Free Republic

A brand-protection firm is working to take down a map that shows Flock Safety’s artificial intelligence-powered camera network is larger than the company publicly stated. Cybersecurity researcher Joshua Michael published a map on Wednesday showing more than 300,000 Flock devices across the U.S., including more than 170,000 Flock cameras. Doppel, an “AI-native social engineering defense platform,” filed a trademark complaint Thursday to have the map removed... These findings arise as lawmakers heard statements about the issues surrounding these cameras in a Wednesday Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Crime and Counterterrorism. Michael built his “Flock Surveillance Map” with Flock location data...

A 22-year-old University of Waterloo student made 24 trips across the U.S. border to covertly map critical airport infrastructure for a suspected Chinese intelligence handler. According to a 19-page FBI affidavit filed in federal court, Chinese citizen Weiheng Zeng was arrested at the Ambassador Bridge in August 2026. Surveillance cameras at Chicago O’Hare previously caught him climbing forklifts, walking fence lines, and trying to open locked shipping containers at a FedEx facility. He carried out a similar operation at Toronto Pearson airport after being confronted inside by an employee. To evade North American surveillance, Zeng used a dedicated Huawei phone...

At first glance, the bright blue data dashboard looks like any other – a series of graphs, charts, numbers and menus belying its darker purpose. But The Telegraph can reveal that this platform is how China’s security apparatus can track foreigners and anyone deemed “of interest” to the state within the country. Read the full story here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/05/18/leaked-secret-chinese-surveillance-programme-tracks-foreign/

The television is off. The screen is dark. The family has stopped watching. But what if the television has not stopped watching them? A major investigation into LG smart televisions has uncovered an extraordinary amount of data collection occurring through a device millions of families still think of as little more than an entertainment system. Researchers working with Gamers Nexus, Level1Techs and independent security specialists found televisions scanning local networks and identifying nearby phones, smartwatches, printers, thermostats, air purifiers and other connected devices. They also examined LG's Automatic Content Recognition technology, which can identify what viewers are watching across apps...

Lindsey Brooke Isaacs was asleep at home when police arrived and told the 23-year-old that her car had been involved in a crash that killed three people. She knew they had the wrong person. Her black Dodge Durango showed no obvious collision damage, and she had a receipt showing where she had been. Still, the investigation eventually led to her being arrested and 13 days in jail. "My heart was in my stomach," Lindsey told me on The CyberGuy Report Podcast at Cyberguy.com/podcast/. "I didn't know what was going on." Months later, prosecutors dropped all eight felony charges against her...

The debate over Flock Safety cameras divides people in a way that almost nothing else does in technology policy. Those who have had a car stolen tend to love them. Those who study constitutional law tend to hate them. Both are reacting to something real. This is an independent analysis of what these systems actually do, what the evidence says about their accuracy and misuse, and why the most important question is not whether cameras can photograph public streets — it is whether the government should build a searchable, warrantless database of everyone’s movements. This topic generated significant public discussion...

CLEVELAND, Ga. – A privately owned Flock Safety camera positioned to monitor the parking lot of a White County gun store is being removed after growing concerns over automated license plate reader technology left some customers worried about their privacy. Michael Carter, owner of Gun Commanders on U.S. 129 in Cleveland, told Now Georgia the camera was installed roughly two years ago for one purpose: to help protect his employees, customers, and business from crime. Carter privately owns the camera, not the White County Sheriff’s Office. According to Carter, it was configured to send hit-list notifications to the sheriff’s office...

ransomnote: The body of the post is about FLOCK cameras, but the video explains the service interupting her car bluetooth is likely Leonardo SignalTrace sensors which are being rolled out. GROK's analysis below seems to confirm this.Wall Street Apes@WallStreetApesAmerican says she always has the Bluetooth in her car cutout randomly for 1-2 seconds at a time, she couldn’t figure out whyShe finally figured it out. It’s the flock safety cameras. Every time she drives by a flock cameras whether it’s an intersection or parking lot, her Bluetooth temporarily cuts outShe believes the flock is reading the Bluetooth of her car,...

Police using Flock Safety’s artificial intelligence tools can now track a vehicle based only on its location and movements. Flock’s OS Investigate, formerly known as Nightshift, is an AI tool that identifies vehicles and ranks drivers’ “associates” based on how frequently they appear together at the same Flock camera, WIRED reported. Flock website code reviewed by WIRED listed 45 functions available to OS Investigate, including plate scans, camera metadata, arrest records, case files and 911 dispatch logs to identify potential suspects. “[T]his [Flock tool] really crosses a line from a tool that’s used to investigate suspicious people to deciding who...

In a year as chaotic, violent, and economically destructive as this one has been, it is interesting that, to many Americans, the great villain of 2026 is turning out to be a traffic camera.But, indeed, we are seeing visceral, cross-partisan opposition to so-called Flock cameras—named after the leading manufacturer of these automated license plate readers—take hold in communities across the country. And that opposition is, to be sure, entirely legitimate.Flock’s camera networks are based on the idea that, while it would obviously be illegal and unconstitutional for law enforcement at any and all levels to put GPS trackers in everyone’s...

On Dec. 13 last year, a stranger in a Brown University bathroom noticed a man dressed head to toe in black, wrong for the weather, mere hours before that same man opened fire on Brown University’s campus, killing two and wounding eight before vanishing. Investigators had almost nothing: no name, no plate, just a tip describing a gray Nissan with Florida plates. But that was enough: Providence police ran it through a network of more than 70 Flock Safety cameras, which reached back through 30 days of history, and found the car had passed 14 times since Dec. 1. “We...

It seems that Flock cameras have sparked another debate that feels a whole lot like the fight over data centers. And while Flock cameras are not currently equivalent to China’s social credit score apparatus, the infrastructure could very well help create one here in the U.S. Because a government cannot build a comprehensive behavioral-control system without first building the ability to identify, track, connect, and retrieve information about ordinary citizens. Flock supplies part of that capability via large-scale, searchable vehicle-location data. According to Flock, it does not, nor has it ever, used facial recognition technology. But that doesn’t mean it...

0️⃣BlackBetty ⚓️ @BabyD1111229 Woo hoo! 👏🏻 A Texas constable just unplugged every Flock surveillance camera in his county and told the company to come get its garbage out of a free society. Hood County Precinct 2 Constable John Shirley refused to wait for another empty study or corporate promise. He and his team went out, disconnected the entire network of license-plate readers, covered them, and shut the system down cold. “Today is a good day for the Freedom of the people of Hood County,” he posted. He explained that he had finished the job of shutting down the county’s Flock...

Big brother is watching your open house. Homeowners associations across the country are quietly signing up for Flock Safety’s license plate cameras, and the backlash is now strong enough to blow up home sales, kill signed contracts and land cities in court, with New York at the center of the fight. Nowhere is the backlash more raw than in the Adirondacks, where the fight has already toppled a signed contract and sparked open revolt inside a gated community. In Saranac Lake, a resident living behind a gate who protested the cameras in his own neighborhood said the issue isn’t security...

Researchers found that ordinary WiFi routers could quietly identify people with nearly 100% accuracy, potentially turning everyday wireless networks into invisible surveillance systems. Credit: AI/ScienceDaily.com WiFi signals could potentially be used to identify people and map their surroundings without relying on cameras or requiring the person being observed to carry a connected device. "By observing the propagation of radio waves, we can create an image of the surroundings and of persons who are present," says Professor Thorsten Strufe from KASTEL, KIT's Institute of Information Security and Dependability. "This works similar to a normal camera, the difference being that in our...

If you’ve been wondering whether Flock cameras are tracking your movements, there’s a way to find out. Wonder if you’ve been Flocked? Wonder if your neighborhood has been Flocked? What the Flock am I talking about? Flock cameras are those new, souped-up Big Brother “traffic” cameras that have been breeding like ants all over the country. They are very good at capturing your license plate and other identifying information: SNIP You may be wondering where these Flock cameras are in your neighborhood and whether they’ve captured you. Happily, there are very easy ways to check. First, the map. Below is...

🚨 BREAKING NEWS: Florida man just casually walked away with a full Flock surveillance camera… still bolted to a 12-foot pole… while draped in the American flag 🇺🇸 Security followed him like lost puppies. This is either the most based thing You’ll see all year or pure chaos. Is this what peak freedom looks like in 2026? Would you have the balls to do this? Hero… or criminal?

The CEO of Flock Safety apologized Thursday for cases in which law enforcement agencies misused the company’s license plate reader technology and announced a series of policy changes aimed at preventing further abuse. “The short message would be, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that the system has failed you,” CEO Garrett Langley said. Langley said the company is recommending law enforcement agencies reduce the time camera data is stored from 30 days down to seven. Earlier this week, New Hanover County Sheriff Ed McMahon revealed his office had been storing license plate reader data for 90 days. McMahon said the office...

Flock Safety raised $960M total, reaching a $7.5B valuation backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund. Toka reportedly lets clients hack cameras, alter footage, and erase evidence without leaving forensic traces. Researchers demonstrated live camera-feed hijacking at Black Hat, proving footage tampering is technically achievable today. SNIP

From wrongful arrests to officers stalking exes, license plate cameras keep exposing police failures.On October 4, 2025, Joaquin Deno attended his granddaughter's birthday party in Sanford, Florida. At the end of the night, he headed to his daughter's house. Eight miles down Interstate 4, a speeding car swerved across multiple lanes at over 100 mph. It swiped Deno's motorcycle, then hit a Ford Focus, causing a pileup, before driving away. Deno died at the scene, as did a county official and his wife. Witnesses said the speeding car was a Dodge Durango. Police found that a Flock camera—a type of...