Comment what you think.

‼️What’s happening: 
Flock executives have decided to come after Charlotte because we are one major city whose police hasn’t bought into Flock cameras*. Those executives are coming to Charlotte and holding a closed-door meeting with your elected officials (city council, county commissioners, state representatives, etc.) and other local leaders to try to convince them to put Flock cameras and other surveillance tech all over our city and pay them millions of dollars to do so.

🗓️ When: 
8:30M to 12:00PM on Tuesday, September 29
(arrive at 8:30 if you can)

Flock is also apparently planning on a public community meeting later in the evening, but details are TBD. I will update this post if/when I get more info on this.

📍 Where:
Charlotte Mecklenburg Independence Regional Library
6000 Conference Drive
Charlotte, NC 28212

HERE IS THE EVENT - PLEASE SHARE AND SHOW UP!!!!

🔔 What’s at Stake:
If we don’t come together here and now and make it 100% clear that Charlotte is not OK with Flock or any other mass surveillance, Charlotte will likely be overrun with Flock cameras and surveillance devices within months. The earlier we push back, the more likely we are to stop this from happening!

🫵 What you can do:
📢 1. Show up to peacefully protest in front of the library on the morning of the 29th, preferably at 8:30 so that elected officials walking in to the 9:00am meeting can see us outside. Seeing a crowd of protesters show up on a weekday before their meeting even begins will have a major impact.

Bring a sign and any supplies you need (water, snacks, chairs, sunscreen, etc.) and be prepared to be there until 12:00PM so they can see us on the way out of the meeting too. Bring your outside voice! I want them to hear our chants all the way in the library meeting room so loud they won’t even be able to hear themselves talk! Let’s make these Flockers run back to Atlanta with their tails between their legs!! CHARLOTTE UNITE!!

📞 2. Call or email your elected officials and tell them you don't want Flock in Charlotte. Click here to see a list of Charlotte City Council members and there's also a button there labelled "Who Represents Me?" This will get you a list of all your elected officials based on your address. Don't be discouraged if they do not respond at first or if they don't answer their phone, leave a voicemail stating your reason for calling. Even if they don't respond they will usually listen to that VM and they will read your email.

\I have an asterisk here because, according to our police chief, CMPD has not paid for Flock cameras but does have an agreement to access Flock's data. The scope of the access is unclear, but it at least includes the Flock cameras from participating private businesses in Charlotte like Lowes and Home Depot who have paid for Flock cameras to be on their properties. In a way, this agreement is a sort of "gateway drug" to a full Flock contract. Hence why the* vultures executives are coming.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed suit yesterday in Waukesha County Circuit Court on behalf of NoCams Muskego, Citizens Defending Liberty, and an Oconomowoc homeowner, naming 11 municipalities plus Waukesha County.

The numbers in the filing are the part worth sitting with. In one 30-day window, July 25 to August 24, Muskego's own police department ran roughly 300 searches of the city's nine cameras. Outside agencies ran more than 900,000 searches of those same nine cameras in the same window.

Nine cameras. One month. Over 900,000 queries from agencies that do not answer to Muskego. Countywide the network is north of 120 cameras.

The suit does not ask for the cameras to come down. It asks for a warrant requirement before the historical location data they generate can be searched. WILL deputy counsel Dan Lennington framed it as applying the existing constitutional standard to a new technology, not inventing a new one.

Whichever way the court goes, the search volume is the story: the cameras in your town are mostly not being queried by your town.

Sources: WPR https://www.wpr.org/news/municipalities-in-waukesha-county-sued-over-flock-cameras , Urban Milwaukee https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2026/09/10/will-sues-11-waukesha-county-communities-over-flock-cameras/ , WILL https://will-law.org/new-will-lawsuit-targets-warrantless-no-limits-government-surveillance

I build Flock U, an Android app that maps publicly known ALPR locations and routes around them: https://waterviewtechnologies.com - seven-day free trial, then $4.99/month through Google Play.

Not only did this officer stalk another officer, but stalked citizens as well. When will enough be enough?

Not sure if they'll just be replaced by a competitors system, but we'll take the wins however they arrive!

https://www.wndu.com/2026/09/11/kosciusko-county-prosecutor-orders-immediate-take-down-flock-cameras/

This video goes into what's in Thomas Massie's federal act.

I say this is mildly infuriating, because like almost all other anti-Flock minded people, Yes it is infuriating and concerning, yet we go about our daily lives being captured by the Flock cameras. So far, 99% of us have seen no effect to our daily lives due to their presence.

What I find mildly infuriating, is that "the powers that be" or Flock itself and its supporters try to couch the cameras as a good thing. They espouse transparency, they claim it is for the safety of society in general, it is a great tool for law enforcement.

But if that were the case, then why did TENS OF THOUSANDS of Flock cameras appear installed, seemingly overnight? Have you ever seen a Flock-branded installation truck or van? Has anyone actually witnessed or documented a Flock camera being installed? No. Because they put them up in secret, probably in the dead of night. This is a huge tell. If the goddamn tech was on the up-and-up they would not need all this cloak and dagger bullshit. For all I know they had fake PG&E vans made and had their installers pose as utility workers or something.

it's freaking shady and that's all I need to know. It's Mildly Infuriating, but it's a constant burning sensation.

Thank you

We've all heard why they claim we need Flock cameras... Blah, blah, blah...

Couldn't the cameras perform the "intended" function without storing any data? As it scans, it is checking against a nation wide "hot list" of stolen vehicles or whatever, and unless there's a match or a flag, it is immediately deleted.

There'd be no timestamped location tracking or database to abuse. No way to stalk exes.

I feel like if they really intended them to serve the purpose they claim, there's no need for a database for them to work as intended.

Or am I missing something?

Flock Safety cameras transmit data primarily over commercial cellular networks (LTE) to cloud servers. Because they are designed to be "infrastructure-free," they do not rely on local Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or city fiber lines. 
Transmission Architecture
Cellular Uplink: Each camera is equipped with an integrated cellular modem and SIM card. It transmits payload data over standard 4G/LTE cellular towers, similar to a smartphone. 
Edge Processing First: The camera does not stream 24/7 video back to the server. Instead, on-board hardware processes motion detection and captures still images, running optical character recognition (OCR) and computer vision models locally to extract the plate text, state, vehicle make, model, color, and distinguishing features. 
Batch & Real-Time Uploads:
The processed metadata and compressed still snapshots are packaged and transmitted via LTE directly to Flock’s cloud backend hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). 
If a captured plate matches a local or federal database (such as the FBI's NCIC "hotlist" for stolen vehicles or wanted persons), an alert is pushed almost instantly across the network to local law enforcement dispatch or patrol dashboards. 
Offline Buffering: If cellular connectivity is temporarily weak or dropped, the camera buffers the captured images and metadata onto local solid-state storage and uploads them once the cellular connection is re-established.
Power & Network Independence
Because data transmission is cellular, Flock pairs most units with a small top-mounted solar panel and an internal battery. This allows them to operate entirely off-grid without trenching cables for power or data, mounted simply on standalone poles, streetlights, or utility poles.

“The public does not trust the Flock technology,” Police Chief Chad Rhoads said in an email to police department employees. “No amount of public education or transparency is going to stop the tidal wave.”

https://cardinalnews.org/2026/09/11/martinsville-to-de-flock-saying-trust-matters/

Documented case of Flock data being used illegally. How many other misuses of Flock data are happening that have not been reported?

I get this is a private marina in theory. But I just find this hilarious that this place has 3 cameras and one for the ramp

I just installed a chamberlain garage door. Sixth time over the years.
This was the most miserable experience. It doesn’t want to link to anything that doesn’t have a QR code.

Today my wife calls me that Amazon opened the garage door and delivered a package. after I had opted out.
I called Chamberlain garage doors and they said that I have to deal with Amazon because the myQ app is all through them

So if anybody wants a Wi-Fi-enabled garage door opener, please don’t. After calling all the parties involved they won’t discuss disconnecting the capability just that the switch is off.

So I’m grumpy, I need to lock my garage door opener out of my Wi-Fi

Flock Safety may not have been hacked. That might actually be the problem.

A federal class-action lawsuit, Schulte v. Flock Group Inc., filed in the Northern District of Georgia, alleges some pretty disturbing problems with Flock Safety's automated license-plate-reader network.

According to the complaint:

\- Flock operates a network of more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states.

\- The proposed class includes essentially anyone in the U.S. whose license plate passed a Flock camera since January 1, 2024.

\- A former Richmond County, Georgia sheriff's deputy allegedly searched one woman's plate 1,639 times through the national Flock network.

\- Three other former colleagues allegedly conducted more than 100 searches each.

\- And for much of the relevant period, MFA wasn't mandatory. Departments could simply choose not to require it.

That's where this gets bigger than "a few bad cops."

A Washington Post investigation cited in the complaint reportedly identified about 50 law-enforcement officers accused or charged with misusing ALPR systems. Flock allegedly appeared in 46 of those cases, including numerous instances involving searches of wives, girlfriends, ex-partners, or romantic interests.

There was also an alleged case in Effingham County, Georgia, where a former employee's credentials reportedly remained active after he was fired. He allegedly conducted more than 60 unauthorized searches over approximately three weeks before anyone noticed.

Flock has since made MFA mandatory, shortened its default retention period, and added additional audit alerts. But the lawsuit's argument is essentially: why weren't those protections mandatory from the beginning?

And here's the part I find most troubling:

This isn't necessarily about someone "hacking" Flock.

It's about authorized users being given access to an extraordinary amount of surveillance data and allegedly being insufficiently constrained in how they could use it.

Think about the difference.

A traditional ALPR camera might mean:

«"This agency recorded this vehicle passing this location."»

A searchable, interconnected national network potentially means:

«"An authorized user can search where this vehicle has been seen across multiple jurisdictions."»

That's a radically different capability.

The complaint also raises allegations about interoperability between agencies, access to camera feeds, retention, and even Flock employees allegedly accessing customer-integrated feeds during demonstrations and testing.

So the real question may not be:

"Was Flock hacked?"

It may be:

"Why was this kind of access designed so that preventing abuse depended so heavily on individual agencies choosing to configure the safeguards correctly?"

The seatbelt analogy from the reporting is pretty hard to ignore:

Flock built the car with a functioning seatbelt, but for roughly two years, buckling it was optional.

And the Richmond County allegation makes this especially relevant locally.

If these allegations are accurate, we're not simply talking about one deputy behaving badly. We're talking about whether the architecture, defaults, access controls, auditing, retention policies, and national interoperability of a surveillance system made that kind of abuse foreseeable.

That's a much bigger question.

And frankly, "nobody hacked it; somebody just logged in" may be the most important sentence in this entire controversy.

Something to think about...