in abortion cases in states where abortion is effectively illegal, right? We got to go to one website that I love for this compliance, Great name Cap cites a situation where a Texas officer used the Fock system to search for a woman who self administered an abortion In this search, this officer scanned more than eighty three thousand flock cameras across states Wh? The abortion procedure remains legal today So he was looking for a person who depending upon the laws of the state. didn't commit a crime. And then of course, you know, we mentioned IC has been leveraging local police lookups for immigration enforcement, which means they're targeting people who may or may not be here legally and Most importantly, there are people who probably would not have popped on ISIASs radar without this system in place. This even creeped out some police departments. Police departments are shutting down their network access when they learned that their data was being used by ice It's messy bowl spaghetti, you guys. Did you guys know there's a safe list you can get on Is that like is that like the do not call list? L what talking about kindind of, but it well it's for specific flock safety systems, but I'm assuming if you get in on a safe list on a local level, right? Your local police departments's flock safety system they use freeformm with and Nova and all that stuff If you get in there, I'm assuming it might work for a lot of the other ones where your vehicle will essentially be ignored It's so that Flock doesn't have to keep track of so many different vehicles all the time And the perfect plan for any enterprising criminal would be get on the safety list And now your vehicle is essentially invisible to the license plate readers. Wait, but doesn't that go against the whole concept? Like is this like getting pre check at the TSA? I mean, I don't understand. you don't have to have any qualifications to get on this list like a like a clean You know criminal track record or or you lack lack thereof Let's quest Let's go to the flockxafety. com website. In short, the saafe list allows images captured of your vehicle to be marked as resident This way, if a crime happens in your neighborhood, o, this is just for HOAs, I guess, and your HOA or trusted neighbor needs to look through flock images, they can filter out all known residents in their search This keeps your vehicle out of the search. So its it's limited then is what we're saying If your HOA is in Hiltonhead and they're using flock Your Rolls Royce, I imagine, can be put on the safety list, but your Rolls Royce can still be tracked in Baltimore or Savannah. Oh yeah, dude, yeah, you just you there's a form that you get You enter your street address, license plate, number for your vehicle, you can even register more than one vehicle from the same form Yeah, because you know, o, you might add you vehicles Yeah and you can check, quote, remove my vehicles from footage. I wonder if that actually like takes that out Or if it's still there, they just pretend like it's not there. Or they just don't do any they don't aggregate any more stuff. it would be interesting to get under the hood of their day to day operations and see U, if they have a metric like Cost per individual or cost per car. You know, I'm so sorry guys. I'm just continuing to read on their website. the last quote from here When you register your vehicle on Flox's saf list You footage of your vehicle won't be removed completely unless you check this remove My vehicle from footage box. This will ensure your vehicle will not turn up in any search. Okay, so they're expunging the record kindind of sick. If you if you haven't done anything. And also there's that case where, you know, let's say you enter the safety list, as one of us said earlier, an enterprising criminal They were already looking for you U I wonder this is an interesting question if the local law that's already been searching for you gets an alert that says, Hey, this person tried to enter the safety list and they provided their current home address. Oh safe list Baddies. Yeah, Eactly, right is putting yourself on the list of safe people putting you in a bracket of suspicion. Also, as we said, Fock will tell you, they don't practice facial recognition. I am of the mind that that is very much a voluntary choice and it would be relatively trivial. Given the beautiful way their system is built, it'd be relatively trivial to add that. They also claim that everything's deleted after a certain amount of time, which I think we all are skeptical about, even with as regards like TSA, you know, photos and all Anybody who's had a ring camera system or a home security system may be familiar with the thirty days concept Footage will stick around for thirty days and a lot of these, sometimes you can get up to ninety depending on who you're using A some point it goes away because there's only so much cloud storage, you know for these pretty massive sometometimes four K videos, two k videos Don't some services allow you to specify stuff that you can save for longer? Yeah. on almost Two different ones that I've used and then others that I've seen in use You can download individual videos and you just have them forever But if you don't download them in a certain amount of like a window, again, let's say thirty days, then they would just disappear. They go away And