this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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Turns out »it’s on a public road« stops being a magic privacy waiver when police can reconstruct a month of your movements with a few clicks. Flock sold dragnet surveillance as a camera network, and a federal judge finally called it what it is: indiscriminate mass surveillance.
And with enough data, you can morph it into any answer you want.
I made a video that is tangentially related to this a week and a half ago. There isn't a ton of reporting on it, but Flock is losing a ton of cash thanks to local privacy movements.
Just in September they lost 100+ contracts. They've lost almost 400 since June, in 36 US states.
Seeing the response is the first thing that's given me a flicker of hope since the Patriot Act passed.
It’s encouraging, but annoyingly, most startups operate at losses for years. Unless they lose venture funding or more of the rest of the 6000 contracts, that’s not going to stop them.