Factually! with Adam Conover - The Fight Against Flock with Chad Marlow

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

You may have heard of Flock cameras, a network of automatic license plate readers that track not only license plates, but what vehicles look like, and even descriptions of people inside them. If this sounds like the makings of a surveillance network that is both antithetical to our values, and ripe for abuse: it is! And here to talk about it is Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, which has defended Americans’ rights against governmental overreach for over 100 years. Today we discuss privacy, surveillance, and how we can combat our current Big Brother dystopia.SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Hey there, welcome to factually. I'm Adam Conover. I'm thrilled to have you on the show again as I talk to an incredible thinker and get all those delicious idea nuggets out of their skulls and into ours. This week, we're talking about flock cameras. You might have heard of these things. They've been in the news a little bit lately.

But if you're not up to speed, I'll get you there. Here's what happened. A private company partnered with local police across the country and created a network of automated, license plate readers via cameras that are pointed at public spaces 24-7. These cameras track not only license plates, but also what vehicles look like and can even provide descriptions of the people inside the vehicles, let alone people walking on the street in front of them. They keep this data for at least a month, and they allow it to be shared

across the country with every other law enforcement customer that is part of the network. And if that sounds like the makings of an invasive surveillance network that is antithetical to our basic values of privacy and decency and is also ripe for abuse, this is the kind of surveillance network that Americans have always been worried about. The Big Brother's science fiction panopticon nightmare is real and it is here. And the good news is the American public is fucking pissed about it and people are fighting back. people on both sides of the political aisle. Whether you're a libertarian or an antifa type, you are not having it. You are climbing that pole and cutting down that flock camera,

which is a felony, but is also funny to see people do. The important thing is, we've got the makings of a nationwide anti-flock movement, and the reason is it seems like these things can't possibly be legal in the first place. What is the fucking deal with this company? Well, on the show today, we have an incredible expert to break down for us exactly where flock came from, exactly how they

invade our privacy, what is legal and illegal about it, and how all of us can join the fight to fight back. His name is Chad Marlow. He's a senior policy council at the ACLU where he focuses on privacy, surveillance, and technology issues. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, by the way, if you haven't heard of them, is the organization that has defended Americans' rights against governmental overreach for over a century. So Chad's the perfect guy to have on the show. And by the way, he was so much fun to talk to. It's one of the only people I have ever met who speaks as loudly and as quickly on this show as I do.

You're going to have a blast listening to him. Before we get into it, I want to remind you, my new stand-up special, Big Divorce Energy, comes out on October 23rd on my very YouTube channel, the one that you might be listening or watching this very podcast on. I'm so proud of this special. I've been working on it for two years. Very personal to me. It's, you know, the biggest thing I've done in a while now.

And I just really hope you check it out. It really was a labor of love. And I'm so grateful to everybody who came out to see me on the road while I was working on it. And I'm grateful to all you for watching it. So check that out. October 23rd, big divorce energy. And, of course, if you want to support the show, the channel, everything we do, head to patreon.com slash Adam Kahn.

Over five bucks a month gets you everything I do, add free bonus podcast episodes. We have an online community. We do an online book club or reading Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor's new book. end times fascism right now having a blast doing that. Please join us patreon.com slash Adam Conover. And now let's get to this week's interview with Chad Marlowe. Chad, thank you so much for being on the show, man. Thanks for having me.

Tell me what is it about this company flock that has made the American people so furious and is it in your view justified, I assume it is? Yeah, I mean, I think the big problem with flock from the American people's standpoint is it is a company that is basically their business model is to try, trade all of our privacy for their profits. And the way that they do that is by watching all of us wherever we travel in public all the time, recording that, storing it, and sharing it throughout the nation and world. And not surprisingly, Americans are not a big fan of that.

Now, there are other companies that have business models based on surveilling us, right? Like social media companies, your grocery store is tracking you. I know, every time I shop, I put my phone number in at the grocery store and I know that they are using that to track what I buy and that they are presumably selling that data and I just, ugh, whatever. But I'm fundamentally, I'm buying beans from them, right? Like, they have another service they're providing.

Facebook, at least, is connecting me to other people. Flock, all they're doing is just reading my license plate and selling that data, right? Flock is going to track you just because you're driving around your neighbor. You're not necessarily wanting to have a relationship with Flock, but obviously flock feels differently. Yeah, okay. And that's a really key point of difference.

We do not like consent to being monitored by flock. To some extent, hey, if you walk into Madison Square Garden is famously pointing cameras at everybody. But at least I have entered a private business. And so maybe they have some right or if not legally, you know, morally or ethically, they could make the argument, well, hey, you've entered our premises. but like, flock is tracking me while I'm driving down or walking down a public street in a private vehicle that they have nothing to do with. And so, I guess the first question is like, this is legal to do at all? Why?

Well, first of all, I want to point out, you know, when you go to Madison Square Garden, I'm a New Yorker. So I have to point out that you at least get to see New York Knicks Championship basketball when you're going to Madison Square Guard. Sure. Lakers fans and other watchers. But, yeah, you're getting absolutely. nothing in return from flock in return for their deciding they want to pierce your privacy, use AI, which is a major component of their product, use AI to figure out really personal things about you, and then sell it to the government so their venture capitalist investors can get rich.

Now, whether or not this is legal or not is actually an emerging topic. The Supreme Court has led out some recent decisions, one of which is called Chattie v. U.S., in which they seem to be raising the bar. for the protections under our Constitution given to even minimal location information about people given how private it is. So that is still an emerging conversation, but it looks like the courts are finally starting to catch up and put the right protections in place for our digital age. But even more importantly, we shouldn't be looking to the courts alone to protect us. We have elected officials at all levels of government, local, state and federal,

who can and should be taking action against flock to protect all of our privacy. So let's go back to the beginning. Where did this company come from, first of all? Yeah, so Flack was founded in 2017 by a guy of the name of Garrett Langley, who is an engineering graduate of Georgia Tech. Not really a public safety guy, but a guy who does use technology to make himself a lot of money. And he came into this industry and he looked at automatic license plate readers, which have been around since the 1990s. And he had an idea, from his perspective, a great idea. From the East Use perspective, a terrible idea. And what that idea was is that he could create a camera network throughout the entire country

that watches us everywhere we go, and he could sell that information, that database, to law enforcement all over the country. This is his constant marketing push. He wants flock to monitor everywhere someone goes in the whole country, no matter who they are. And it's his idea that this will somehow potentially eliminate all crime in America, all of which I think are very questionable claims, but this is the man's vision. He literally thinks that's going to eliminate all crime if everyone is monitored.

How does that even, what's even the argument for that? Yeah, well, you'd be a better man than I if you could figure it out. I don't necessarily understand how watching a vehicle is going to stop insider trading. But anyway, this is Garrett Langley's statement's not fine. And so, I mean, how many of these cameras have they put up? So it seems to be increasing, but the last number released by Flock was $120,000 throughout the country. Wow. It's a significant number.

And remember, it's important to remember this. We talk a lot about Flock because they're the worst company, but really any automatic license reader company like AXon and Motorola are also problematic. So when I say 120,000 readers, that's just flock. That's not the total number of license plate readers. I see. And look, I've known automatic license play readers have existed for a long time. I remember seeing a tech demo years ago on the internet where someone was like,

hey, look, if you point a camera at a road from really far away and you put it through such and such a, you know, algorithm, you can easily pull the license plates and like, this is kind of surprising. You know, this was sort of a security researcher going like, whoa, I did this and I was a little alarmed by it. But Flock is the first company to really take this business model wide, wide, right? And say, we're going to try to get the cameras everywhere. I mean, what is their approach to covering, you know, the country?

Are they, like, literally trying to get every intersection? I mean, how pervasive is it? Yeah. So I think the way to understand that is just to think from Flock's perspective, more deployment of their readers, more surveillance, more data collection, more data sharing, more data retention, all equals more profits. So the key word there is more. That's their business model.

So the more they can go out and watch us all and assemble all that data and critically apply AI to it, you know, Flax says they do 20 billion license plate scans a month. That's 57 scans per person in the country per month. No human being or team of human beings could go over that much data. For AI, it's light work. And even worse than that, they can say to AI, what life patterns can you ascertain about Adam just by watching where he goes? Or they could be like, I don't like Adam's show yesterday.

Hey, AI, track where Adam goes, see where he's deviated from his normal patterns, and tell me if you can think of some sort of criminal explanation for that. This is all baked in the flocks existing technology. So that is what this company is and where it's trying to take our country. Wow. So I want to get into the legal details of this a little bit because... Adam, can you hold on just for one second? I think the president is landing behind my building.

Yeah. Sorry. No, I'm not joking. His Ospreys are landing right now. You're going to see Trump out my window momentarily. But that's just a... Hopefully not actually him. No way.

That's wild. He just landed. Yeah, he's coming into town today, so sorry about that. Okay, go ahead. No problem. Those ospreys are extremely loud, but they just landed. I couldn't hear anything, so I think we're covered. You got it. So I want to get into the legal details of this because, look, I understand that from a legal perspective, when we are moving through public, you know, other members of the public, you know, have some right to, say, capture our image. So for instance, it's legal if you're walking down a street for a street photographer who happens to be taking photos to take a photo of you and even sell the photo in an art gallery. I think there's been a couple cases of that that I've seen, you know, and I think that's probably, I've always felt that's probably important, right? You're in public and that means that you do not have an absolute right to privacy when you're in public, right?

Because you're literally on a street and people can see your face. However, when you have a company that is sort of exploiting that right that they have to point a camera at a public space, in such a massive way, it creates what people really feel is an intuitive violation of privacy. And so how do we square those two principles? Yeah. So I think there's a couple of things to keep in mind there. So first of all, there's the difference between whether a person. private person is taking the picture versus the government. And remember, Flock is acting on behalf of the government when it's taking the picture. So an individual

taking a picture in public is actually protected by the First Amendment. So that's a very important right in and of itself. The government is restrained by the Constitution. The people are protected by it. So that's an important difference. But the additional differences, we're not talking about a singular photograph in public being taken by the government. We're talking about many, many pictures over time. That's not taking a picture. That's location tracking. That's surveillance.

That is a very different proposition. And typically, if the government wants to surveil people, it needs to get a warrant under the Fourth Amendment based on probable cause in order to do so. They just can't go ahead and decide they want to track us all. just because one of us could turn out to be a criminal. So I think that's a very important distinction. It's also important to remember that the Supreme Court has said many times that the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.

So I shouldn't put too much focus on the fact that, oh, they are tracking you, but you're in public. If they are tracking you means the government, the Fourth Amendment applies. And the Supreme Court has kind of recently reminded us of that fact. Okay. How have they recently reminded us of it? So this decision called ChatTree v. U.S., which was a case actually not involving license plate readers, but something called a reverse warrant, where they just go and say, you know, tell me every person that was within a mile of that store, even though I don't have any suspicions to them.

And in that case, they were like, well, if you're trying to get people's location information, you need to get a warrant. That is a Fourth Amendment search. So that's what that case said. but it said in public location information, Fourth Amendment search, that could also apply to license plate readers. And we would argue that it in fact does. Got it. So even though, you know, I as a private citizen have the right to take a photograph of a person,

a government or a large-scale company taking so many photographs that it becomes location data, the sort of practical implication of that means that legally it's a different thing. Exactly. But again, you know, I also want to point out that, like, Like, you know, we also have laws for a reason, right? Right. And so if your local city council or your state legislature or your member of Congress looks at what the Constitution protects and says, I like it, but I don't love it,

they can and should do more. So I think it's important. When we look at Flock and these other license plate reader companies, we don't have to feel constrained by the rights that the Constitution gives us as being a ceiling. We should look at it more like a floor. If we want to go in and get more protections, we should. And that really is what the American public is clamoring for right now. In a very bipartisan way, by the way, they're saying this isn't right.

Protect us elected officials. Do more elected officials. And that's led to hundreds of flock contract cancellations. States all over the country are looking at legislation. And in fact, I announced it here for the first time today. I will be testifying in front of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday in a hearing co-hosted by Senator Hawley from Missouri and Senator Durbin from Illinois, specifically talking about this subject and what more we should be doing.

And by the time that this airs that people will be able to, I'm sure, see that testimony on the internet because this will have come out by then, or it will have already happened by then. So I'm curious, like, from the ACLU's perspective, what position do you take on? on Flock overall? Do you take the position that this is unconstitutional? Do you take the position that this is sort of a general violation of rights and that there should be more laws passed? You know, what do you look at as being sort of under your purview? And what about Flock specifically puts it there? Yeah. So when we, when we're concerned about people's rights, including the right to privacy, we bring the house at the ACLU. So yes, our litigators are looking into bringing lawsuits to

protect people's privacy. I work more on the policy side. So I'm going out there and be like, what can legislatures do throughout the country at all levels to increase protections? I mean, I think it is our position that, again, you know, what were privacy protections that may have worked practically 50 years ago may not be enough today. So when we have to advocate for stronger laws and policies that will protect privacy for the digital age, then that's what we're going to do and that's what we've been doing. Right, because there's new practices, there's new technology that's violating privacy in new ways. So we might need new policies to take that into account. Laws have to keep up with what people are actually doing. And let's get into the practicalities a

little bit. I mean, this is not at all a hypothetical violation of privacy. There have been many cases where people have actually been harmed, like physically or legally or in terms of their property by this violence. Do you have any examples that come to mind? I have so many examples I'd run through the end of your show. But yeah, I mean, I think it operates on so many levels, right? So, you know, in terms of starting with kind of the smallest one, even though it's the one that most, many Americans find the most troubling, you know, individual police officers

using the technology to track an ex-lover or romantic rival, you know, that's extremely problematic. We've seen the technology used to go after groups that the government doesn't like or is looking to oppress. We've seen it to go after immigrants. We've seen it to go after people who go to gun shows and gun ranges. We've seen it done for people who go to political meetings. No Kings protests. We've even seen it used to go after people who criticize the police in an op-ed. There was an individual, a Navy veteran is Wisconsin, who filmed a police stop. He wasn't even involved in it. and then the police used the license plate reader a hundred times to track his movement, to try to find something on him.

They could get back at him for filming him in the public, which again is protected by the First Amendment. And even more broadly than that, my biggest concern with the impact of these license plate readers is what they do just by existing, which is they have a chilling effect, where people are afraid to do anything that might draw the attention of a government that might not like, or appreciate what they're doing, or that just may reveal something private. I give an example of a person, because a lot of times people are like, well, if you're not doing something wrong, what do you have to worry about? And I think that's completely wrong in terms of an analysis.

And the example I give is, let's say you have a person who's struggling with alcoholism. And they decide, you know what, I think it would be a really good idea to start going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. And I think everyone listening here today can agree universally that that is not only a good decision for that person. It's a good decision for society for them to get treatment for their alcoholism. So say in their town, you know, the local church every Tuesday night at 8 o'clock in its basement hosts an AA meeting. And the person wants to go to that. So they go to the first meeting and they notice that the intersection right by the church has a license plate reader on it.

So now what do they think? They think, huh, every time I go to this meeting, that license plate reader is not only going to record that my car was in front of the license plate reader, but when exactly it was there. And so you then record that over a period of a couple of weeks because it's a weekly meeting. And you ask the AI, why would a car be in that particular location every Tuesday night around 8 o'clock? What's going on? So the AI searches the web and it says, the only thing. thing that's really going on that time all the time, that day of the week, is that Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at the church. Well, now the government may know that that person has alcoholism.

His auto insurance company, his health insurance company, his life insurance company may find out because they don't know if that's a government license plate reader or a private license plate reader. And so what does that person do? They say to themselves, you know what? it is so important to me that the world doesn't know I struggle with alcoholism. That's something I want to keep private, that I can't go to that meeting. And we have not just failed to help society. We've hurt society by chilling that person's behavior, which would have otherwise been something very positive.

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Yeah, so by the letter of the rules that Flack allegedly applies to its data, no. Practically, absolutely. And we've seen that in many cases. You know, Flok likes to say, you know, if you're not a flock customer, you do not have direct access to any of our data. They have said that time and time again, but the keyword is direct because anyone who has a flat customer who's willing to do a search on their behalf has indirect access. That's how ICE has gotten access to so much FLPR data.

So in a local insurance company who has a friend on the police department could easily run that search, they could put up their own license plate reader. So yeah, it's very, very possible that this data can end up in the hands of almost anyone. I mean, you could almost have an auto insurance company saying, hey, I suspect this person's driving drunk. Can you take a look for me? So, you know, wherever your imagination can carry you when you don't have adequate safeguards in place, they can get there. And unfortunately, the problem is this is such a powerful technology. Even the greatest safeguards can never make it safe.

They may be able to make it somewhat safer, but at the end of the day, I always always, say to people, if I can see the holes in the guardrails and security that you create, so can other people. Well, and there's going to be people who are specifically motivated to get past those guardrails who are technologically proficient enough to do so. Is there anything legally stopping, you know, an insurance company from putting up all their own cameras all over the place? I mean, they would certainly be motivated to. There's only, you know, there's a couple of very large auto insurers in America that would love information on their customers, how risky are these drivers to adjust their insurance rates?

My understanding is that flock is mostly contracted with the government, with local and federal authorities, but is there anything that would be stopping, you know, all state or, you know, state farm or a company that contracts with those companies from doing the same? Yeah. So not at the moment that I am aware of, but what I would say is, is that state regulations, you know, regulators could absolutely pass a law that says we will not, you know, authorize and license an insurance company if they use ALPRs to collect data on drivers. That would be a violation of the terms of your license. So it is absolutely possible to get there, but I'm not aware of any

particular laws. I'm not an insurance law expert, but I'm not aware of any particular laws that would prohibit an insurance company. And frankly, I mean, let's be honest, insurance companies are looking at other data about all of us and trying to figure out how to price our insurance. Of course. That's a business model. Yeah. Of course it is. So it's hardly beyond the realm of possibility that if they could get access to ALPR data

and use that in their pricing decisions, that they would do so. And so in that case, if there's nothing preventing the data from being used in that way, why is Flock not already selling the data those people? Do they make a strategic decision to say we're going to sell to the government first because that's the, you know, that's the biggest dog in town, right? Like, they're selling it to the same organization that would presumably crack down on them because they're also tasked with protecting people, right? Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.

Flack doesn't really make strategic decisions, although they fancy themselves as if they do. Well, Flack sells their product to private entities. A lot of big box retailers actually use ALPRs, be it Flachs or another company's ALPR. So there absolutely is a market for that. I would imagine on some levels, these companies realize they're in a bit of hot water right now with the American public. And perhaps the only entity or industry

that the American public would find more problematic than their government tracking them everywhere they go or their insurance companies. So maybe they just have enough wisdom to decide not to double down on the bad actors' marketplaces. Got it. Well, as long as we're talking,

talking about, like, literally law enforcement, you listed a bunch of examples of basically law enforcement behaving badly. And I've seen those two. My friends at 404 media have, you have done some stories about cases of stalking, as you said, where a cop, you know, stalks someone, like a woman that he's interested in via one of these licensed plate readers. And, you know, the story that they published also like involves the cop being arrested but then they have recordings of the other cops saying to this cop don't worry buddy you're going to get past this

it's gonna like it wasn't that bad for you to stalk the woman so that now that is in my mind you know yes flog is part of the story the other part of the story is the horrible toxic culture of our local police departments right which is something that's been a problem in America for hundreds of years and will probably continue to be But let's even imagine that we did have, you know, a perfectly ethical law enforcement department, local police and federal authorities.

Is there still a privacy concern with flocks selling the data to those people? Yeah, because I think, you know, ethics is kind of a little floats in kind of a gray area, right? Ethics is more of a philosophy than like a fact, like mathematics. You know, you do your calculation and it's either ethical or it's not. And so even a police officer who is acting in a means they think is entirely ethical may not be appropriate, right? So you could have a police officer who genuinely believes that, let's just say that Donald Trump's vision for America is the only way to save our country. Let's assume that that's what the police officer believes. And so therefore, in that mind view, it would be ethical to try to track any person who's going to an opponent's rally to see if maybe you can get them off the streets because they're interfering in the right direction for America.

See what I'm doing? So, you know, the problem is, is you create a tool of this level of power and your security measures don't work. Your laws are insufficient. and we're just throwing it to the general ethics of the fox guarding the henhouse. I mean, that doesn't really seem like a recipe for success. And it's so problematic at so many levels that what's interesting is we are actually seeing more and more jurisdictions being like, we can't regulate this technology. We just need to ban it, which is why Vermont, you know, very progressive state,

actually starting July 1st of next year, they're banned in that state altogether. But then on the other hand, we have Governor Abbott from Texas saying no more state money for ALPRs. You're not deploying them anywhere else. Another person I wouldn't necessarily say is like in the Vermont mindset, Ron DeSantis and Florida is saying no more using these things on state roads and highways. So we're seeing a lot of people from very different political perspectives landing on more of a ban approach because they're saying, you know what, this technology is not safe to use now. it hurts people's privacy. And if it's bad now, imagine what it's going to look like in five years. When the technology is more powerful, it's deployed more widely. And AI is doing things that are predicting AI is going to be doing in five years. Right. Flok is clearly the company that's

innovated here in the horrible business practice, but they're not going to be the last. And certainly, they'll be more in the future unless we stop it. It is very interesting that it's that bipartisan. What do you credit that to? Because, Certainly there's plenty of right-wing Republicans who've been okay with other forms of mass surveillance, right? Yeah. So the way that I look at it, which I think is so interesting, is you have people from all across a political spectrum, all kind of landing in this place where they're like, we don't like

flak, we don't like license plate readers, we don't like mass government surveillance, but they do it for very different reasons. So libertarians, for example, they're the government intruding in the people's private lives, that is libertarians' red line. So they're going to be opposed right, right out of the gate. People who are MAGA adherents, when they look at this, they're like, that's what the deep state looks like. That's what we've been talking about. That's our problem. More traditional conservatives who are very much in favor of smaller government, view government watching everyone everywhere they go is big government, the opposite of where they want to come out. People are more

progressive, they kind of have a dual end. On the one hand, they're very aware of the groups that have traditionally been the targets of surveillance, persons of color, certain religious and ethnicities, low-income communities, and they're like, the more surveillance, the more these groups are going to be targeted. I also think they look at the person in the White House and they say this person has authoritarian tendencies. It worries me in his hands. And even people in the political center, the people who aren't engaged, you're like, why are you tracking everywhere I go. I'm not a criminal. You have no suspicion about me. That's, that's itchy. And so you have all of these people from all of these different perspectives and different reasons still landing on the same

conclusion. And that is the basis for not only for the nonpartisanship here, but how overwhelming the opposition is to these technologies. And so on the other side, though, what is the coalition that's putting them in place? Because obviously, they're very widespread. And, you know, the the coalition to take them down feels like an insurgency, right? So what are the cultural and social and political forces that say yes to this and that make them hard to, that make flock cameras hard to remove? Right. So I think it's two things. One, it's the companies trying to sell them. They are extremely powerful and very well resourced. Flack itself is worth, depending on where you look at, $8 to $8.5 billion.

Okay. Another company in this industry, Axon, if you're familiar with that name, that's the Taser company. That's the leading body-worn camera company. They make flock look like a tiny corner-year-street bodega compared to Axon. They're another company in the industry. Another one you may have heard of Motorola is in the industry. And so you have these big companies using these multi-million dollar advertising.

advertising and marketing budgets to sell their product. Who are they targeting police departments? Now, the police departments, they love tools. They love things that help them go after the bad guy, and they're being told by these companies that that's precisely what their technologies do. I would put a pin in the fact that they don't actually do what these companies are saying they do. But, you know, the police largely view their job as getting the bad guy, not protecting constitutional rights.

I do want to point out there are some police departments that do take their constitutional responsibilities very seriously. So I don't want to take what too broad of a brushstroke. But by and large, police are focused on getting the bad guy. And when these companies come with their slick marketing and with their pre-existing relationships with police, you know, Axon comes into a room. They're like, hey, remember us from the tasers and body cameras you own?

How would you like our latest product, automatic license plate meters? Right. And so they're kind of all in. And so that is the force that we're up against. But fortunately, you know, to be completely honest, we're winning right now and we intend to keep winning. Okay, great. Well, but I'll add to that that police departments have a huge amount of political power.

That's why so many city budgets are predominantly made up of, you know, police salaries and police are better paid than anybody else because the, you know, police unions and the police departments overall have figured out sort of a method across the country to get their way. and to beat any political opposition to dissimission. And so I imagine that that's, you know, a big part of what makes this successful, right? That, like, in take a random city, Cincinnati or whatever, the police department puts the cameras up and, you know, nobody else really gets to say so, right? It's very hard to tell the police department no to anything. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right.

They are extreme. The police departments and police use. unions are extremely powerful politically. And it is, you know, I've been doing this work for 12 years at the ECLU. They are a worthy opponent when I am trying to protect civil rights and civil liberties. But why is this different right now? Because you are having local city council meetings who, you know, on their best night ever, 12 people from the community show up.

And they have a hearing on flock. And there's more than 100 people in the room. And they're loud and they're educated. and they're against the ALPRs, and they are pretty clear to their elected officials that if you're not going to listen to us this time, we will find someone else who will. And it takes a lot of people power

to get elected officials more afraid of their constituents than they are of the police and the police unions, but on this issue, we have arrived there. That is very good news. And we'll get into that more. I want to ask, and by the way, I love that you're reminding us of the opposition to this periodically throughout the conversation. I want to ask first, though, you said that the company is lying about what it says the technology can do to the police departments.

What did you mean by that? Yeah, so in terms of its effectiveness, so there's two kind of arguments for license play readers. And they're all built around starting by creating massive fear of bad people. I joke about it, even though it's not particularly funny, that whenever I'm in like hearings with the police, there's always two people who they say if we don't use these technologies are going to run rampant. Murderers and people who hurt children. So like they're trying to build up maximum fearing people. But their arguments that these are public safety advancing technologies are very weak when you actually look at the data behind them. And so let me go into the two areas there.

The first is any claims that these technologies actually deter crime. They don't. Surveillance technologies have been studied for decades. And what we have found, what researchers have found, is that they actually don't deter bad conduct. There are two exceptions. Car thefts and public parking lots and to a lesser degree on public transportation. But other than those, they don't deter crime.

And I think we actually intuitively understand this. I mean, one, we understand that if someone sees a can't, camera in front of them and they're looking to rob someone, they'll go around the corner and rob someone, right? That's not deterring it. That may be displacing it slightly. But even more than that, it doesn't even really displace, right? Because think about the number of videos that you have seen online and on the news of someone

committing a crime. Well, if being watched, being filmed was a deterrent to bad conduct, we sure wouldn't see so many of those videos. Right. Ligger stores wouldn't get robbed, right? Because they all have cameras. They all have cameras. Because if you're like one and done, we're all safe.

So that's not happening. But the other area that to me is actually more interesting because it's a bit of a revelation for me is the idea that these technologies don't actually help the police close more cases, finding the stolen car, finding the person driving the car who's wanted. Now, that seems a little bit counterintuitive, right? Because we know that these license plate readers will spot a stolen car from time to time. So how does that work out?

And where I got to this, interestingly, was a study that was done using FBI crime data for Atlanta, Georgia. And what they did this was, I think the Atlanta Press Collective was the name of the organization that did it. They looked at FBI crime data for Atlanta both before and after the rollout of two mass surveillance technologies, ring doorbells and more than 5,000 FLPRs. And what they found was the case closure rates before and after they rolled out these technologies were the same. Now, that seems surprising, right? How could they be the same? But what it actually indicates is not that the ALPRs aren't finding the car of interest

to police, but that that car would have been found anyway. So really what we're giving up, we're not giving up, you know, doing the thing Benjamin Franklin warned us against doing. We're giving up our privacy and liberty for a little more safety, which never really works out for people. But what it turns out is we're not actually getting more safety. Maybe we're catching the person a few hours or a day earlier than we would have. But we're not actually catching someone we wouldn't otherwise have caught. And there's an interesting example that Flack did of this in their PR machine. Flack has a tendency to treat every privacy concern as a PR problem.

So I'm sure you're very familiar with that horrific. shooting that happened last December at Brown University, the mass shooting on that campus, then the person went up and murdered the MIT professor. Well, after that happened, Flock went to the airways and said, our license plate reader helped identify the car of that shooter. So we were an integral part of capturing this dangerous person, right? And in fact, Flock's reader did identify the person's car. But what Flock leaves out is when they found that person a couple of days later, they were dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a New Hampshire storage facility. So they were going to catch that person anyway. The smell would have given the

person away in 72 hours max. Yeah. Locke is claiming that it helped catch that person. No, you didn't. You identified a car of someone who was going to be found dead anyway. And so this is kind of the pressidigitation trick of flock and these other companies. They are trying to sell their product as a way of helping police close cases they otherwise wouldn't have closed, and the data just doesn't support that line of reasoning. Well, and if there's been this sort of massive natural experiment in a place like Atlanta where suddenly there's thousands and thousands of surveillance cameras, pretty major change to the law enforcement picture in a city, right?

When all of that comes in the span of a year or two, if the case closure rate doesn't actually go up, then yeah, what exactly is the sales pitch to the public? Like, surely, mass surveillance on that scale would lead to some numerical change in the amount of cases closed. And that's not even the number of cases like convicted, right? That would just be the number of, you know, perps who got the cuffs on them. But that doesn't mean they found the right person

that it's going to, you know, stand up for a D.S. but even the rate of we found somebody to pin it on didn't even go up. Yeah. And that's what's so hard. So imagine the people in Atlanta, right? They're like, we don't like being watched everywhere we go like we're criminals because we've done nothing wrong. And Atlanta responds and says, we need these technologies to keep you safe. And the people do their research and they say, but the data shows it's not making me any safer.

And here's the disappointing thing. The government of Atlanta doesn't believe the data, or they don't want to believe the data, or they're so invested in the marketing in the fact that they've already bought 5,000 of these cameras, they don't want to admit it. And by the way, the guy you founded Flock went to Georgia Tech, which is a sweetheart school in the state of Georgia. So they are so bought into the initial narrative that they adopted that it's hard to move them off of them. And I would just ask them, please look at the data and listen to your constituents because they are asking you to do something different than you've been doing.

And listen, we all make mistakes from time to time, right? So, you know, to air is human, but to correct it is divine. Right. So let's try to be, you know, a little bit more humble in saying, you know what, we got it wrong initially, but we can still get it right for tomorrow. You know, I've been wearing glasses pretty much since I came out of the womb. and I can count on one hand the amount of times I've actually replaced them. Of course, I outgrew my womb glasses pretty quickly.

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you know? So say goodbye to that scratched up there that's done its job. Upgrade today with Zeni. Go to zennie.com slash podcast and use code Podcast 15 for 15% off your first order, plus free shipping on all U.S. orders over $65. The style sell out, so don't don't sit on it. That's z-e-n-n-i.com slash podcast. Promocode, podcast 15. So if the politicians who are approving these things, they would want to see, you know, more convictions or a crime rate drop, they're not receiving a benefit, right? Who is receiving a benefit? Obviously, flock is, because they have the contract and they're going to receive money. But is it just that, you know, what makes it attractive for the government to get at all?

Is it just that like the cops literally enjoy having the option? They're like, hey, we like being able to do the search. It doesn't actually help us do anything better, but it makes our lives a little bit easier, you know? And so we don't want to give it up because it's a goody that we like literally just find pleasurable to use on a day-to-day basis. Is that what's going on? I mean, yes, to some extent the police like these technologies

because it saves them a little bit of effort. Now, I would argue. They're lazy. They're lazy. Well, some of them are. Some of them are. But, you know, the thing is, is that you can also use these technologies to create false leads where you're spending time and resources going after people who it turns out have done nothing wrong. Right. I mean, in Los Angeles, where you are, Adam, the LAPD canceled its Flock contract because it was

finding that nearly one in three cars flock told it to pull over for being stolen were, in fact, stolen. one and three, right? So you can actually lose a lot of resources by chasing these technologies. But to your question about the benefit, what I actually think is going on is it's not that the politicians are pursuing a benefit as much as they are trying to avoid something negative, which is they fear that if they turn down one of these technologies, when the narrative is just being pumped out and pumped out that they keep people safe, that they will be blamed by police for being. soft on crime and that if only you had bought our license plate readers, that person wouldn't have been killed. That child wouldn't have been hurt. And so I think that politicians here are in the

business or were in the business of trying to avoid a worst case scenario. But there's only one worst case scenario for a politician than being labeled soft on crime and that is losing their jobs at the voting booth. Right. That is their number one issue for a lot of them. And so we are seeing a lot of politicians saying, you know what? My worst case scenario is starting to appear on the other side. My constituents are extremely mad. And I don't want to get thrown out of office. Now, the one thing I would say is, I don't want to undercut all politicians. They are many politicians who are strongly against mass surveillance, but who are just afraid to take that position. And when they look around their communities now, what they are saying is my constituents actually have my back on this.

So I can stand up. I can assert my objection. I can be brave. So I don't want to say that every politician who's coming out against flock and ALPRs and there are tons of them now are doing it out of some self-preservation goal. Some of them are now just feeling brave enough to stand up because their communities are standing behind them. So just talk a little bit about the political dynamics that cause them to have to give in. I'm starting to get the picture now. This sounds like a case of a private business, like sort of parasitizing, becoming a parasite on the government in the same way as like a military contractor.

Like the military contractors figure out, oh, well, you know, we get the right contacts with the Air Force and, you know, here's how the system works. We figure out a way to sell these things and suddenly we're able to sell them a screwdriver for $10,000 or whatever it is, right? And that's like, it's the old Eisenhower military-industrial complex thing, right? It's like the company figures out a way to manipulate the system of government

in order to get what it wants and the taxpayer puts the bill and nobody really benefits other than the company and maybe, you know, some middle manager at the Army who is getting a free, you know, beer coozy or like, you know, a couple of baseball tickets or whatever. I can imagine the same thing happening

in a local police. department where these companies go, well, who has the most power locally? Oh, it's the police department. If we can get the individual cops to like the product, either because we're so buddy-buddy with the guy who does the purchasing or, well, you know, we're giving them some benefit they like or maybe, hey, they just want to, it makes it easier for them to attract their ex-girlfriends and they enjoy that. Then that is like a political force that the company can use against the town. And by the, when you talk about the police saying that the politician is soft on crime, like that's literal.

I have been at literal community meetings in Los Angeles where my local elected official made a, you know, a good faith policy decision of, hey, we're going to change, we're going to stop sweeping homeless encampments because those don't actually, that doesn't actually help, you know, cut down on homelessness. It's just a waste of time and money. And then the literal cops will tell community. members, oh, well, you're, you know, your politician, they won't let me do my job anymore. And so you should really go yell at them because that's, it's their fault.

Like, literally cops will, like, campaign against politicians, like, on, in the line of duty, they'll do, I've seen it happen. And so, like, the fear that politicians have of the cops is really real. And the company can exploit that to get themselves a big, fat contract. That's the dynamic. Adam, that was outstanding. if this media thing doesn't work out for you, if you want a job at the ACLU, you got it.

That was outstanding. Oh, thank you. A couple of things you said that I actually want to hit on. So you talked about the military industrial complex. I talk about that we are heading full steam towards a surveillance industrial complex in this country. You're 1,000% right. What is really critically important about this moment

is with the public rising up the way it is, this may be the moment to stop that. And if we do not seize on this moment, we may lose our chance. Just as we have lost our chance on the military industrial complex, and we did it by not listening to Eisenhower when he warned us about it. I am warning America. You are warning America. The ACLU is warning America about the surveillance industrial complex.

And this is the time to really stop it. But you also used another word I want to highlight, which is parasite, right? So it's interesting that you're talking about a company like flock being a parasite in kind of using fear and police. power police advantages in order to basically, again, trade our privacy for their profits, siphon taxpayer dollars to get rich themselves, their venture capital investors. But they're even parasites within the AOPR industry. AXON has been telling its investors that the struggles of one of its competitors is going

through right now, meaning flock, is creating business opportunities for AXON. they're planning to become the parasite for the parasite. Oh. So this is why it is so critically important. I understand why the nation is focusing on flock. I'm actually the one who started the get the flock out hashtag, right? I thought that was funny. I kind of like it.

I also like kiss your ax on goodbye for the same reason. But we can't be overly focused just on flock because a city like Denver, Colorado, a couple of months ago, got rid of its flock contract. and immediately hired Axon. It's six and a half dozen of the other. So it's very important to remember that these companies will cannibalize each other in order to make the maximum money for their investors.

And so we really need to be lashing out, not just against flock, but against automatic license plate readers and mass surveillance in general, because if we got rid of license plate readers tomorrow and the police department said, okay, fine, instead we'll use facial recognition on our surveillance cameras,

everyone in your city to scan you and to track you, not using your car, but your face print, we're not any better off. So we have to really keep our eyes on the bigger prize, which is government master balance as a whole. We have a moment in which we might be able to draw a line in the sand, but we cannot let this moment pass us by. What a great point, Chad. That's not just about flock.

It's about the overall practice of surveilling people in this mass intrusive way by the government and private business in public. Like that's, that is the target. Flock is the worst actor. But, I mean, the fact that AXon is literally saying, oh, Flock's name is becoming mud. That'll be great for AXon. We have a slightly less sinister name.

Well, actually, Axon sounds more sinister. If I had never heard Flock before, Flock, that just sounds like some nice birds. That's a pretty word. But, you know, right? Unfortunately, it sounds very similar to a curse word, which was there a mistake and not, not picking that up earlier, so thank you, Flock.

But yes, Axon is, you're right. The company that brought you the device that will shock you into unconsciousness now brings you automatic license plate readers. Well, so let's talk about the pushback. I mean, you've said we're starting to see it everywhere and that we are winning. Just tell me more about what you're seeing across the country. Yeah, gladly. So on the local level, we have seen more than

200 flock contracts, and a couple from other companies do, but flock contracts canceled in like the last 18 months to two years. In fact, this past August, the cancellation rate in this country was more than three per day being canceled. And local governments don't generally cancel their contracts. So we've seen these uprisings all over the country, and they are incredibly grassroots. There's an organization called DeFlock, who interestingly, flock called a terrorist organization like Antifa. So they're really in a desperate mode, but they've done incredible grassroots organizing in the country. So we're seeing the pushback on the local level. On the state level, last year we saw states going more and more into enacting guardrails, stricter and stricter

guardrails than we've seen in a decade. But that shift is now moving over more towards bans. And I think that is going to be the main subject of conversation in the upcoming legislative sessions in 2027. And like I said, even the federal government, there are a number of bills that are being proposed in Congress to ban the federal funding for any police department that uses ALPRs. And senators, Josh Hawley, and Dick Durbin are doing a subcommittee hearing this Wednesday to talk about the subject to hopefully give that effort a boost. And maybe shockingly proved to the American public that when the entire American public is unified on an issue that Congress can actually pass a law.

Now, that's still more of the theory than in practice, but I would love the Congress, be it this one, are the ones that come in next to actually demonstrate that they are capable of passing a bipartisan law to protect American civil rights and civil liberties. Wouldn't that be wonderful? That would be wonderful.

And you can tell that something is happening when I'm like, oh, fuck, I agree with Josh Hawley's the biggest piece of shit. The biggest piece of shit, and oh, God, it must be that special time of day when the stopped clock is right because, ah, fuck. You know, I mean, like, that guy, that guy is specifically like a bellwether sometimes on issues like this.

Well, you know, I think it's important to point out, you know, when your work is to defend people's rights, especially people who are the most vulnerable, you have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Yeah. You, anyone who will work with you to protect vulnerable people and protect core American principles, like privacy, like jump on in, the water's warm. And so, you know, I think that, you know, while obviously the ACLU and Senator Hawley do have disagreements on many things,

when we're on the same page, we will join arms with anyone in order to protect the American public. And I think that, you know, when Senator Hawley is on the right side of the issue, when DeSantis and Abbott are on the right side of the issue, we should be thanking them for doing the right thing and appreciating them in that moment. And then if we have to fight them tomorrow on something else, we will, we can be respectful about it. And we'll fight as hard as we can on those issues. But I am very, very, I would much rather have those people

on my side than against me, and I'm grateful that they are on this issue. I agree with you. And I think that it is very important for, you know, issue-based groups like the ACLU to take that approach because that's how you fucking make change in the country. you know, like you, other political actors can say, this is my friend and this is my enemy and, you know, divide things up in other ways. But when you're actually trying to, you know, do the work of

the people and protect people's rights and advance democracy, if, you know, this person is going to be your colleague in advancing democracy today, then they are advancing the overall purpose that you fight for. And, you know, you should take, and by the way, there's a lot of other cases. that I believe this in in terms of tech regulation and antitrust reform. When you really get into the issues, you start to realize that you have more friends than you think you did.

And I think our typical way of dividing up politics in this country makes some people suspicious. Oh, hold on a second. Why does this person agree? What it actually means is no, no, no. The issue that you care about actually has a better chance of something happening. Like you are actually building a coalition.

And what I'd say to people who are worried about, you know, fair weather political friends is like, hey, if you are able to make a little bit of headway on one issue that serves your overall political purposes, you got to look at it as that's your side winning, you know? You got some people over your side. Right. I would also say, you know, beyond that also, you know, I think that even when you work with someone, you typically disagree with. You can go from being an enemy to a partner with whom they disagree frequently.

But it gives you an opportunity to sit down and have conversations. And maybe you don't get rid of a bad piece of legislation, but maybe you can make it less bad because they're willing to have a conversation with you about it. So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we are not in the business of fighting for ourselves to make ourselves feel better, to stand up on a soapbox and say, look what I did. We're in the business of protecting real people who are at risk. And if there is something we can do to help them without placing other people at risk in the process, then keep your eye on the prize people.

And that's what we do with the ACLU. We are a non-partisan organization. I don't care what people want to say about it. I work here and I can tell you for a fact that, and you can look at it. We have gotten up and we have defended the most progressive organizations in the country. But we've also defended Rush Limbaugh and the NRA. You know, if people's rights are at stake, we will defend them, we will do it for everyone and hopefully make a better country as a result. I'm really glad that you made that case on this show because I think it's one of the most important things about the ACLU.

And one of the reasons I'm very proud to have supported the organization for many years because that, you know, when you actually care about the practicalities of protecting people's actual rights, you know, A, you can't be choosy about who you work with. You have to really, you know, do everything you can to get the issue across. And then you have to stand, you have to actually stand by that principle. And I think it's wonderful that the organization does both things. I wanted to ask about your point about these canceled contracts. They're canceling contracts across the country. When a local police department cancels a contract with flock, so I assume that means they are no longer paying flock, no money into their coffers, and they're no longer

using their database to search, right? But what happens to the actual cameras? When Flock is putting cameras up around Los Angeles, say, are they putting those up with the help of the city? Or are they putting them up on private property in the city? I live by a church of Scientology property. They got a lot of cameras on private property pointed at public sidewalks, you know? So is it that kind of camera or, you know, or is it the ban that gets the camera finally actually taken down? Yeah.

So it's a good question. So first of all, automatic license plate readers can be put up on something stationed. right? It's typically public property, right? Like a light post or something like that. Or they'll just come in and flock will literally take a public area next to a sidewalk that's owned by the government, put up their own pole with their license by camera. They can also put it on the back of a police car. So, but it's a really good question because you would think when a government cancels a flock contract and says, we're done here, like get out. We're not using you anymore. That that would be the end of the story. But what we've actually found, there have been many instances where, flock continue to run its cameras, even though the contract had been canceled. Because remember, that data is of value to them. And as pathetic as it is, and maybe pathetic's not the right word, sad is probably the right word, there have been localities who have had to go around and put garbage bags on top of their flock cameras to prevent flock from using them, even though they have taken away their permission to do so until they take the cameras out. I mean, that is the height

of irresponsibility. And I should. mentioned, by the way, you know, we mentioned earlier, I said Flock's not a reputable company. Flock goes around and it lies to governments all the time. In Ashkosh, Wisconsin, they asked Flock before they signed a contract. Can you do heat maps? Basically, where everyone has gone over a period of time, Flax said no. The next day the police department found out the answer was yes, and they canceled the contract the next day.

Flock has actually gone around saying that, believe this or not, they partner with the ACLU, that we help them build their system, that we help them pass along New Mexico, I promise you, we do not partner with Flock, but, you know, they go around and they mislead their own potential future customers. They lie them about the efficacy of their product. As long as they get their money, they seem not to care. And even to the point where a customer says, we don't want to work with you anymore, Flach says, that's your opinion. We still want your data. And we're going to keep running these cameras until you literally prevent them from working. This is not. I always always.

say reputable governments do not do business with disreputable companies. Flock is the most disreputable, but I would say any company that trades people's privacy for their profits is by definition not a reputable company. Flock just happens to be more disreputable than the rest. Right. And so, look, this is a company that is doing unethical things, disreputable things. I would say, I'm going to guess sometimes probably illegal things. You also have people fighting back against flock in ways that are at the very least illegal, you know, plenty of very, and let's acknowledge the videos are very fun. People on social media climbing lipos, cutting down flock cameras, which is, you know, a felony in many cases. I'm just a little curious how you at the ACLU,

how do you view those activities? And we'll grant that, you know, the ACLU is a reputable organization, right? Well, thank you. But so, yeah, like this sort of vigilante right? Regardless, I guess I'm curious, what do you think of individuals doing it? You know, if you knew someone who was going to go out and do this, what would you say to them? And then be as a overall phenomenon, how do you view that phenomenon politically? Is that doing work or not in the fight against this organization? It's funny.

Obviously, you're not the first person to ask me this question. And I always end up landing on the same spot. Because I don't really look at the occasions of cutting down the flock cameras individually. I kind of view them collectively because I'm looking at the whole nation all the time. And what really jumps out at me is how much frustration a person must feel to do that. And it's not just frustration with flock and it's not just frustration with the license plate readers. What it really is is frustration with the fact that their elected officials who could do something about it are not doing something about it.

They actually signed a contract with this company, and the people are pleading for them to get the flock out of here, and they're not doing it. So what really hits me isn't necessarily the act of what they're doing or not doing or whether it's illegal or not, but just the enormous frustration that people have, that their government officials who they elected are not protecting them, so they have to take matters into their own hands.

And so what I would say is, the solution for this is for elected officials to start listing their constituents and to stop signing up their local governments or their state governments or their federal governments for the mass surveillance of Americans who have done absolutely nothing wrong. What a great fucking answer, Chad. I think that's exactly the right place to put the focus. Because you've seen, there's a little bit too much debate about the individual, you know, crime that is or is not being committed and blah.

property disrupt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is evidence that something has broken down in our democracy, that this is happening. And the responsibility is with the people who are making the fundamental error that brought us to that place to begin with. And we should put the rest of the debate to the side. So in terms of if people listening to this are in a community that still has flock cameras and they want to do something about it,

what do you suggest? What is the most effective thing to do? I think I know what you're going to say. Show up to a community meeting, city council meeting, and yell and scream into a microphone, right? Is there anything else that they can be doing? Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, and some people dress up in fun costumes like Darth Vader or someone dressed up as a camera. I'm all for that. I love a good cosplay at a city council meeting. Hell yes. So one thing I would tell them to do is actually Google ACLU get the flock. out, and that will take them to a web page we have that are filled with resources about how they

can get involved in a grassroots campaign of their own. It has model bills. It has even a model ordinance for canceling a Flock contract. But, you know, on the local level, there are steps here, right? And what I would say is this. The first step is if you have a contract with Flock or Axon or Motorola or any other company, cancel it. We need to do a reset. So do a reset. It's funny. me, I often say, like, you would never send a football team onto a field and develop the rules of the game at halftime. But that's what a lot of these cities have done and towns have done. They've bought flock, deployed it, and they have no rules governing how they're to be used. So that's crazy. So let's reset, get rid of the contracts, and then it's a three-step process.

The first process is asking, do we want these license plate readers at all? And if the people say no, that's the last step of the process, you don't use them. If for whatever reason the people are insistent, and I don't mean the elected officials, I mean their constituents are insistent on using these license plate readers, the second step is to put rules in place to try to make them as safe as possible. You will never make them safe, but you can put guardrails in place to make them more safe if you are going to go that route instead of banning them. And then the final step, once those rules are in place,

then you pick the company you're going to use. And hopefully it's not one of these nationwide. companies, you can do this just with a small local system, the way they used to do before Flack, that again, not safe, but safer. But you should follow those steps. But the very first step is, like you said, go to the city council meeting, dress as the superhero or super villain of your choice, and say, we want these cameras out of our communities. And once they're gone, now we'll start from where we should have started in the first place, which is ask me what I think about these cameras, and I'll tell you. Right. And I think that goes,

your point of the fact that we are winning this battle, because I think if you were to have a referendum in any city in America and say, do we want flock cameras or not, I think the public is going to probably say 60-40, flock no, right? It's not like there's other forms of law enforcement overreach, stop and frisk in New York, you know, 15 years ago, where, you know, reasonable people could differ or at the very least public opinion needed to be shifted on it, right? Where like you got some people saying, well, I don't know.

I feel safer if blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you have to make the case. No, no, no. This violates people's rights and overall it doesn't help. This is a case where the public really has spoken on this. And this company and the other companies that are trying to push this on us, they are doing so in the face of overwhelming public sentiment

against. And really what we need is the politicians to simply be responsive to the public. And to the extent that they're approving these things, it just means they're not being responsive. It's just a failure of democracy, right? Yeah. And I'll tell you this. There was an interesting article in WIRE this past weekend where they reported, I don't have any independent verification of this, but they reported that flock is starting to offer buyouts to their employees because they're in economic trouble. And what I would say is if we can take down one $8 billion corporation, we can take down others as well. So I would say that if you're a venture capitalist and you're thinking, I'm going to invest in Axon,

I'm going to invest in Palantir. You best be careful because that investment may not be safe in America going forward. And it shouldn't be and it should never have been. Okay. So last question, I know you have to go, but it does make me think. Let's say that all these companies fail. and the capitalist mode of this, you know, completely falls apart. Is there still a worry that you have about a government independently deciding to do this, right?

Is there, you know, to track people in this way? Is there something else that we need to be guarding against beyond, you know, this specific basket of companies? Yeah. So I would say that, you know, the best thing about being a surveillance advocate at the ESU is I'm never going to be out of a job. No matter how good of a job I. do because the technologies are always going to be advancing. Someone's always going to come up with a new idea. And governments, when you have leaders who are afraid of their citizens, as they did in East Germany during the Cold War, China nowadays, and unfortunately, in some places in America,

even right now, there's going to be an effort to roll out more surveillance because surveillance is a very effective way of controlling a population. And so we have to remain on guard at all times the fight will never end. But we also need to recognize opportunities where they exist. We help to create with a lot of other fighters this opportunity. We need to seize on it. But we're never taking our foot off the gas. This fight will continue indefinitely and as well the ACLU.

Thank you so much, Chad. Just tell us one more time where people can find the ACLU's work on this and find the resources that you've made available to them. Yeah, come check us out at ACLU.org, and you can do a specific search for ACLU. or get the flock out, and you'll find specific resources for this fight. Thank you so much for the work you do, Chad. And this has been an awesome conversation. You were great. Thanks, Adam. I appreciate it.

Well, thank you so much to Chad Marlowe for coming on the show. Once again, head to the ACLU's website. If you want to see the work they're doing and support or join in the fight against flock cameras and the fight to save our privacy. If you want to support the show and all the work we do here, please head to patreon.com slash Adam Kahnover. Five bucks a month gets you bonus podcast episodes, our online community, our online book club, we'd love to have you. For 15 bucks a month, I'll read your name in the credits. And, you know, usually I read the newest couple people who've supported. Today, I want to read the oldest names, the people have been supporting me the longest for

honestly years now. I'm so grateful to these folks for helping make the show possible. I want to thank Alan Liska, Antonio LB, Spencer Campbell, Paul Mouk, who I've met in person, Andrew Corliss, David Conover, Beth Breivick, Jim, David Conover, that's my dad, if you were wondering. It really is him. Jim Myers, Conan Kudo, Benjamin Rice, and Rosamund Sturgis. Thank you so much for supporting the show. I'm so grateful to you. When I'm on the road, by the way, I love it when Patreon supporters come up and say hi after the show and let me know you're a supporter. I always give you a big handshake and a hug. I give everybody a handshake

and a hug, but I say an extra thank you to the Patreon supporters who help keep, you know, me alive, honestly, and help make this show possible. So patreon.com slash Adam Conover, I would love to have you. I want to thank my producer, Sam, I'm outman, Tony Wilson, Maddie Schmidt, my engineer, Sam Rogic, everybody here at HeadGum for making the show possible. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time on Factually. That was a hate gum podcast. That was a hate gum podcast.

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