Flock CEO's Address Spread Online as Surveillance Backlash Explodes

rrandycupertino about 2 hours ago 18 commentsRead Article on gadgetreview.com

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Discussion (18 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

mullingitover•about 1 hour ago

I worry that Flock is going to take the fall, and some other bad actor with political connections (my money would be on Palantir) will just quietly pick up where they left off while everyone's patting themselves on the back for defeating Flock.

The stuff Flock is doing is going to be standard AI-driven surveillance in the future, and unless the actual practices are made into political third rails and made into criminal code violations, they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night.

nancyminusone•about 1 hour ago

My money would be on Axon. They at least have a claim to the "hold police accountable" angle with bodycams and less-lethal weapons. Compared with Flock's "we'll watch you and what're you gonna do about it"

chinathrow•26 minutes ago

Fuck them both.

cucumber3732842•about 1 hour ago

>they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night.

Or they'll be legalized piecemeal and you'll get sneered at by the useful idiots for opposing each incremental step based on principal.

superxpro12•36 minutes ago

they'll find a particularly violent crime and use that as the strawman... "Oh you dont want this? well i guess you support violent immigrant mass murderers then!"

and then before you know it the state has implemented its mass surveillance apparatus across the entire country. And we though china's social credits were bad? just IMAGINE what those predatory tech bros are cookin up.

toomuchtodo•about 1 hour ago

Legislation guardrails around surveillance technology are a necessary component to defend against future corporate surveillance apparatus establishment and operation, as this surveillance could take many forms (video, audio, geolocation, RF signatures, etc). Flock and Axon today, whatever unsavory folks come along in the future.

“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.” —- John Maynard Keynes

Guardrails because we cannot trust the human.

legitster•26 minutes ago

I know this is an extremely hot take, but it's not the license plate reading service that bothers me.

A license plate is specifically a tracking number to identify a registered vehicle on a public road. The 4th Amendment gives you privacy inside of your car, but your car is not itself guaranteed privacy. Before Flock, police departments already had informally aggregated data from speed cameras, red light cameras, and toll booths. The distinction being that any evidence collected in such a way is purely circumstantial and still requires a warrant to investigate.

The big irony though of Flock plate readers is that because they're just tracking license plates, they're not actually that useful at solving meaningful crime. Realistically there are a small number of hit-and-runs that could be solved, and they can make certain investigations a bit shorter. And most of what we read about is officer directed stalking or harassment activities.

It's all of Flock's other advertised services that should really freak people out. The facial recognition, the audio scanners, the individual-level tracking databases - right now they're a fancy VIN lookup service. It's all the other stuff they're trying to sell departments on that are getting into really egregious 4th Amendment violations.

nazgulsenpai•about 1 hour ago

Our local governments are enabling Flock. Get involved in your local politics. Find out who made the decisions to put these cameras in the neighborhoods and hold them accountable. Until that happens they will just find another vendor if Flock folds. Just like Flock will find a new CEO if theirs is forced to resignation.

elmer2•about 2 hours ago

Too many people think doxxing is the answer, because you aren't getting your way.

If you want violence, you better be prepared for it. You just can't complain when someone doesn't like what you are doing and comes right to your door.

big_youth•about 1 hour ago

Our founding fathers addressed this: "What country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

legitster•about 1 hour ago

Founding father. Singular.

I can appreciate Jefferson as much as the next guy but thank goodness his voice just one amongst many.

ramon156•about 1 hour ago

as always it entirely depends on context. rationality is out the door when tbe power is out of your hands. its pretty clear flock wont take your criticism seriously

whateveracct•about 1 hour ago

CEOs aren't just people. They can have fun dealing with it :)

Computer0•12 minutes ago

CEO's aren't people. When you pretend they are, you allow them to live normal lives where they seem deserving of the same social protections we all enjoy.

spl757•about 1 hour ago

The CEO of a company that spies on people, and now detects signals from your phone to connect the car to a driver, got scared and had Google blur his house. That is the height of hypocrisy. His home address is also public information, available from the City Clerks office for free. People won't need to find the exact address, just look for the only blurred house on his street. It's all utterly ridiculous. Clearly the citizens of the USA do not want flock in their communities so the CEO of the company isn't going to be popular, but he could fix that by removing flock from the communities that ban it.

toomuchtodo•about 1 hour ago

I believe the folks cutting down Flock cameras and voting out reps who won't have them removed are well within their rights. Fundamentally, Flock Safety is incompatible with US constitutional rights, their enterprise value can drain slowly, or quickly. We're just arguing time horizon.

Flock Camera CEO Asks Americans to “Compromise” on Privacy After Growing Backlash - https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/flock-camera-ceo-asks... - August 27th, 2026

Flock CEO calls for ‘compromise’ as surveillance company faces growing backlash - https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/23/flock-ceo-calls-for-compro... - August 23rd, 2026

Flock Safety CEO calls for national 'compromise' amid camera sabotage and public revolt - https://www.foxnews.com/media/flock-safety-ceo-calls-nationa... - August 22nd, 2026

> If you want violence, you better be prepared for it. You just can't complain when someone doesn't like what you are doing and comes right to your door.

I don't condone violence in this context, and besides perhaps a few individuals (humans are tricky), I haven't seen anyone else loudly or overtly calling for it (provide sources if I am wrong). My assumption is his address is being shared to demonstrate the asymmetry and hypocrisy. "If you have nothing to hide" argument.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

(but you know, its the usual authoritarian tech bro "I wanna get rich and have control while the plebs get stuck with the harm and externalities" story)

randycupertino•about 2 hours ago

I noticed he requested to hide his house street view on google maps.

ChrisArchitect•16 minutes ago

Flock CEO gets his house blurred out on Google Maps and Zillow

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49467750