Full transcript
They say self-inflicted wounds hurt the
most. If that's true, Flock Safety must
be hurting in places they didn't even
know existed after their CEO's
unsolicited, overly aggressive email to
a Virginia police chief cost them yet
another citywide contract just two weeks
ago. Stuntton, Virginia has become the
latest in a rapidly growing list of
cities and counties to terminate their
contracts with Flock Safety. These nine
cities and counties have all terminated
their contracts. So Flock may want to
update their website accordingly. Or
maybe Flock doesn't need to update their
website because according to Eugene,
Oregon police chief Chris Skinner, Flock
turned a camera back on even after the
city ordered Flock to turn them all off.
And Eugene, Oregon wasn't alone.
Something similar happened in Cambridge,
Massachusetts after they canled their
Flock contract. As always, links to all
my sources can be found in the
description. I am Dr. John Padfield, an
engineer, former state legislator, and
business professor, and this is Business
Reform, where business, technology, and
society intersect. In this video, I am
going to discuss the details of why
Stuntton, Virginia Police Chief Jim
Williams decided to cancel Flock's
contract over quote issues with the
ideology of Flock CEO and how you can
leverage his decision to encourage your
elected officials to do the same. Flock
registered with the Georgia Secretary of
State in March 2017. For the first
several years of their existence,
relatively few people had heard of Flock
Safety outside of law enforcement and
the investor class. According to the
Atlanta Community Press Collective,
Flock's initial venture capital came
largely from members of the so-called
PayPal mafia, including Palunteer
co-founder Peter Teal. Quote, "Critics
termed members of this Silicon
Valleybased capital formation the
Broligarchy and have accused them of
ushering in technofascism through a
sweeping crossjurisdictional AI powered
police state. According to
trends.google.com, google.com. Very few
people googled flock safety during their
first 5 years of operation, but searches
have quadrupled over the past 3 years as
some police chiefs have publicly bragged
about how people in their cities can't
drive anywhere without running into
cameras. People became even more
concerned recently when police sergeant
Jaime Miller used flock cameras to
falsely accuse an innocent woman of
theft while bragging, "You know, we have
cameras in that town. You can't get a
breath of fresh air in or out of that
place without us knowing." Correct.
As more people became aware of Flock's
nationwide network of surveillance
cameras, they became increasingly
concerned about the loss of privacy and
the rapid erosion of our Fourth
Amendment rights. And please don't let
the name flock safety fool you. There is
a reason I have always called them flock
surveillance. That is because Garrett
Langley's company holds a 2022 patent
for a quote dynamic surveillance
network. Notice it is not a dynamic
safety network. It is a dynamic
surveillance network. There was no
public debate about whether Americans
wanted more than 80,000 AI powered
surveillance cameras watching and
recording everywhere they go. As of
September 2025, Garrett Langley had
grown his privately held company into a
7.5 billion dollar business, thanks in
large part to contracts paid for with
our tax dollars before most Americans
had ever heard of flock safety. The more
the American public learned about Flock
surveillance network, the more upset
they became at the idea of being tracked
everywhere they went. In the 2018 case
of Carpenter v. United States, the
Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement
must have a warrant to track your
location using cell phone data, even
when you are moving around in public and
even when the data regarding your
location is held by a private company.
But that didn't stop Flock from selling
their surveillance network, which allows
law enforcement to bypass the Fourth
Amendment. I am one of several privacy
advocates who have created and posted
well-ressearched videos expressing
concern over how Flock is turning
America into a surveillance state.
Another privacy advocate took a
different approach to increase public
awareness of Flock's AI powered
surveillance cameras. In November 2024,
404 Media ran a story on a brand new
website launched by Will Freeman called
Deflock.me.
Deflock.me MI is an educational website
that has mapped the locations of over
70,000 automated license plate readers
around the world, but the majority of
them are in the United States. These are
all the known license plate cameras
around central Indiana. And as you
continue to zoom in, you realize, as
police sergeant Jamie Millerman so
eloquently put it, "You can't get a
breath of fresh air without us knowing."
deflock.me me describes what they do as
educating people about what license
plate readers are, how they work, and
why people should care. They also report
and track where these surveillance
cameras are located. And they quote,
"Encourage communities to stand up
against the unchecked spread of these
surveillance systems by pushing for
greater accountability and stronger
privacy protections." What does Flock
CEO Garrett Langley think about Deflock
me? After having his lawyer send DOC a
threatening cease and desist letter,
Langley said in an interview with a
senior writer at Forbes,
"And then unfortunately there's
terroristic organizations like Dlock
whose primary motivation is chaos. They
are closer to Antifa than they are
anything else. There's terroristic
organizations like Dlock. I'm not sure
Dlock would agree with the terroristic
uh [laughter]
label."
I am good friends with the person who
wrote the Dlock. me smartphone app,
which does not collect any of your data.
If you ever met him in person, you would
immediately realize just how wrong
Garrett Langley was in his statement.
Garrett Langley owes everyone involved
with Deflock an apology for his
outrageous, inflammatory, and in my
opinion, defamatory accusation against
Dlock. But in a way, I'm thankful for
Langley's arrogant, unhinged
demonization of everyone opposed to his
surveillance network because that
attitude is exactly what led Stuntton's
police chief, Jim Williams, to cancel
Flock's contract. Allow me to explain.
Police Chief Williams posted his email
exchange with Langley on the city's
website, and I have included a link to a
PDF of that email exchange in the
description of this video. What I am
about to show you was only edited for
conciseness. On December 8th, 2025,
Garrett Langley wrote, "Hi, VA Stuntton
PD team. I'm writing to you directly
because I want there to be zero
confusion about what's happening. Flock
has never been hacked ever. Flock is
building tools to help you fight the
real crime affecting communities across
the country. Many activists don't like
that. Let's call this what it is. Flock
and the law enforcement agencies we
partner with are under coordinated
attack. The attacks aren't new. You've
been dealing with them forever. And
we've been dealing with them since our
founding from the same activist groups
that want to defund the police, weaken
public safety, and normalize
lawlessness. Now they're producing
YouTube videos with misleading
headlines. They're also trying to turn a
public records process into a weapon
against you and against us, Garrett. As
I mentioned previously, I have made
several videos expressing my concerns
about what I see as Fourth Amendment
violations from Flock's patented dynamic
surveillance network. One of my videos
explicitly encouraged viewers to use
their state's public records laws to
obtain copies of their local law
enforcement contracts with Flock and
copies of departmental policy and
procedure manuals. And I will link that
video at the end of this video. I stand
by every word I said in that video. In
that video, I asked viewers to forward
those materials to me so I could use
that information in an amicus brief I
plan to file when the Institute for
Justice's lawsuit against the city of
Norfolk over their 170 plus flock
cameras goes up on appeal. I have never
once called for defunding the police. I
am a former Indiana State Representative
and I was proud to be endorsed by the
Indiana Fraternal Order of Police Pack
when I successfully ran for reelection
in 1996.
I was also happy to provide my expertise
and technical assistance to the Marian
County Sheriff's Office in 2014 when an
IT problem resulted in a series of
accidental releases of jail inmates. I
helped Sheriff John Leighton fix that
problem, then went on to lead two more
projects for the Marian County Sheriff's
Office. To put it bluntly, Langley's
habit of demonizing his critics as being
anti-law enforcement is not going to
work on me because I have decades of
evidence to the contrary. So, what
YouTubers were Langley talking about who
want to defund the police, weaken public
safety, and normalize lawlessness? Was
Langley talking about attorney Jeff
Hampton or attorney Steve Lato or
attorney John Bryan or attorney Andrew
Fluchet or the attorneys at the
Institute for Justice? I've never once
heard Lewis Rossman, Naomi Brockwell, or
Johnny B advocate for defunding the
police. Does Langley really believe all
YouTubers opposed to AI powered
surveillance are wanting to normalize
lawlessness? And speaking of normalizing
lawlessness, the phrase confession
through projection keeps coming to my
mind. I have never read a single story
about deflock.mme breaking a single law
anywhere. But I do remember reading
about a license plate surveillance
startup that broke the law in multiple
states. If I recall correctly, that
company got in trouble in Florida for
setting up nearly 100 cameras without
permits and was caught operating
illegally in Texas. And it was ordered
by a judge to stop putting up cameras in
North Carolina. And it violated Illinois
law by sharing license plate data with a
federal agency. I am the Homelander
and I really can do whatever the I want.
According to Forbes, local officials in
multiple states said that Flock had
violated state laws designed to
guarantee driver safety. So, who is
really weakening public safety and
normalizing lawlessness?
Confession through projection. Getting
back to the emails, on December 12th,
Stuntton Police Chief Williams wrote
back to Langley, and I have only edited
his reply for conciseness. Mr. Langley,
thank you for the information regarding
the security of Flock ALPR systems. As
far as your assertion that we are
currently under attack, I do not believe
that is so. What we are seeing here is a
group of local citizens who are raising
concerns that we could be potentially
surveilling private citizens, residents,
and visitors, and using data for
nefarious purposes. These citizens have
been exercising their rights to receive
answers from me, my staff, and city
officials to include our elected
leaders. In short, it is democracy in
action. Police Chief Williams is quote a
proponent of communityoriented policing
and believes in order to be effective
the police and the community must work
together to effectively reduce crime and
improve overall quality of life. I could
not agree with him more. I am not
anti-law enforcement. I am just
anti-damic surveillance networks that
prevent people from getting a breath of
fresh air without the police knowing.
According to a December 19 article in
the Augusta Free Press, quote, "While a
growing number of local residents have
been vocal at the city council meetings
about their opposition to the cameras,
it was the email from the Flock Safety
CEO that appears to have been the final
straw in the city's decision about the
future of ALPR technology." The
unsolicited email sent on Monday,
December 8th, to Stuntton Police Chief
Jim Williams said that Flock and the law
enforcement agencies they partner with
are undercoordinated attack. The email
from CEO Garrett Langley was likely
intended to give police departments
ammunition to fight back against some of
the persistent arguments of opponents of
the ALPR technology related to
hackability, sharing data, security, and
more. However, Stuntton didn't like the
picture Langley painted of those who
oppose the technology. As one of the
YouTubers Langley attempted to demonize
and label as anti-law enforcement, I
want to personally and sincerely thank
police chief Williams and the Stuntton
City Council for respecting and
defending free speech and civil debate
on important and controversial issues.
In Langley's response to Chief Williams
email just 3 minutes after Chief
Williams sent it, Langley complained
about how it is tough every day waking
up to stories online that are misleading
and only represent one side of the
story. Excuse me while I wipe away a
tear for his tough life. Langley owns a
nationwide surveillance network with an
estimated value of 7.5 billion.
that makes him a part of the
surveillance state broligarchy along
with Oracle chairman Larry Ellison and
Palunteer co-founders Alexander Karp and
Peter Teal. Larry Ellison who was
briefly the richest man in the world
earlier this year said quote we're going
to have supervision. Citizens will be on
their best behavior because we are
constantly recording and reporting
everything that is going on. Ellison
went on to say, quote, "Artific
artificial intelligence will help
process the vast amounts of footage
recorded by cameras placed on everything
from car dashboards and front doors to
security systems and cops." And I think
that photo demonstrates he has friends
in high places who can help him
implement his Orwellian nightmare. What
is Flock's role in all of this? Ellison
said AI will help process the vast
amounts of footage recorded by all types
of cameras, including front door
cameras. Flock just entered into a
partnership with Amazon to gain access
to video from millions of Ring doorbells
across the country. Flock Nova is
Flock's AI surveillance system that uses
the tagline, "Search once, see
everything." Everything now includes
tracking you with facial recognition to
every house you enter. so Flock can
build a database of your known
associates. I will have a lot more to
say about Flock Nova in an upcoming
video. A few weeks ago, Ben Jordan
posted this video in which he claims to
have hacked 80,000 plus Flock cameras.
And in all fairness to Garrett Langley,
Ben is probably one of the YouTubers
Langley was demonizing in his email to
Police Chief Williams. I am a former
electrical engineer, but I am not and
never have been a hacker. I am not an
expert in the shades of gray between
network penetration testing and hacking.
However, in these two videos, Ben
demonstrated to my satisfaction that he
was able to gain access to multiple
flock cameras and watch a live stream of
children playing on a playground. Ben
referred to flock cameras as Netflix for
stalkers because anyone who knew where
to look could watch children on a
playground or watch women running by
themselves on a trail through a park.
On December 3rd, I recorded an interview
with Josh Michael, who was one of the
security professionals who worked with
Ben on his first Flock video. Josh
remained anonymous during Ben's video,
but he gave me permission to share his
face and his name in our interview.
The reason I have not posted that video
yet is because I wanted to talk to legal
counsel before doing so. Josh shared a
lot of information with me, including
numerous screenshots he took related to
Flock Nova while he was inside of Flock
servers. I did not want to get Josh in
legal trouble for sharing anything that
he found during what some people might
have called a hack. But Langley himself
put my mind at ease. My interview with
Josh was on December 3rd, and 5 days
later on December 8th, Langley
explicitly stated, quote, "Flock has
never been hacked. Period. ever. Period.
That means nothing Josh shared with me
could possibly be the result of a hack
because no hack had occurred as of the
time of our interview. So look for that
video going into detail on what Flock
Nova can do in the very near future. I'm
sure Ellison Karp Teal and Langley all
have the very best of intentions.
Unfortunately, as the old saying goes,
the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. What can you do to help stop
Ellison, Karp, Teal, and Langley from
fully implementing their dystopian
surveillance state? Start by downloading
and using the Deflock Me app to report
and avoid surveillance cameras with
their updated feature that will route
you around all known license plate
readers. Then go to the description of
this video and download the articles
about the city's cancelling contracts
with Flock. Be sure to download the
email exchange between Langley and Chief
Williams. Then share all those articles
as well as links to this video and Ben
Jordan's videos with your city council,
county council, mayor, police chief,
sheriff, and state legislators.
Most, but not all of them will likely
ignore you. Don't worry about them. Keep
doing your part by sharing the
information and letting your elected
officials know you don't want every
camera in the country connected to an AI
to quote supervise us. You can also get
your elected officials to knock over the
next domino. And every domino that falls
makes it easier for the next one to
fall. I feel a tipping point coming in
2026. And I am sure Garrett Langley
feels it too. That is why he is
attempting to demonize people like me
and other privacy advocates on YouTube
with outrageous claims about us wanting
to defund police and quote normalize
lawlessness.
These are some of my upcoming videos.
So, if they are of interest to you,
please subscribe and turn on
notifications so you don't miss them
when they are released. My 2026
Brushfires of Freedom tour kicks off on
Friday, January 2nd, at Burnsy's Bar and
Grill, just a few miles west of
Milwaukee. So, if you live in the area,
I hope to see you there. I know it is
discouraging when you think about all
the money companies like Palunteer,
Flock, Oracle, and literally hundreds of
others are making tracking our
movements, recording what we watch on
smart TVs, monitoring our internet
browsing, what we purchase, who we call,
who we text, etc. But I am not giving
up, and I don't want you to give up
either. The surveillance state can be
stopped if enough of us say no and we're
willing to peacefully and legally push
back on all the overreaches.
I can't wait to read your comments.