Flock is rolling out a voluntary severance program

> The average person is largely indifferent to mass surveillance

I think you would be surprised. Now, whether or not the average local politician is indifferent is not the same as the average person.

You could be right regarding the reaction but how do you know that? What would be the counterexample?

Eh I think it depends on the country a lot too. The average UK citizen? Probably. Even as someone from abroad, I know the British are widely stereotyped as having cameras everywhere.

But Americans are raised from birth with the idea of “freedom” and a camera pointed at you recording your every move is antithetical to that. They somewhat tolerate it in private establishments like malls and restaurants but not in public spaces.

They did such an amazingly bad job on their PR. Their best known products literally exist to keep police from killing people or violating their rights undetected, and instead of meeting the moment and explaining why their products should become mandatory, always-on, permanent replacements for firearms or ADVOKATE-style sworn statements they just kind of... pretended that misuse of their products was WAI and ate the consequences of that.

There have been news stories of localities canceling their Flock contracts and quietly switching to Axon.

This isn't an uncommon opinion among the public either. It's probably a minority, at least among those who are vocal about it, but it's not hard to find people who think they are beneficial.

Such an opinion does not seem plausibly believable, by the people building it and in full knowledge of what it can do, and is being used to do.

That’s not a reasonable position to hold, unless and until Flock does much, much more when it comes to safeguards against abuse.

I can understand being pro-surveillance, but Flock is a case study in how not to implement surveillance systems. Believing that surveillance can be a public good can’t somehow turn Flock into a public good. It’s not.

Plenty of people support Flock or at least its mission. They're just not vocal because the opposition is vociferous. Like most things the country is fairly divided. This poll has it 46% opposed and 38% support:

https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/28/more-americans-oppose-poli...

Honestly I think the only significant difference is in branding: Flock isn't consumer-facing and is explicitly marketed for tracking people's movements. The major tech companies that make your phone, browser, maybe a few smart home devices with always-on microphones or cameras, all have more data about you and your habits than Flock could ever obtain, and with us paying for the privilege no less. I get that the average person doesn't care when the product works as advertised, but I don't think that's healthy. People should care as much about privacy when it's Google or Meta as when it's Flock.

The Flock discourse happening right now has nothing to do with "supporting enforcing laws." It has to do with involuntary extrajudicial surveillance by way of insecure equipment and lack of oversight. This is well-documented and obvious because people complaining about Flock are unhappy about being filmed, not about being apprehended for criminal behavior. Law enforcement also existed prior to and will continue to exist after Flock cameras - the latter is not essential to the former.

I would like people who brazenly run red lights in front of me in a crosswalk to be prosecuted. I would not like some weirdo with a laptop accessing Flock cameras and tracking my whereabouts.

Did you conflate these two things accidentally or intentionally?

good enough

Flock doesn’t defend anyone from anything, it’s just surveillance technology. The defending is done by other people, who may or may not use the surveillance for good.

Historically, surveillance is used for good and evil. Certainly, Nazi Germany would have killed many more Jews if flock had existed during that time. Their surveillance was pretty primitive by modern standards, and they still managed to track, identify, and execute millions of Jewish people.

Ultimately, we have to take a step back and analyze if our incentives and systems are designed such that surveillance is used for good, and evil use is deterred. And, regardless of political affiliation, the answer to that analysis should be a resounding no.

Do we keep our officials and law enforcement officers accountable? When surveillance is misused, does anyone even know, let alone prosecute? How difficult is it to misuse surveillance? How much transparency is built-in to how the surveillance is used? These are the questions we should be asking.