Source: Fortune
Summary
In Arizona, the blue-leaning city of Tempe and the red-leaning town of Cave Creek both shut down Flock’s automated license plate reader systems, citing privacy concerns. Tempe’s decision followed internal audits that found no misuse, but the city said the risk of misuse was too great. Cave Creek also removed its cameras, citing privacy risks and a stolen device. Senator Josh Hawley launched an investigation into Flock, while Senator Bernie Sanders called for legislation against the company. Flock claims its technology helps solve crimes and locate missing people, but critics argue it enables mass surveillance.
Our Reading
The numbers tell one story.
Tempe and Cave Creek both removed Flock cameras, despite no proven misuse.
Senators from opposite parties launched investigations and called for action.
Flock claims its tech helps solve crimes, but critics say it risks privacy.
Partisan divides blur as privacy and security collide.
Author: Evan Null
Reading between the [partisan] lines
Tempe leans Democratic: roughly 63% of its voters back Democrats, making it one of the more reliably blue cities in a state that has been a purple battleground lately. Cave Creek, a small, affluent town north of Phoenix, leans Republican by comparison. The two towns landed in the same place, becoming at least the ninth and 10th Arizona municipalities to drop or restrict Flock in the past year, following Chandler, Surprise, Pinal County, Sedona, Flagstaff, Sierra Vista, South Tucson and Apache Junction.
Surveillance and scrutiny
In the nation’s capital, Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, sent a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley announcing an investigation into the company’s “collection, retention, and dissemination” of data gathered by its cameras.
Political convergence
The letter argued that Flock has built an “unprecedented national surveillance network” of more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states, scanning more than 20 billion vehicles a month, and that “Congress never authorized the network your industry has built.” He gave the company until Sept. 8 to turn over documents. A Flock spokesperson told reporters the company intends to cooperate.
Legislative response
Hours later, Sanders posted a statement of his own on X, describing Flock as part of a system that risks tipping the country into what he called totalitarianism. He also pointed to the number of Flock’s cameras, adding that newer versions of the technology can match images of people and vehicles against databases of phone numbers, relatives and court records.
Corporate reaction
“We must come together to stop Flock and AI mass surveillance,” Sanders wrote. “That is why I will soon be introducing legislation to do just that.” Hawley and Sanders sit at opposite ends of the Senate’s ideological spectrum. Their statements arrived within hours of each other, echoing the same split-screen convergence playing out in Arizona.
