New from The Guardian: Stateside with Kai and Carter

**Nomark** (0:00)
I've been to like city council meetings, where they talk about these cameras, and there's just an overwhelming majority of people, just, they want to get rid of these, but the city hasn't done anything yet, and it's just, there's no one like helping the people here. So I just, I want to do what I can there, and this feels like the only way. If they're not going to take them down, then I'll do it myself.

**Carter Sherman** (0:29)
From The Guardian, this is Stateside. I'm Carter Sherman.

**Kai Wright** (0:31)
I'm Kai Wright.

**Carter Sherman** (0:32)
And today, they operate at night. They work in secret. And they're on a mission to destroy a nationwide surveillance network.
Kai, how much do you know about flock cameras?

**Kai Wright** (0:44)
I know that a lot of people are really upset about them. There's a lot of local communities, mine included, that are really worried about mass surveillance.

**Carter Sherman** (0:51)
No, people across the country are big mad about flock. And we're going to get into this anger later. But the reason I wanted to talk about this this week is because of the seeming wide nationwide pushback against flock. So many cities are canceling their contracts with the company right now.
So for folks who don't know what flock is, this is an $8.4 billion company that maintains a nationwide network of more than 120,000 cameras. These are cameras scattered across 49 states. And what they do is that they use AI to scan passing vehicles, and then the cameras upload information about those cars, like their license plate numbers, their makes, their models, maybe identifying details like dents or bumper stickers. And it sends that information to a national database. And then law enforcement agencies that contract with flock, they can actually search that database.

**Kai Wright** (1:40)
There are so many alarming things that you just said to me about these cameras.
And a lot of people are upset, myself included, for that reason. But just the AI piece of it alone, that is a big part of why people, I imagine, are so concerned about mass surveillance.

**Carter Sherman** (1:56)
I mean, it feels like a real new frontier in mass surveillance. And the ACLU has put it this way, which I found actually quite helpful. A normal traffic camera, that is going to click on when you drive past it and you do something that's maybe illegal, right? Like maybe you're speeding, and so this camera is going to take a photo of you.
But a flock camera, that can be on always, that can constantly be recording everything that is happening within its range of vision.

**Kai Wright** (2:18)
Which is terrifying because they are outside my house. I mean, they're all over our town.

**Carter Sherman** (2:22)
And you don't have control over that camera, you can't opt in or out.

**Kai Wright** (2:25)
You can't opt in or out, you're under constant surveillance. But what does flock say about this? Like what's their take on what they're doing?

**Carter Sherman** (2:32)
Well, so they have said that their cameras are not tools of mass surveillance and they have said that in fact, those cameras are quote, integral to public safety. The company said that in 2025, flock technology helped locate more than 10,000 missing people, which is obviously not nothing.
But I do think we have to keep in mind that there have also been a lot of headlines about law enforcement agents, cops using flock for controversial reasons. The very first time I heard about flock was actually last year when the Independent News Outlet for Foreign Media published the story about how a Texas cop had used flock cameras to conduct a nationwide search for a woman who had been suspected of self-administering her own abortion, which I should say is not an act that is illegal in Texas. This would not even be a crime if it occurred.

**Kai Wright** (3:15)
Nonetheless, people are worried about it. I mean, this has come up in my hometown. I mean, this is one of the things that people are concerned about where I live with these flock cameras, is specifically the question of whether some other jurisdiction could use the data to find it's come up, someone who had an abortion or any number of other things.

**Carter Sherman** (3:36)
I mean, I think that a lot of communities and cities have outstanding questions about how flock works, how the data that gets collected by flock gets used. And recently, dozens of cities and law enforcement agencies have actually ended their contracts with flock. And actually, if you, and by you I mean the people who are listening to this or watching this, if you live in a community that is debating these cameras and you have thoughts about this, feel free to tell us in a comment or email us at statesidepod at theguardian.com.