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Flock Offered Webinar Teaching Cops How to Surveil 'No Kings' Protesters (404media.co) 107

Posted by EditorDavid from the watching-the-Flock dept.
Thursday 404 Media reported that Flock taught America's cops "how they could surveil the No Kings protests" against President Trump (as well as "small parades") in a webinar last year that described "using a mix of Flock's technology and law enforcement's own databases." In the webinar, Flock's director of market management Caity Peak explains how real time crime centers — which are police surveillance centers that utilize Flock cameras and other surveillance cameras — can be used for emergency response, but can also be used to surveil "established events" like 4th of July fireworks displays, parades, bike races, Mardi Gras, and protests. The webinar shows just how routine the idea of always-on surveillance has become, and how casually it is used during extremely innocuous events. Peak explains that police can use FlockOS, a software platform that combines Flock's automatic license plate readers (ALPR), drones, gunshot detectors, 911 data, and other surveillance cameras (including ones Flock does not own) into a "single pane of glass" or single piece of software to look at various types of surveillance in one place during both emergencies and relatively mundane events in a city or town.

"Imagine that you're an incident commander, and you're working this No Kings Protest," Peak explains while a dashboard shows a series of surveillance tools overlaying the city of Denver. "If I'm somebody assigned a traffic post that's working this No Kings Protest, I really don't have time to go in [...] and look at all these places [for different intelligence]. This is an example of viewing all of that in one place...." The dashboard Peak shows includes traffic information, a "response plan" for the protest, the floor plans of nearby buildings, as well as a series of video feeds of both outdoor-mounted cameras and cameras inside businesses and government buildings.

404 Media and the Electronic Frontier Foundation previously showed that police have specifically used Flock cameras to monitor the No Kings protests and other First Amendment-protected activity... This webinar shows this type of surveillance is not anomalous, and is specifically taught by Flock. The webinar also shows that Flock's latest public stance — that its ALPR cameras are noninvasive technology, that they take only static images at a single place and time, and that they are primarily used to solve the worst crimes — is wildly misleading. Flock has time and time again pitched itself to police as a sort of operating system to solve crime and do real-time surveillance and predictive policing. ALPRs are just one part of this broader surveillance apparatus that Flock has created, markets to police, and teaches them how to use.

Flock Offered Webinar Teaching Cops How to Surveil 'No Kings' Protesters More | Reply

Flock Offered Webinar Teaching Cops How to Surveil 'No Kings' Protesters

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  • Ooooh. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by groobly ( 6155920 )

    Ooooh, I am so outraged. They surveilled Nokings, just like they surveil everything else.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Just more reasons to get rid of flock and create laws that prevent things like flock. Because Axon and others just replace flock.

      We live in a strange time of double-speak and authoritarian rule. This does not change what a dragnet is and does or why dragnets are illegal.

      • Re:Ooooh. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Sunday September 06, 2026 @02:07PM (#66326014)

        Just more reasons to get rid of flock and create laws that prevent things like flock. Because Axon and others just replace flock.

        We live in a strange time of double-speak and authoritarian rule. This does not change what a dragnet is and does or why dragnets are illegal.

        It's interesting the first comment is basically repeating the elite view "we already know everything about you, get over it". Something that they definitely don't apply to themselves. What is different is that in current US law, you can more or less outsource the actual dragnet to private industry and then treat the data you get back as unsourced tip offs that you don't need to justify. There are some attempts to limit this, mostly after moments when politicians get tangled up in similar situations, but it really is a big change from historical rules.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          the elite view "we already know everything about you, get over it"

          The proper view is "you voted for this, get over it".

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by HiThere ( 15173 )

            Sorry, but BOTH sides have pushed this forwards. Admittedly the Republicans have pushed more eagerly, but that doesn't exonerate the Democrats.

            Basically what's going on is "People act to make their jobs easier. If that's illegal, they try to either work around, ignore, or change the law.

            • Manufacturing "a cause for action" has been around for a while. The 1% to 2% in leadership roles public, private, nonprofit, think tank, or more using available tools keep in the top 2%.

              Federal Grand Jury Charges Southern Poverty Law Center for Wire Fraud, False Statements, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering
              Tuesday, April 21, 2026

              Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups

              http [justice.gov]

              • What you quoted in bold is not a statement of fact. It is an allegation from the Justice Department run by then-temporary (but now permanent) Attorney General Todd Blanche.

                Let's wait for the actual trial to see whether this gets anywhere. The current administration has had a spotty record of success trying to convert these kinds of indictments into convictions.

              • You don't have any issue with $3 million (apparently spent on informants) over the period of a decade, since in one day in 2025 trump stole $934 million from the Pentagon for work on his personal plane. https://www.newsweek.com/donal... [newsweek.com]

                Furthermore, it's no surprise that the fascists and hate groups running the White House and the DoJ are targeting the SPLC, since the SPLC is one of the few groups that has been effectively keeping the KKK and trump's other supporters in check for the past 60 years.

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by Anonymous Coward

                  turns out SPLC was the KKK all along.

                  They had to keep supporting it so they could keep getting money to "fight against it(LOL)"

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by cpurdy ( 4838085 )
                    Dear anonymous coward,

                    The SPLC has been fighting for the rights of Americans longer than I've been alive. And no, the SPLC wasn't the KKK. That's almost a stupid enough comment to make you a trump supporter.

              • Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups

                For paid informants to infiltrate said groups. Amazing how this is only a problem when the right wing is in power.

    • Re:Ooooh. (Score:5, Informative)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday September 06, 2026 @02:15PM (#66326030)

      You seem to be really dumb. This is more evidence. That this specific evidence addresses a movement you apparently do not like does not make its general significance invalid. Either everybody has rights or freedom, or nobody has them. And that includes you, even if you lack the mental capacity to understand that.

      • I'm against the idea of surveillance for the sake of following people around even when they've done nothing wrong, just so you can investigate them later for some future event. That's what's wrong with flock ALPR.

        But here you have an event that draws crowds. Certain people view crowds as opportunities. So how about this: If I'm not at the event, nor is anybody I care about, you're free to have it with no surveillance at all, or even any security whatsoever, which basically doesn't work without surveillance,

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 )

      Ooooh, I am so outraged. They surveilled No Kings, just like they surveil everything else.

      Fair is fair, people surveilled the Yes Kings rally on Jan 6th, 2021.

      More unsettling here is that Flock and, apparently, the Police are being so blatantly partisan - not surprising though. It makes one wonder how unbiased Flock coverage and reporting is going forward.

    • Whoooosh!

      The point you missed in your rush to partisan bias is that they surveil EVERYTHING.

      Pervasive surveillance is antithetical to a free population.

  • I don't follow politics closely, but even I can tell that the pendulum is going to swing back—how hard, I don't know; a lot can happen between now and 2028.

    Almost no real change will take place, of course, but the people bitching now can go back to cheering, and the people cheering now can go back to bitching—wherein “cheering” is a ritual that mostly involves bitching about the past.

    I choose to bitch in the comments section of Slashdot.

    • A nihilist! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, at least it's an ethos.

    • Re:Ebb and Flow (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06, 2026 @02:15PM (#66326032)

      Right now, we're sending people to be tortured in foreign concentration camps, converting warehouses to imprison people, and are fighting a pointless war in Iran. Citizens were killed by the US government, and they did not even pretend to investigate. We've replaced the state dept with bribes to the president and his kids.

      All of this was because some people wanted to use 'retard' as an insult again.

      Things do not have to swing back far to make life less awful for many people.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      I choose to bitch in the comments section of Slashdot.

      Rather than smashing Starbucks windows? You are to be commended. But others will choose the latter option. Because they have nothing to say in support of their ideology. Other than "Starbucks is bad" perhaps*.

      *It is. But there are other places that burn their coffee as well.

    • Are you voting? If the answer is no then you're part of the problem.

      • So they're either with you or they're against you. What's entertaining about that is when George Bush said it, he made it very clear that he wasn't even talking to you, but you took it to mean that anyways because that's how you've always wanted it to be.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          To be clear, does the "you" in that first sentence mean "democracy"? Because that really seems like the only way to interpret it.

      • Are you voting? If the answer is no then you're part of the problem.

        I've always thought that was a weird position to take. If someone can't even be arsed to vote in the first place, what makes you assume they'll cast an informed vote that is statistically distinguishable from randomness?

        If you want to move the needle, you have to convince the people who actually do vote to vote differently.

        • 1/3 of the country doesn't bother voting. That's a piss poor ratio for a so called developed country.

          • You kind of have to think of it as if you were going out to dinner with a large group of friends and you're all trying to decide on a place. A few of your group just says that they're "fine with whatever the rest of y'all pick."

            Would you really blame them when you end up at some restaurant that kind of sucks, or blame the majority who actually chose to go to the lousy restaurant in the first place?

            • Re:Ebb and Flow (Score:4, Interesting)

              by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Sunday September 06, 2026 @11:32PM (#66326670) Journal

              You kind of have to think of it as if you were going out to dinner with a large group of friends and you're all trying to decide on a place. A few of your group just says that they're "fine with whatever the rest of y'all pick."

              Choosing a government that can influence significantly the lives of everyone is somewhat more consequential than choosing where you want to have dinner. People should be more engaged, and not just let "the crowd" decide who governs.

              Would you really blame them when you end up at some restaurant that kind of sucks, or blame the majority who actually chose to go to the lousy restaurant in the first place?

              I would blame them both. One group couldn't be assed to influence the result, and the other made a bad choice.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              You kind of have to think of it as if you were going out to dinner with a large group of friends and you're all trying to decide on a place. A few of your group just says that they're "fine with whatever the rest of y'all pick."

              Would you really blame them when you end up at some restaurant that kind of sucks, or blame the majority who actually chose to go to the lousy restaurant in the first place?

              Except there are only 2 restaurants. And now they are complaining that 'everyone' picked the bad one.

          • 1/3 of the USA public may have an IQ below 90. I wish that was the same 1/3 not voting.

  • They could have just stopped right here... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RoamingClone ( 5773578 ) on Sunday September 06, 2026 @02:49PM (#66326072)
    "Flock's director of market management Caity Peak explains how real time crime centers — which are police surveillance centers" That pretty much sums it up.
  • Corporations have been working with the police to suppress left wing protests and political organization for always.

    I recognize that the authorities do you need to keep tabs on political organizations because they have a bad habit of becoming violent but we spend a insane amount of energy monitoring left wing political organizations that very clearly have no violent tendencies whatsoever. And it's painfully obvious that it's just the right wing getting in power and going after their enemies.

    It's fr

    • Violence only works for the right wing because violence requires people that obey without question and follow orders and that's the opposite of the left wing.

      Ryan Routh's September 2024 attempt on Trump, the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing (December 2024), the arson at Governor Shapiro's residence (April 2025), the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington (May 2025), the Boulder firebombing (June 2025), the Alvarado and Dallas ICE facility shootings (July and September 2025, two detainees killed in Dallas), and the Kirk assassination. ALL hard-Left extremists.

      • And the commonality is that they were extremists, not that they were leftist.

        It's almost like the problem is the extremism, and not left-right.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      the only reason they didn't become a Navy SEAL was woke dei.

      I didn't join because I don't like the taste of crayons.

  • So much for "land of the free" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Turkinolith ( 7180598 ) on Sunday September 06, 2026 @04:20PM (#66326214)
    Because there's not much we're "free from" at this point.

    • Because there's not much we're "free from" at this point.

      We have no choice but to increase the saluting of flags and singing of patriotic songs.

  • Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 ) on Sunday September 06, 2026 @05:09PM (#66326288)

    Turning a bipartisan distrust of Flock into an another anti-MAGA with us or against us issue.

    I don't think it's 404 Media's intent, but I don't think Flock is unhappy to see it happen either.

  • The Constitution can't be Outsourced (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CustomBuild ( 2891601 ) on Sunday September 06, 2026 @08:49PM (#66326522)

    The First Amendment distinction here is important, but I don't think it gets us all the way to "Flock is a private company, so this is none of the government's business." The First Amendment generally constrains the government, not private companies. A corporation can choose who it does business with, just as an individual can choose who they associate with or, importantly, who they don't associate with. That's the same basic freedom-of-association principle that often gets invoked when someone says that "cancel culture" is simply people exercising their right to stop associating with someone they dislike.

    But that cuts both ways. Flock is entitled to build and sell surveillance technology, subject to the law. The government is also entitled to buy technology from private companies. The constitutional question is what the government does with it. The Supreme Court has made clear that a private company does not automatically become a state actor merely because it has a government contract or receives government money. Rendell-Baker v. Kohn is pretty explicit about that. But the Court has also made the opposite point: the government can't simply contract away constitutional responsibilities and then claim the Constitution no longer applies. In West v. Atkins, and later in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, the Court recognized circumstances where a private party can become a state actor when it is performing a function the government itself is constitutionally obligated to perform.

    So "the government is using a private company" isn't automatically a constitutional loophole, but neither is it automatically a constitutional violation. The details matter: who is directing what, what authority is being exercised, what the government could legally do itself, and how closely the private company's actions are tied to the government's actions. That's a much more useful question than simply asking whether Flock is a corporation.

    What makes this particular story interesting is that Flock isn't merely selling police a camera and saying "good luck." The company is apparently teaching police how to combine ALPRs, drones, other cameras, 911 data, police databases and other information into one surveillance system, with a protest specifically used as the example. That's a pretty different thing from selling a device that takes a picture of a license plate. Recent reporting has also found that Flock's systems are evolving into much broader tools for searching vehicle movements and other data.

    Well, good news: the police apparently don't need to know who you are anymore. They just need to know where your car went. From there, the AI can apparently work backwards until it has a name, your associates, your history, and presumably a compelling reason why you are now "of interest." All perfectly innocent, of course, because the computer did it.

    This is also a wonderful example of how "we can't identify individuals" ages. Yesterday's limitation becomes today's product feature, and yesterday's privacy assurance becomes something that nobody remembers promising. Flock can now apparently search 6,000+ cameras, police databases and commercial identity records using broad behavioral queries, then let the system infer who you are from where your car happens to travel. That's not really a license-plate reader anymore. It's a behavioral dossier generator with a search box.

    And I particularly enjoy the idea of 69 prewritten prompts. Nothing says "carefully limited law-enforcement tool" quite like shipping the surveillance system with a menu of questions an officer can ask about the population. The really important part is that you don't necessarily need a plate number or a name to get started. Start with "which vehicles frequent this neighborhood?" and let the machine rummage around until it finds a story. Once the computer has invented the pattern, somebody can presumably invent the probable cause afterward.

    I'm sure there are legitimate crimes this could help solve. The

  • Once the answer becomes "more surveillance", everyone becomes the enemy and the answer to every problem is more cameras and more tracking. The surveillance, literally, never ends. This story is more surveillance working as intended, with police conspiring to deprive citizens of their freedom, their 'anonymity' and their right to protest.

  • ... the White House meeting with social media companies to tell them which wrongthink posts to take down was perfectly okay, in the 2020s slashgeist.

    You people are insane. Maybe literally.

    Yes, cameras and other tools will be used to police huge, tinderbox demonstrations. And?

    • And the way that happens doesn't make certain uses, implementations free from problems - the issue isn't with "caemras and other tools," in a broad sense. ~_~

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