Full transcript
After 10 months, a cease and desist
letter and one email claiming activists
want to normalize lawlessness, the CEO
of Flock Safety says he is sorry.
[laughter]
D Flock is an open source tool that
allows volunteers to mark the location
of Flock cameras on a map. Garrett
Langley called it a terroristic
organization in a Forbes interview last
September. On July 17th, he told the
same magazine that was a mistake. But
we're not buying it, and we definitely
don't accept it.
During that 10-month period, Flock sent
D Flock a cease and desist letter over
its name. Will Freeman, the guy who runs
D Flock, refused publicly, and the EFF
took his side.
[music]
Flock also went after Have I Been
Flocked, a site that lets you check
whether your own car is been tracked,
arguing it puts officers at risk,
despite the site getting its data
directly from police departments' own
audit logs, which do not redact the
plate numbers.
[music]
And then in December, Langley emailed
the company's police customers, and the
ACLU got hold of it. He told departments
they were under a coordinated attack
from activist groups who, in his own
words, want to normalize lawlessness. He
said those groups were turning the
public records process into a weapon.
Public records are exactly how you find
out what a surveillance system bought
with your money is actually doing.
Calling that a weapon tells you exactly
how this company sees you. Not everyone
went along with it. Staunton, Virginia's
police chief released the email and
wrote back that what he was seeing was
residents asking their elected officials
questions. He called it democracy in
action. The ACLU called Flock's whole
posture simplistic, juvenile, and
ultimately authoritarian.
Almost every week we cover stories of
cities moving to get Flock Safety out of
their community. Every [music] day,
anti-Flock posts are trending on social
media. People are getting involved with
their local D Flock groups more than
ever before. And now, suddenly, Garrett
Langley decides to apologize. That's
just damage control, and we see right
through it. Flock is hurting. They
underestimated how many of us will push
back against the surveillance state, and
now they're panicking. It's time to turn
up the heat even more. D Flock is
hosting a national week of action
against ALPRs from August [music] 16th
to 22nd. You can learn more about it at
noalprs.com.
We're hosting a huge live stream panel
of DeFLOC activists the day before on
August 15th at 4:00 p.m. Eastern on
YouTube and we'll be discussing how to
get involved and get Flock out of your
city, then state, and eventually this
country. Garrett Langley, we reject your
fake apology and we will leave you with
this.
Flock around and find out.