Hacker News

"Thankfully, we live in a beautifully democratic and capitalistic society where we can fight in court."

Of course he's "thankful" for that, since in our "beautifully democratic and capitalistic" society, Flock can use their $658 million of VC funding [1] to wage lawfare against the have-nots with their armies of lobbyists and lawyers. [2]

1. https://websets.exa.ai/websets/directory/flock-safety-fundin...

2. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/lobbyis...

Mountain View recently turned off their Flock installs after they discovered Flock had enabled data sharing without notice and other agencies were searching through MV data.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/privacy/2026/02/flock-came... > A separate “statewide lookup” feature had also been active on 29 of the city’s 30 cameras since the initial installation, running for 17 straight months until Mountain View found and disabled it on January 5. Through that tool, more than 250 agencies that had never signed any data agreement with Mountain View ran an estimated 600,000 searches over a single year, according to local paper the Mountain View Voice, which first uncovered the issue after filing a public records request.

A different town (Staunton, VA) also turned of their Flock installs after their CEO sent out an email claming:

https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-ceo-goes-... > The attacks aren't new. You've been dealing with this for forever, and we've been dealing with this since our founding, from the same activist groups who want to defund the police, weaken public safety, and normalize lawlessness. Now, they're producing YouTube videos with misleading headlines.

Wow...

"...and then unfortunately there is terroristic organizations like DeFlock, whose primary motivation is chaos. They are closer to Antifa than they are anything else."

"We're not forcing Flock on anyone..."

It is a short 1:32 video, I encourage people to watch it for themselves.

I thought DeFlock was just publishing locations of cameras and lawfully convincing local governments to not use Flock, primarily through FOIA requests.

Pointing cameras at people? Law and order

Pointing cameras at cameras? Terrorist organization

Transcript

INTERVIEWER: Surveillance is becoming more prevalent everywhere. There's an organization called Deflock that's become fairly well-known in activist circles. They take an aggressive approach—counting cameras and maintaining a Discord channel where they discuss potential activities to move against surveillance expansion and stop organizations like Flock. What's your perspective on this organization and their methods?

FLOCK CEO: I see two distinct groups of activists here. There are organizations like the ACLU and the EFF that take an above-board approach to fighting for their viewpoint. We're fortunate to live in a democratic, capitalistic country where we can fight through the courts. I have a lot of respect for those groups because they engage in reasonable debate while following the law.

FLOCK CEO: Unfortunately, there are also what I'd call terroristic organizations like Deflock, whose primary motivation appears to be chaos. They're closer to Antifa than anything else. That's disappointing because I don't want chaos - I value law and order and a society built on safety.

FLOCK CEO: For those groups, I think it's regrettable they haven't chosen a more constructive approach to achieve their goals. They do have the right to their views, but that's why we have a democratically elected process. We're not forcing Flock on anyone. Elected officials understand that communities and families want safety, and Flock is the best way to create safe communities.

INTERVIEWER: Deflock probably wouldn't agree with the "terroristic" label you've applied to them, but...

----

Yeah. "They have a right to their views" buuut also, they are terrorists, and implicitly therefore deserve to have their freedom taken away because of said views. So giving the public a map of flock cameras and organizing to advocate against these being used in our communities is terroristic, I suppose. There's one party here that should be in jail here. Seems like that ought to be the creeps that are filming everyone against their consent, but I guess that makes me a terrorist...

This is an excellent video documenting some Flock camera vulnerabilities by Benn Jordan, a security hobbyist/researcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY. It's a bit long, but worth it.

It's amazing at how terrorism has been re-defined. When I was a kid you had to blow up skyscrapers or planes (or both at the same time), set off bombs in a crowded area, or a specifically targeted mass shooter to be labelled a terrorist.

If we're terrorists for marking Flock cameras on a map, we might as well go all the way and start breaking them.

Probably worth posting some links to the Institute for Justice's "Project on the Fourth Amendment":

https://ij.org/issues/ijs-project-on-the-4th-amendment/

This Project includes work to fight technologies such as Flock's in the courts:

https://ij.org/issues/ijs-project-on-the-4th-amendment/licen...

I've always felt good contributing to IJ and the topic and takes in the posted video are precisely why I do so.

Thanks for sharing this. It completely destroyed the little respect I had left for Flock.

And that they're sharing their data with other non-local agencies (eg. ICE as it stands) without a warrant? That's outrageous, IMHO.

Flock is a terrorist organization

I dislike this person and company. That is putting it mildly.

Flock (YC17)

Flock is a terrorist organization.

I would not do this now, but teenage me would be spray painting every lens. Not to give anyone ideas...

Man everything about this interview is so cringe.

This statement essentially boils down to "The only right way to fight me is in an environment where I expect to win"

That's how you know the DeFlock strategy is effective. They aren't playing the game that the CEO wants to play, they are playing the actual game. The actual game is minimizing the impact of cameras that are now everywhere.

Some individuals may take it upon themselves to vandalize the cameras, which can't be planned via conspiracy (that would be illegal), but those radical individuals can be "set up for success" through information. This strategy of creating an environment where effective vandalism is easy, is also part of the actual game.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Their are documented cases of Flock cameras that can see into private residences. What if one of those cameras recorded an underage person? Would Flock be responsible for collecting and distributing CSAM?

I've decided that anyone who uses the term "antifa" in a serious, scaremongering manner must be fascist.

His last name being “Langley” is a bit too on the nose. Like something out of a Pynchon novel.

Thank Mr. Flock CEO!

I've never heard about Deflock, but your tantrum motivated me to know it. And I like it!

But the best part are the implications: it is ok for Flock to spy people, it isn't ok for people to spy Flock.

I'm honestly tired of all these knuckleheads. They've got a few bucks in their bank accounts and pretend that makes them smarter than everyone else. They're just gaming the system, nothing more, and they have every incentive to keep it alive.

He can shove his cameras deep in his ** as far as I'm concerned.

>I like law and order

When it benefits me.

This guy gives all villain vibes you see in futuristic movies, funny how he resembles a young version of “Fletcher” in minority report movie, a movie about mass surveillance to provide a “safer community” to all.

Flock btw isn’t just an ALPR, it is a car finger printing technology, I have seen some videos of police IDing cars with no plates and they knew the owner by using flock cams.

I “like” how Overton window (??? I hope I use it right) shifted dramatically in USA.

- “law and order” is “good”, when _de facto_ most of constitution is not being applied for a year and laws or court orders are applied selectively. Not to say that “law and order” is vastly different depending on the size of your bank account;

- “terrorist” now is anything you don’t like, especially if it’s anti establishment. True freedom of speech is now apparently “violence” (and of course this dictatorial (adjacent) government would think that, as it’s biggest danger);

- “antifa” is apparently now a boogeyman, though I’d say he used it correctly as he is (apparently) fascist;

Also it is forced against people, how population can choose otherwise?

Does anyone have a template for a network audit that one could request of a local police department that would disclose access logs for Flock Safety data?

is it terrorism if it's a corporation who is in terror?

no: terror is strictly about civilians.

These clean-shaven wide-eyed SV types give me the uncanny valley heebie-jeebies. Everything, from their tone of voice, to their appearance, to (most importantly) the way they phrase things... there's an almost AI-generated quality.

Anyone aware of people doing something like over here in Europe? And how legal/illegal it might be? I'm talking about putting government-operated security cameras on a map, for the general public to be aware of their locations.

Freedom is slavery

The TV series Person of Interest [1] becomes more on point as years go by, even though by now it has been 15 years since its S1. One of the scenes [2] from that series where "terrorist" are shown as being in control over ghoulish CEOs like the one from this posted video.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igKb2DhP7Ao

Whereas most pf the rest of America considers Flock to be a terrorist organization.

“If you’ve got nothing to hide, let me profit off your surveillance”

These wretched wastes of skin that contribute to the surveillance system need to have the full brunt of that same surveillance apparatus turned toward them full time, published for all to see. This should include elected officials that voted for and paid for these systems as well. You don't want a system that allows more anonymous movement? You want that data collected and stored and collated and analyzed without end? Ok, pull down your pants and have yourselves offered up as the first and most prominent ones to be tracked and then see if you change your tune.

Can we update the title to include the name, Garrett Langley? Everyone should know his name.

Someone just had to come up with the goofy name "antifa" instead of just using "anti fascist".

Seems like “terrorists” = citizens standing up for their rights. We aren’t past the point of no return but we are rapidly approaching it. What will it be Americans? Liberty or death?

Winning local elections means having the political power and thus economic power to Deflock your town.

Telling illiberal authoritarians to go fuck themselves is reasonable. But power is still more important than insults.

5 months ago;

Source article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2025/09/03/ai-st...

Discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45119847

and at the same time:

Pump the Brakes on Your Police Department's Use of Flock Safety

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45128605

I swear, every fascist has the same playbook. They use the same phrases, same accusations, same lies, sometimes even same wordings. It is like they have a single hive mind - for which everyone else is the enemy and is subject to destruction or enslaving.

has anything ever good come out of silicon valley or the wall street? one greedy capitalist after another and you wonder why the world has turn to a shithole! the inequality between the rich and the poor is reaching the level of ambani vs. mumbai slums.