Flock CEO Apologizes for Calling Activists 'Terrorists'

Garrett probably thought by making those statements a year ago he could get political support from the current administration and population. Looks like that was a bad bet.

I actually think the service Flock provides could be interesting but the complete lack of guardrails makes it a no go.

  - Flock camera feeds were set up public-facing, giving anyone on the internet access to live high-resolution feeds
  - Flock's AI does more than just read license plates. It catalogs vehicle color, make, model, bumper stickers, dents, and roof racks.
  - Police officers nationwide have abused their access to the Flock network to inappropriately track romantic partners, neighbors, and personal acquaintances
  - local police departments share Flock-captured license plate data with federal immigration agencies like ICE and CBP
  - Flock cameras have been used to track lawful citizens attending political demonstrations
  - Flock also expanded into audio surveillance (!!) before public outrage made them back down a bit

Activists destroy visible surveillance cameras, so they hide them and make them hard to recognize. Activists trace the camera locations from the public data, so Flock kills those feeds and sells only to vetted buyers.

The value of mass surveillance is high enough and the power imbalance so strongly against the citizenry, that someone will setup these hidden cameras, as long as it's legal.

Imagine what you can do with this data, face recognition and GPT-5 class agents. Not only do you have the realtime location of your victims, but now you can see who they talk to, what they wear, what mood they are in, what they bought, are they drinking or visiting a brothel, what car they go into - and it's no longer an ephemeral cookie id, it's the face that person will have forever, on their id documents, in any interview or loan application they will ever do.

This data is worth trillions in the long run if sufficiently oppressive structures are put in place to leverage it.

No cameras on us.

24/7 Body Cameras on politicians, w/ audio.

However, this is a clear case that points to the idea that in damage control, you never apologize. It just creates more news about the situation.

There are Flock cameras placed along running paths where there are no cars, and other places that would never need license plate readers.

Does Flock have a microphone that can record you talking with your friend while watching ducks at the local park?

I apologize is not an apology any more than saying, "I work out" is a workout. The fascist who considers his opposition antifa is in no way contrite. People only say "I apologize" because it's a whole lot easier to say than "I'm sorry."

"Fuck you, pay me! If not me, someone else will!, profit must be had, your privacy be damned."

Unrelated, in about a minute this post went from the front page to the third page.