# Flock Camera CEO Says Critics 'TERRORISTS'
# Breaking Points — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDV0c-Asd8w

So, the mass spread of flock cameras
across the country has increasingly
become an issue of deep concern to
Americans. There's one organization that
has sprung up called DFlock, which you
can go to their website and you can see
a map of where all the flock cameras are
located. Um, they are doing sort of
standard first amendment advocacy
against the spread of this surveillance
technology. The Flock CEO was asked
about this group and he labeled them as
a terrorist organization. Let's take a
listen.
You've got organizations like the ACLU
and the EFF who take an above board
approach to fight for their point of
view. And thankfully we live in a
beautifully democratic capitalistic
country where we can fight in court. And
I have a lot of respect for those groups
because they have reasonable debates and
we we follow the law. And then
unfortunately there's terroristic
organizations like DOC whose primary
motivation is chaos. They are closer to
Antifa than they are anything else. And
that I think is unfortunate because we
don't want chaos or I don't want chaos.
I like law and order. I like a society
that has a bedrock of safety. So for
those groups, I think it's just
disappointing that they haven't chosen a
more constructive mannerism to try to
get what they want, which they have a
right to have, but that's why we have a
democratically elected process, right?
Like I I we're not forcing flock on
anyone. Elected officials know that as a
as a community, you want to be safe.
I mean, this is complete insanity
sagger. But it also fits into the
rhetorical and legal framework that the
Trump admin has set up. It's not an
accident that he names Antifa here
because they've used NSPM7 and other
tools to try to go after these left-wing
groups that they label as terrorists.
And so he adopts that language to try
to, you know, put DLOC in the same
category as these other groups that have
been identified by the Trump
administration as terrorists. But
literally, you can go to their website,
the the tagline says, "Welcome to DFO
and open source project mapping license
plate readers." It's like that's just a
basic service and advocacy group that
is, you know, being pro provided to the
public so that they can push back on
what's happening in their communities
where they've had very little say.
Yeah. I think this is absolutely insane
and it's pretty obvious that this CEO,
first of all, DLOC is a nonprofit
organization. So, if you're going to say
that it's, you know, terroristic or
whatever, frankly, they should be able
to sue uh if they [laughter] want to uh
because, you know, you can't just
genuinely. I mean like that's an actual
term which has meaning. Uh it's a
nonprofit organization which is open
source which allows people just to flag
where flock cameras actually are. By
that definition ways is a terrorist
organization because it lets you flag
where police officers are whenever
they're trying to speed trap you. So
let's start with that. The second thing,
and I, you know, I said this, I got such
an angry message uh from a right-wing
friend of mine where I said, "I
genuinely would trust a place like China
or Singapore to surveil me ma in to
amass a veil melock."
And I'm I'm about to show you why is
because it is a for-profit company with
very sketchy ability to actually hold to
account and is, by the way, not wholly
bought in by our democratic system. also
with a profit motive. Okay, so you put
those three things together and oh lo
and behold, you have problems that
befall all American institutions. Let's
go and put this next one up here on a
screen. In one California town, Flock
misread license plates in 71% of the
alerts that it sent to police. Summer of
2024, a police called a man to discuss a
persistent problem with his license
plate. The city's AI powered license
plate reader made up by Flock had
repeatedly misread the plate. six times
they had sent alerts to the Roseville
Police Department identifying the
vehicle as stolen or used in a felony
crime. Police could see that the flock
software kept confusing nine for an
eight. The car owner said he would take
off his license plate cover and soon
after it happened again. So, this guy is
getting harassed by the police because
the AI license plate reader is not, you
know, is not reading his plate
correctly. Now again, if you're going to
pay this company all this money, you're
going to mount all these cameras in
public and make it so that we're
basically eroding all public privacy,
you would at the very least say, could
it work? And yet, in this case, it's not
working. Oh, second one is that we also
know about institutional uh mis misuse
and abuse. This also happened many times
with the NSA with their warrantless
spying program. Let's put this one up
here on the screen. how raw rogue
officers turned a nationwide camera
network into a tool for stalking. So,
for example, they interview a woman,
Marcy Bakeley. She couldn't understand
how her ex-boyfriend always seemed to
know where she was. When she went to buy
groceries, he would text her about it,
sometimes within minutes, despite he was
working 15 miles from her home as police
chief in a small town in Atlanta. One
day in 2024, when he incorrectly
suspected that she'd gone to see a man
against his witches, he messaged her, "I
didn't think you would slip up." She
began to feel like she was constantly
being watched. She installed cameras
around her home and on her patio to see
if he was stalking her. She bought a
hidden camera detective detector. Three
times in desperation, she drove her car
to a mechanic shop. Then one day, she
pressed him for answers and he said he
was using his flock access as a police
officer. quote, "Like thousands of other
law enforcement agencies, his police
cars can his police force can follow
cars spotted by Flock's sprawling uh
network of AI roadside cameras which
record passing license plate into a
mappable database that officers can then
search while investigating a crime.
However, they then note that it's
obviously rife and a bit for abuse."
Now, to be clear, he was arrested on
charges of stalking, harassment, and
license plate misreader abuse. But as
you can see very clearly is that there
are no actual checks within the system
from stopping these small town sheriffs
or any of these other places with very
little uh accountability to be able to
use it for whatever ends that they want.
Uh, and I'm not, you know, against the
police or any of that, but I do think
it's very, very clear that if we're
going to have a system like this and
then spread it very oddly with no real
like federal government oversight,
keep it to, you know, contracts with
localities and with states. That is
clearly to the advantage of Flock the CE
Flock the company which is way
[clears throat] less accountable as I
said to some nationally organized system
with at the very least we could have
some ability to have democratic checks
on this ability. And it also just gets
to the point of these cameras went up.
We have no say about it at all. We're
all just okay. They're here. Better deal
with it.
And think about how terrifying this was
for this woman. Go. He had looked up her
tags and those of her teenage daughter
more than 600 times. More than 600
times. Um, by the way, you can go to
have I been flocked and they and do a
search um that aggregates police search
logs to see if your license plate has
been searched. So, at least that public
tool is available to you. And I think
it's no accident that the CEO of Flock
finds this sort of, you know, open
access information to be such a threat
to their business model because you do
start to see the public, the more the
they become aware of this, the more
horrified they are by it and the more
sort of organic push back there is to
it. But lest you think that this was a
one-off case with this, you know, one
bad apple who was using the technology,
misusing the technology to to stalk his
ex and her teenage daughter, authorities
have charged her, accused at least 50
law enforcement officers of using this
for unauthorized purposes. You had one
dude who was uh tracking an ex to see if
she was going to an abortion clinic. You
had all kinds of stalking to see if they
were with a a new man or stalking the
new man to see what he was up to.
Threats, abuse, horrifying, horrifying
stuff that is going on with this. And to
your point, there's really no laws
around it. And you think the police
departments are going to just on their
own make sure that there's um you know
limited use of this technology? No. They
want a free hand to be able to do
whatever they want with it. Um so that
they can deploy it in the the ways that
they, you know, think are going to be
useful and easy for them. It really is
sort of like crack cocaine to these
police departments cuz even that one in
California where they found the license
plates were being read misread 71% of
the time. You might look at that and go,
"This seems like it might be more
trouble than it's worth. Maybe they'll
just get rid of it." They're not getting
rid of it because in the certain cases
they find it useful. And so once this
technology becomes embedded, even when
it performs extremely poorly, even when
it causes all sorts of civil rights
violations and privacy violations, it is
very difficult to dislodge because the
police departments like it. They enjoy
it. And just one other um piece here in
terms of, you know, all right, so what's
the big deal? If they misidentify the
license plate, who really, you know, who
really cares? Okay, it's kind of awkward
for the police departments, etc. Maybe
there's misuse, an expenditure of
resources that they wouldn't need. Put
D4 up on the screen. Just think about
what this would look like for you and
your family. So, this is a guy who test
drives vehicles. Like, that's his job.
He like test drives vehicles and then he
writes up reviews of them for this
website called The Drive. Well, because
of a uh sort of technical glitch and
error in the way that they were tracking
these test drive vehicles, the vehicle
that he was test driving, this very
expensive one, uh was flagged as having
been stolen. So, police in this town
tracked him and his family for days.
They had all this video recording of
him, you know, going about his life,
going to the grocery store, etc. He and
his wife pull into a Kohl's parking lot.
multiple police vehicles like race up,
surround them, pin them in. He's
freaking out. He's like, "What is going
on here?" And, you know, responds in a
way that sort of deescalates the
situation. For fortunately, these cops
listen to him and believed what he had
to say. One of them luckily was actually
familiar with the drive and was like,
"Okay, this is legit." Because you can
imagine this sounds like Like,
"No, no, I just test drive these cars
for a living, these expensive cars for a
living." You could see how that would
sound like and they told him,
"Hey, you're lucky that this happened
here because if it happened in the city,
they would have come at you guns drawn."
Like, that's what we're talking about
here. This is complete insanity. And um
to the point about the uh you know, the
rising political consciousness and why
some of this disinformation being
accessible to the public is creating a
real problem for them, you can see some
response on both the right and the left
as politicians try to position
themselves as caring about these issues
in local communities. Um Byron Donald
down in Florida, we can put D5 up on the
screen. He is sounding the alarm about
flock surveillance cameras. He's saying
that they're impinging on constitutional
rights. He's calling for a full pause.
And um I took note of this. Franchesca
Hong, who I think, you know, we talked
earlier about the the whole cancel
Thanksgiving uh situation. And there's a
lot to say about that in terms of why
she's leading in the Democratic primary
and certainly has a shot in the general
election is because of the range of
issues that she has really chosen to
focus on. Among them, data centers and
she gives a mention to flot cameras in
this um new ad that she just put out.
Let's take a listen to that.
I'm here at the failed Foxcon
manufacturing site. This is now a
Microsoft AI data center [music] plant.
Just like in 2018 with Foxcon,
Republicans will sell out our
communities again.
I think we can say this is we can say
this is the eighth wonder of the world.
Flock cameras, poison groundwater,
[music] and eyes that don't create
future good jobs. $2 billion in tax
breaks [music] that you and I will be
paying for. I'm the only candidate in
this race to call for a moratorum on the
construction of new AI data centers. We
can't afford to be Foxconed [music]
again. The people deserve a say.
So there you see the mention of flot
cameras being pulled into this broader
issue said around you know pushing back
on data centers tapping into the whole
Foxcon situation in Wisconsin as well.
But I took note of she was the first
Democratic candidate that I'd seen put
this in um you know any of the ads. And
so you ask yourself, why has she quickly
skyrocketed to the top of the Democratic
primary um leaderboard and you know is
basically fed comply that she's going to
be the Democratic nominee against some
very prominent establishmentbacked
candidates that she was up against and I
think it's because she really has had
her finger on the pulse of some of these
bubbling issues that are really also
cross ideological
right and that's that's why we show the
Byron Donald's thing. I mean very likely
to be the next governor of Florida. uh
he is saying that you need a full pause.
We've had a number actually of GOP
representatives very recently who have
been talking about flock. I mean it's
very obvious because at the at at the
high level like I said there's no
federal regulation on AI license plate
readers. It's all state and local. The
company is getting fantastically rich.
These have come across the entire
nation. You can just go to Dlock and
actually look at the map of where they
all are. very likely it's already in
your community or you drive one uh at
least unwittingly you have at at a
minimum in the last few months and you
have no say uh in this whole like have I
had been flocked that's only uh because
a foyer information that you're able to
see but there's no actual regulatory
body on whether this is okay that we're
outsourcing all this info completely to
a private company which is now saying
that if you track where they are that
you're somehow a terrorist so I think
that the political dynamics around this
are very important Anybody should be
deeply concerned about this ability of a
private company to just come in partner
with the localities of which there's
very little insight, regulation or even
knowledge of the community itself. They
come up everywhere and then you know the
justification is is vital in helping
solve crime. And I think that's probably
true. Uh but there's also a significant
downside we're seeing already with the
abuse with the misread. There needs to
be the ability for the public to have
some sort of say to keep things actually
accountable. And it's become I mean I've
seen this spread like wildfire in terms
of people who are upset about this you
know general feeling not just with data
centers uh but with the cameras it being
mass surveiled all the time. Imagine co
if this type of technology had been as
widespread at that time. They're like oh
you you got a ticket you left your house
during lockdown uh like this. I it's so
so easy. I mean to think think about
what you know the state of California
would have done in the middle of a
lockdown if they had this type of
technology and how they easily could
have made it and integrated it into
their enforcement regime. If you're
worried about immigration yeah well oh
you're an activist and you happen to be
uh in the area here you go here's a
ticket you know beds are coming to your
door. Uh and frankly I think that's
already happening. I was just reading a
Wall Street Journal piece as of this
morning but this is what enables it.
This is the reason and this is exactly
why I think most people at the very
least should demand a hell of a lot more
regulation and safeguard as opposed to
just allowing private companies, states
and locality just put these things up
wherever we live basically with no real
notice I think to all of us. And so
yeah,
well and Sager, you're you're making an
important po point here, which is while
it may help serve c solve certain types
of crimes, it's also opening up an
entirely new vector of potential
criminality, as you can see with all of
this stalking and harassment that is
going on here. So yeah, I mean, in kind
of a similar way with the immigration
crackdown where on the one hand you
could say, oh, this is law and order. On
the other hand, you saw all the chaos it
created and all the criminal behavior
from the ICE agents in the street which
just went completely unpunished. Um, you
can see a similar nexus here where yes,
on the one hand, it may make it easier
to track some of the bad guys. On the
other hand, it enables a whole other
series of bad guys to do things that are
really horrifying and and terrifying and
infringe on our liberties. There's
always a balance in a society between,
you know, this sort of like
authoritarianism, but, you know, maybe
the crimes get solved versus people
having some liberty that has to be
struck. And I think most Americans are
saying this goes way too far in the
direction of just a complete a total
surveillance state.
Yeah. Because it's it comes down to
enforcement, you know, it it comes down
to and and you could you could tune it
in multiple different directions. Uh, if
you are in Seattle, people are literally
smoking crack on the bus. But if you
speed, you're going to get a ticket.
That's insane. That is a complete
insane. Now, let me do the other way.
So, I just talked about the lowest
common denominator, lowest common
denominator of society, a literal
crackhead or a fentinel head. Well,
let's switch it. If you are one of these
people who Trump just pardoned for a
multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme, right,
and you get out of prison, but I run a
red light and I get $25 ticket. That's
too. So, that's what it comes
out. There's no consistent enforcement.
It comes down to run-of-the-mill actual
everyday citizen is is dy screwed. Uh,
and there's this type of system where
you have a lot of compassion. You know,
here you got a federal government on the
side of the ultra rich. Uh, but if
you're just a normal everyday guy and
you're just, you know, you're not a
fentanyl addict, you're not an
ultra-chaire, uh, you're the person who
actually who's has the most consistent
law enforcement directed at you. And I
think that's what uh is wrong with our
country. So anyway, some free uh some
free law and order discourse there for
some of the uh candidates that are out
there. All right, let's get to Japan.
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