Some More News - Some More News: Everyone Hates Flock Cameras

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Hi. On today's episode of Some More News, we look at those Flock Cameras, why they're everywhere now, why you almost certainly hate them, and why getting to know their CEO will make you hate them even more.Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by David Christopher BellEdited by John ConwayProduced by Jonathan HarrisPost-Production Supervisor - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/join#Flock #FlockCameras #AI For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro at http://DRINKAG1.com/SMN. That’s http://DRINKAG1.com/SMNElevate your summer bedding. Go to https://quince.com/somemorenews for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.Mondays don’t move for anyone. Pre-Alcohol works overnight so you can have a real weekend and still show up sharp. https://ZBiotics.com/MORENEWS, code MORENEWS for 15% off.This year, skip breaking a sweat AND breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at https://mintmobile.com/morenews – Upfront payment of $45 required (equivalent to $15/mo.). Limited time new customer offer for first 3 months only. Speeds may slow above 50GB on Unlimited plan. Taxes & fees extra. See MINT MOBILE for details.Pluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.Chapters:0:00 - Introduction/What’s With These Flock’n Cameras?7:13 - All The Problems With Flock.19:04 - Why Flock Is Way Worse Than You Thought26:30 - Cops Suck. Flock Is Worse.33:57 - Meet The Flock CEO. An Idiot.47:40 - Everyone Hates Flock CamerasSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey there non-Codees. It's a me. A yes, a Coteo. Like and subscribe to it if you want it for the thank you. Anyway, I'm clearly doing well. Been taking a lot of walks, peeing on the sides of businesses to mark them so they belong to me and nobody else. And I was noticing all these flock cameras everywhere. And I was like, could I pee on them? Can my pee reach up there? Would that help get rid of them?

Are there other things I could do instead of P that could get rid of them? Because here's some news. They suck and we all hate them. But I guess we just have to deal with them now. There's no other option, right? Right. We certainly can't do anything about the flock cameras that nobody asked for or wants or likes. And it might be, you know, kind of sort of perhaps violating our constitutional rights.

Which, if that's true, then it would be. downright patriotic to a pee on them. I mean, it would be downright patriotic to oppose them, right? I mean, obviously, I can't get my pee up there yet. Not without some kind of piss extender. Hit me up if you've invented a piss extender, soft pitch for a name off the top of my head, the urinatrix P, P, Pee-Pew, yeah.

But it seems like something should be done about these dystopian cameras that nobody asked for, either with or without urine. I don't care which. I'm not weird like that. Anyway, let's talk about these stupid cameras. Flocker and Law. That's a pretty good title.

Falker in law, flocker and law. It works. We had a few options. I mean, meet the flockers would have worked too. Little flockers isn't as good, but we had options. We had those three options. They made four of those films. Then a spin-off reality TV show that was in

inspired by the films? Sounds like they just stole the idea. Also, the idea is just meeting somebody's parents, but whatever. Man, the first one came out 26 years ago. We're all dying. What is this video about? The waking hell that is our modern civilization,

probably I would bet that that's what it's about on Polly Market. Statistically speaking, that's what our episodes are about. All right, okay, flock cameras. Flock and awe, could have called it that. Flock against flak, could have called it that. But we went with the meet the flockers one. Flock of sea holes.

Like holes you see out of a flock of them. Anyway, here's what we're talking about. According to FBI crime data, a break-in occurs every 26 seconds in the US. Flock license plate reader cameras provide 24-7 protection, detecting passing vehicles with integration to local law enforcement. It can capture license plates and create a unique vehicle fingerprint, recognizing make, model, and key details with precision.

Help protect your neighborhood or business before crime happens. Cool, great, awful. Hey, question, do license plate readers help prevent break-ins? Why start with that stat? They say it will protect neighborhoods before crime happens, but I imagine that's only true if the camera is visible on the property. Here's a study where they looked at security cameras at metro parking lots and found that they have no impact unless they are actively monitored

and more clearly integrated into an explicit surveillance. surveillance state. More on that later, probably, maybe. Regardless, that's not the case with flock cameras, as you saw in that video. Nobody is actively watching for crime, but rather using it to build a database of every car down to small details like the bumper stickers. So that could be helpful after your house is robbed, assuming they use a car, unless these cameras are also scanning faces, which they swear they are not. What I'm getting at is that most people don't want to be victimized in the first place. So it seems like they are trying to appeal to that angle

in order to encourage people to buy a camera in the name of preventing crime when it's actually designed to spy on literally everyone and help cops catch people after they do the crime, assuming they don't just steal a car and then ditch it. But sure, over time, I guess it would deter some crime. That's the idea of a surveillance state. There are cameras everywhere,

watching everybody all the time, so people do fewer crimes. I'm of course willing to accept the idea that flock cameras can reduce crime and can help solve crimes. Because that's what happens when everything you do is monitored. It's called a something topia. I'll look it up later. Those smile you're on camera signs do indeed reduce frowning and help solve frowns.

The same way we'd reduce shoplifting by cutting off everyone's hands, I'm sure it does reduce crime to create a massive database of everyone's license plate and car, and where that car has been every minute of the day. Thanks. And that is literally what flock cameras do. They use something called an automated license plate reader to scan every car they see within 75 feet

and then search for any crimes related to that vehicle before holding on to that data for seven days, according to their website, although it was 30 days until everyone got mad. It's what's referred to as a drag net, in that it's a real drag that uses the internet and is also a widespread and catch-all measure designed to nab specific people.

Like, you know, a dragnet that fishermen would use because it gets all the fish, but sure, you'll also get some turtles and dolphins. No biggie. Those turtles shouldn't mind unless they have something to hide under those shells of theirs. Hey, fun fact, stop and frisk is also a dragnet tactic, and that went great.

And while flock was trying to see, sell this to private consumers, they soon realized that it was, of course, way easier to pitch their products to cops. Flock Safety has raised over a billion dollars and now has roughly 12,000 customers, again, mostly police departments, who, as you can imagine, love it and want to smooch it to death. Sorry, shoot it to death. That's what they do. But it's not the only thing they do.

They also love invading people's personal privacy. See, as I said, Flock swears that their cameras don't track faces, just cars. Thing is, assuming that's true, they don't really need to, right? Or a car culture country dependent on cars? If you know who a car is registered to or have seen a person getting in that car, well, then you probably can guess who is driving it at any given moment. Which of course means that this database of cars and their exact locations is also a database of people and their exact locations.

People who, you know, didn't do a crime. But hey now, you know, hey now, police are professionals, so I'm sure this won't be a big problem. Cut to clips of it being a big problem. What? No. Yes, the new Bedford Police Department is trying to figure out if one of their officers was using the flock camera system

to track her ex-girlfriend. Intentious debate about flock cameras moved into high gear, tonight after Shively police arrested one of their own. He's accused of using that very technology to track a woman. 717 times. That's the amount of searches. Haynes City Police says Officer Christopher Goodson

used these flock cameras across the city he was sworn to protect to keep virtual eyes on his ex-wife. She accessed the computers, the LPR cameras, to find information and track her boyfriend's ex-wife. Prosecutors say that Sergio Rodriguez was using information that he had access to because he was a police officer. Now he was using flock license plate readers to track his ex-wife.

Kentucky police officer accused of using a flock cameras more than 2,000 times to track his ex-girlfriend. Those are all different stories. And the only reason we stopped showing you examples is because we got tired of feeling sad. There have been at least 50. recent examples of police officers using flock cameras for personal reasons, mostly stalking exes. 18 of those cases were in Georgia alone, because I guess they're all perverts there. That is why they call it the peach state, after all, those sickos.

Why do you think so many people are on the midnight train to it? I mean, they have a city called Coming. Watch it. It's a... ...it city in Georgia. Anyway, how shocking! I am so shocked that police. police officers were such dirt bags about just this one thing and not any other thing. But hey, they're getting in trouble for it. So that's good. Problem solved. Nobody else has to worry

unless you break the law. But of course, thank goodness, no one would do that because we live in a country with really good and fair laws run by really good and smart people who we like, who definitely aren't also breaking laws without a care in the fucking world. Just try not to think about that too hard or look at this headline we just put up about cops using flock cameras to track a woman across state lines for having an abortion. And we're fine. We're fine. Just don't think about it. You're thinking about it, aren't you? About how our country is run exclusively by people who look and act like they would stalk their ex, just the guiltiest human beings in the world. And then you start to think about, I don't know, fucking ice and how information from flock cameras can

be shared with federal agencies. Because while Flock doesn't work directly with ICE, the cops do. That's the thing. Flock seems really focused on reassuring us that they don't keep our data. Here's a very friendly video assuring us of that. There's a common misconception that Flock shares data

on behalf of our customers. The reality is we will always have customers be in control of their data. They can choose to share data one-to-one with an agency statewide or choose not to share it all. So friendly, very reassuring tone, not at all spoken like somebody who plans on eating me. First of all, please don't eat me. Second of all, we aren't actually concerned about flock keeping their customers' data, which obviously we hope you don't do and you say you don't.

We're concerned about the customers keeping the customer's data, because the customers are COPS using the data to stock people. It's like if you made a company that sold missiles to children and put out a video like, nobody worry, we're not firing these missiles ourselves, as if that's what we're all concerned about. Because obviously, even if Flock says it's not sharing your data, that doesn't mean the cops aren't. They can hide behind the idea that they are this impartial collection tool or add in a button where cops have to promise not to use the technology to track women having abortions, which is what they actually did. But literally, the only thing flock cameras are designed for is stalking civilians.

It's like how Q-tips are like, well, we designed these to fit perfectly in your ear, but you're not supposed to put them in your ear. Don't you dare put them in your ears, wink, wink. Dude, I'm shoving so many in my fucking ears. That's all they're good for. I like to see how far I can stick them in there. One time, I got one so far in that I forgot how to read for an entire wonderful day. But now, Cody Brain Better, hello father.

And this isn't even a right-left political thing. Obviously, all you conservatives who are watching this and who definitely exist and love this show are going to be concerned that the Biden crime family and fascist Obama and future president aOC are going to get their hands on flock data and use it to take away. meat or football, unless you're mad about football this week, so I don't know, above-ground pools, whatever you're mad about. But even ignoring the looming threat of Alexandria, Hussein Cortez, this is creating a massive database of cameras that everyday people have already figured out how to access. A few weeks ago, using a commercial search engine, I very easily found the

administration interfaces for dozens of flock safety can. I shared this information with 404 Media and with John Gaines help, that number quickly grew to nearly 70. None of the data or video footage was encrypted. There was no username or password required. These were all completely public-facing for the world to see, and some of them still are. You don't have to be an expert to find and gain access to this. You don't even have to type anything in to see every single person, vehicle, and activity that took place in these locations in the last 31 days. Wow, that seems really bad, right? To be flocked and balanced, flock claims this was due to a, quote,

limited misconfiguration with a very small number of devices and it has since been remedied. But of course, these issues keep coming up because, of course, people will find a way to hack these things. So I can't stress enough, the cops, or I guess anyone, have the power to track your every movement. And no matter who you are, you should probably not want that. Hopefully, you see how this is just generally bad. It's one of those Pandora genies you can't easily cram back into the box bottle. That moment in a movie where they plug in Skynet and swear they'll only use it for good things. And these cameras are already everywhere.

There are 120,000 flock cameras already out there and counting. If you live in even a mid-sized town, you probably are being monitored by one of these. And you might be thinking, well, how is this different from the tech hellscape we currently live in? There are already cameras everywhere, after all. No doubt the government can spy on our phones anytime they want and track our movement every second of the day. It's understandable to think that. But it's also the exact thing they are hoping you would think. Because, spoilers for after the break, this is actually way,

worse than what we all think surveillance is like in this country. After that big, beautiful break, we will talk about how this is legal, even though it shouldn't be, and how we as a country became accidentally conditioned to the assumption the government is already spying on us, and it's just no big deal. After these ads, which I promise will not be used to stalk you, probably.

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The calendar, it's alive! All those good habits I formed in the summer are going out the window, and now the days, of which September, half-thirty, are staring me down with threatening eyes. These fire department calendar hunks are not the bright-eyed cherubs I first hung up on my wall in January. These fall hunks got hands! Fortunately, I've got one habit that survived the shifting seasons,

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of AG1 NextGen or AG1 Pro at drinkag1.com slash SMN. That's drinkag1.com slash SMN. Next year, I'm just gonna buy a 2027 SpongeBob calendar, So if anything weird happens, it'll at least be, it's at least gonna be fun, you know. He kind of laughs like that, right? Idgy one. I just want to see the inside of your homes,

just a little bit. Just show me the door locks and any high-value electronics. I swear, I will only use the photos of your door locks and high-value electronics for good reasons. Also, welcome back to the internet video show. I'm your wacky cyber host surfing at you with zany questions about flock cameras and our Fourth Amendment rights. That's the one that protects us from unlawful searches and seizures, meaning that the government can't just look around our homes or cars or even our weird pervert sheds without some kind of formal legal notice,

otherwise known as a warrant. Doesn't matter how many audible porn sounds are coming from that shed, they don't come in without a warrant or paying the cover charge for the jack-and-shack. Watch out for the jack-and-shack! Speaking of cops masturbating, before the break, we mentioned how a whole lot of cops seem to love flock cameras to exclusively spy on their exes,

and how flock cameras have enabled the police, or any government agency they work with, or, I guess, anyone in general, to track and remember the location of everyone's car, even if they didn't commit a crime. And how you might be wondering how this technology is any different from the kind of wizardry already used by our government.

After all, we've been jack-jawing about government surveillance for a long time now, from films like The Conversation, all the way to films like Enemy of the State. Only in films, and just those two. Remember that? Remember 1998's Enemy of the State, directed by Tony Scott, which imagined a world where John Voight could order Jamie Kennedy,

Jack Black, and Seth Green to use satellites to track every movement Jason Lee makes, so that he could be assassinated by Scott Kahn and Jake Busey, and then Will Smith finds out about it and teams up with Gene Hackman to trick Tom Seismore into spoilers, saving the day with mobster rage? That movie's stacked! I didn't even mention that Regina King, Gabriel,

Berne, and Lisa Bonaire there too. Everyone wanted to be an enemy of the state. A film, I swear, is relevant to this video. Because that movie imagined a present-day situation, where a rogue NSA agent uses spy technology to cover up a personal matter, and very specifically cast these Gen X dudes as his little hacker team, seemingly to point out that pretty much any old jackass could be watching us for any reason. Except even that movie assumed they'd at least be working for the NSA and weren't just

some cop you went to high school with. That movie rules, don't get me wrong, the quality of enemy of the state is not in question here, but that film, and films like it, accidentally buttered us up for the current situation we find ourselves in. For one, it did the classic Bad Apple thing where the technology can fall into the wrong hands, but is ultimately treated as an inevitability, to the point that even the ending is like this cute bit where Gene Hackman is playfully spying on Will Smith's home. Brill, you are one sick man.

Why would he write Wish You Were Here in the Sand Like That? At least write 86 Will Smith, topical for slapping Chris Rock, topical. It happened a while ago, whatever. But wish you were here? They barely know each other in the film. It's just, it's weird that Gene Hackman is acting like they're really good friends and that he wishes Will Smith will come hang out with him at the mystery beach. This is getting away from me, and I will be the first to admit it, so I just did.

This is getting away from me. The point is that we spent our pre and then very post 9-11 years making movies in which which the government spies on people using borderline sci-fi technology. In this same film, they like scan a shopping bag and make a 3D rendering in order to determine what was purchased, which is absolute nonsense in 1998, and absolutely something that Sam Altman would claim that Chat GPT can do now. Chris? Yeah.

Can you rotate a 75 degrees around the vertical, please? What do you think it is? It looks a lot bigger than the tape. Maybe it's Lava Chicken. You get it? You get it? You get the joke? Jack, lava chicken.

Ender Dragon. Biomes. So many films were like this, not to mention TV shows like the X-Files and 24 that pumped us full of conspiratorial shadow government surveillance. And perhaps it just got us all used to the idea that the government is going to spy on us, and there's nothing we can do about that. I mean, I guess it's fine, right? They've been tracking us this whole time, and nothing bad has happened.

It was a really gradual thing. Like a little after this film, we got the first Charlie's Angels, where the villain's plan was to hijack sinister technology that allows anyone to be tracked using their cell phone. Eight years later, post 9-11, we weren't even scared of that anymore, but had moved on to imagining a world where we kicked this power to evil AI in the film Eagle Eye. We just accepted the fact that we were constantly monitored.

But, you know, at least we weren't giving that power to robots. Right? Am I right or am I wrong? Two week and a half ago, I got surrounded by cops boxed in right there in a $155,000 range rover gold that I was testing. And it all started because flock cameras have been essentially, I was told, tracking me for a couple days. I kept disappearing into my garage. Someone in LA at some point probably made an error inputting information into the system as a stolen plate. It got amplified immensely by flocked cameras.

and AI. The AI did not read the edge case of like, why are they two missing numbers? There's just some of the numbers that match. Okay, disregard and it flagged it is stolen and then all of a sudden the cops surrounded me and my wife and they thought that the plate was stolen. Thank God my kids weren't with me. Dude got eagle-eyed and he's being really nice about it, really nice. I wouldn't be. The thing about these movies is that while they imagined a present day situation where a robot or the government could just plaque a keyboard and have access to every camera and know exactly where you are. At the time, they weren't considered very realistic.

And in fact, that kind of technology was very, very new. After all, before the internet, you'd have to go physically tap into any security system in order to exploit it. And things like closed circuit camera systems require warrants to access. That's why flock is different. Yes, cameras have always been everywhere, but in specific places and run by private entities that didn't communicate with each other and use AI. to track you. But as we hit the era of the internet and ring cameras and now flock,

these dystopian visions from 10 or 20 years ago are finally becoming realized. Now and only now can someone truly create a mass surveillance network where anyone anywhere, a Batman, a spider man, a just some guy man can tap in without a warrant and track you. And this is, by the way, how the flock CEO Garrett Langley is selling it. You literally can commit a crime in City A and drive a City B, and they're like, oh, who are you? You leave State A to State B. They're like, oh, we have no record of you.

This entire problem is a data problem. These cities have not historically worked together. They moved to the cloud less than 10 years ago, five years ago. And so one of the biggest criticisms of flock is that we create this national network of data that allows local law enforcement to work together. It's a uniquely American problem. So many things to unpack there. First of all, of course that's what he looks like.

He's the living embodiment of an HOA. Second of all, of course his last name is Langley, the fucking CIA spook. He also makes the point that America has way more police forces than other major countries and concludes that the problem isn't too many cops, but that they need to share a surveillance network. Also, they do share information, right? But every state has different laws. And so we also designed it this way to reflect that. That's why we don't want people who gamble or perhaps get an abortion.

in a state where it's legal to get arrested for it in a state where it's not. But he's selling this massive surveillance network is like, great news! You see how this is wildly worse than even the most paranoid speculation we had before, especially since, as we've mentioned, this is commercially accessible to anyone. As we said, flock sells to anyone. Your homeowners association can track you now,

your schools or your employer, A single rich asshole could presumably track people, or, you know, your local cops. They all have their own little enemy of the state network, a bunch of little John Voitz. Like, yeah, the government can and probably has, and in fact, definitely has done shady things to spy on us. But they should, like, work for it. We shouldn't create a giant database where they can actually just plaque a few keys and track us down. something a lot of movies seem to think was already happening, which is good news, actually.

Because while these movies made it look like that time had already passed, the reality is that we get to decide right now if we want this. Or rather, we get to decide if we're going to put up with this. And so going back to that whole Fourth Amendment stuff, this is what's currently being hashed out when it comes to flock cameras, thanks to various lawsuits. Unfortunately, as it stands, the lower courts have ruled that flock cameras do not violate our rights. This was determined when the citizens of Norfolk, Virginia, sued over the 176 flock cameras operating in that city.

The court ruled that so long as these cameras are on public roads, then there's no rule against them. After all, we have traffic cameras already, right? So it's a little sticky, much like my jack and shack. But it should be noted that part of that ruling, was considering whether or not this counted as mass surveillance. Quote, the court must conclude that the limited number of photographs available on a 21-day rolling basis from 75 camera clusters in Norfolk does not track the whole of a person's movements, nor does it provide an intimate window into where citizens drive, park, visit, linger, sleep,

or patronize. And even assuming that a citizen in the top 5% of those most captured, passes by two or three or even five or 10 ALPR cameras on a given day, the ALPR system is not like an ankle monitor attached to that citizen or even to their car, as the data does not consistently reveal where trips started, where they ended, or where a driver stopped in between. That's important to note because it implies that there is a number of flock cameras that would violate our Fourth Amendment rights. And in fact, the judge's ruling went on to acknowledge that, at some point, too much ALPR surveillance could absolutely violate our Fourth Amendment rights. But wasn't sure how many cameras that would take and ultimately concluded that they hadn't exceeded that number in Norfolk. So, great.

Thanks, Judge. It seems like we need an answer to that question. How many cameras is too many cameras? What is the cap here? Are the individual states and cities going to decide? Here's a separate case unrelated to Flock cameras where it was ruled that the Baltimore police couldn't use an aerial surveillance system because that would require a warrant. So we know there is a cap, but while we're trying to figure that out, Flock is just going to keep expanding. Their CEO has already decided that Flock is totally constitutional as if we'll take his word on it, and the company is currently testing a brand new AI system where police will be able to track people even in.

if they don't have a license plate or are even suspected of a crime. In this new system, they can just give the computer a fucking prompt, tagging a specific place and or span of time, and it'll just tell them who has been there in that timeframe. Just kicking police investigations to grok. Cool.

Really think about what this is going to do. For starters, it's going to inshittify the act of fucking policing as if it's not already shit to create dumber. and lazier cops. Like, listen, cops suck. We've discussed that in the past from many angles. But they are at least human beings

who can allegedly understand nuances in the law. Imagine a world where you get a speeding ticket for every time you go over the limit, no matter if you're pulled over or not. Or get a ticket for someone else's car. Or get pulled over because a flock camera said you have no insurance and so a cop pulls you over

and when you show the cop the insurance, you do indeed have, the cop gives you a ticket anyway because the flock camera said so. Oh wait, that last one literally already happened. Even taking the stupid lazy cops out of the equation, imagine a world where you're dealing with an AI chat bot to try and fight that ticket in court and explain they made a mistake.

We've made movies about these dystopian bureaucracies. We know it sucks. Before we start, I'd just like to explain. Max de Costa, violation of Penal Code 2219. Today, it bus stop 34B. Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. You see, I believe there's been a misunderstanding. Immediate extension or parole by a further eight months.

Wait, what? No, no, no. As I said at the start, nobody wants this, except for lazy and stupid cops and the corporations who make this crap. I cannot stress enough, cops suck, man, and the fact that they are humans is often part of the reason they suck and are racist. But you know what else is racist? Facial recognition technology.

And often, the CEOs making this stuff, and the human cops who will still be in charge of this stuff. This won't solve bad policing. As we're already seeing, it'll make it worse. Although they might be too busy stalking their exes to do the racism anymore, but I'm, I'm sure they'll find the time. It just doesn't work. Security cameras in general don't really bring down crime all that much, at least not compared to what we're sacrificing in return. Of course, if you ask the CEO Flock, he will disagree with me for some reason.

Here's what he says to people pointing out that this will create a new surveillance state. You know, look, I think everyone in this room probably has a cell phone. And what if I told you that someone with mediocre computer software skills could build a product that tracks your exact location in real time down to a few feet? Because all of you use Google Maps and Uber and any device that has access to location. And so I think about the two. tooling that we ask our local law enforcement to use, and we give them a weapon, a gun, a taser, yet we're afraid to give them a camera that reads a license plate on a public road.

I'm not saying that it's not a choice. I'm just saying that for me, the trade-off is, I don't know how many more 11-year-old girls need to be kidnapped or human trafficking rings, or silver alerts, or amber alerts. We have to go through before we say enough is enough. You see how he's appealing to the exact same apathy that a lot of those movies have accidentally or maybe even intentionally nourished. Surveillance state, everyone can track us with our phones anyway. And if we trust cops with tasers and guns that they definitely use responsibly, why not give them the ability to track us everywhere we go? It's worth it, you know, because of all the crime I want you to be scared of.

That TED talk is titled, Can a Camera on Every Corner Make Us? safer. And I probably know what his answer is. After all, a camera on every corner will certainly make him richer and thus probably safer. We've done so many episodes about how the fear of crime in this country has allowed politicians and corporations to propagandize to people. And this guy is using the entire playbook. The violent crime rate has absolutely plummeted since the 90s, but that fear hasn't stopped people from justifying brutal police tactics and an ever-increasing paranoia at the cost of our freedoms and even just basic convenience. To the point that we're already used to walking into a store and seeing every product

locked behind plastic. Do we really want to start getting used to seeing flock drones in the sky too? The second thing they do is they launch a drone. So just like Adam, launch the drone up in the air. The drone's flying at 400 feet, 65 miles per hour trying to find this white van. Now a camera eventually finds them, drone close over. Now, in a normal reaction, as a law enforcement officer, you have to assume the worst-case scenario. Is this person armed?

Probably. Is the public at risk? Probably. So you come in hot. But with a drone overhead, flying at four hundred feet, the suspect has no idea. Officers can respond with precision and with calmness. Hey, fun fact, that CEO, Garrett Langley, has absolutely no background in policing. He's a tech dude who went to Georgia Institute of Technology because he's a pervert.

and co-founded flock because he got upset about some carjackings where he lived. I'm sorry, not literal carjackings. He was concerned that cars were too easy to break into. He was worried about hypothetical carjackings. Oh wait, hold on, actually, okay. New business. Car jacking shack. Perfect.

So, yeah, I don't think Garrett Langley has ever had to deal with a cop. Not even sure he's seen the wire. His only other big success was starting a subscription service for cars. He just took a word and then combined it with a thing. You can go to his web page, just his resume, and he has a list of startup ideas that include, quote, toilets impacts the whole world, hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Plumbing is tricky though. Also quote, mass consumer company using crypto.

I think he might be. just be an idiot? Just a hollow business idiot who, if you haven't noticed, didn't actually invent anything, but rather took a bunch of inventions we already had, cameras, drones, databases, and then combine them to make something everyone hates. And now his company is worth like a billion dollars. What? Eight billion fucking dollars. Get ready for him to buy blue sky one day, folks, we have our next big tech genius. If I'm being totally honest, this actually pisses me off more than the mass surveillance part. This guy has put zero thought into what he's building.

There's no way he's read studies on how cameras affect crimes or policing. I don't think he's thought about what impact he will have on the world at all. He certainly doesn't have a passion for this. A few years ago, his passion was car subscriptions and toilets and like, crypto scam. There's been zero testing of this system. There's absolutely no promise of how effective it is. It's just some tech startup dip who wants to be the rich guy and will sell any idea to anyone willing to buy it.

It's just, can we not? Can we not put this dipshit in charge of mass surveillance in this country? Do we have to? Aaron Sorkin is just going to have to make another movie about this guy in a few years. Do you really want to have to watch another Aaron Sarkin film? Let's just not. I just I just can't fucking believe this flock guy.

I can't stress enough what a dipshit he seems like. We're about to talk about the massive public pushback to flock. And I want to share what CEO Garrett Langley has to say about that. And this was our first ever press coverage. And I was so proud. I framed this. And my poor mother was like, why are you framing this? And I'm like, because it's a reminder that when you work on a,

important things, some people will disagree and that's okay. It means you should work harder. That's right, kids. When everyone is saying, hey, fuck you. You suck and we hate what you're doing. Then that just means you're working on important things and you should work harder. Ugh. Notice how he said important and not good or necessary. I can't fucking believe this guy is going to have the money and power he has. I can't stress enough how completely hollowing he appears to be, that he framed an article calling him a snitch and thinks it just means he's doing important things. You see this all the time, right? It's how trolls and losers like Elon Musk sleep at night by telling themselves that the more haters they have just means they're really successful. And of course, you know the next step, which is labeling all your haters as fundamentally bad people.

There's an organization called D-Flock, who, uh, semi-well-known now, I guess, of you interested in this stuff, who take a fairly aggressive approach in terms of counting the number of cameras and having a Discord channel where they talk about potential activities to move against flock and stop it expanding. What do you think of that organization and the way they go about their business?

Yeah, so I mean, I think there's really two groups of activists. You've got organizations like the ACLU and the EFF who take an above-a-border approach to fight for their point of view. And thankfully, we live in a beautifully democratic, capitalistic country where we can fight in court. And I have a lot of respect for those groups because they have reasonable debates and we follow the law. And then unfortunately there's terroristic organizations like D.Flock,

whose primary motivation is chaos. They are closer to Antifa than they are anything else. Yeah, there it is. He's talking about a website called D. Flock, which simply maps out where flock cameras are. And he thinks that that is terrorism. Like, Antifa? See, you can't surveil the surveillance cameras. Otherwise, my head will explode from irony. And we're gonna let him be in charge of surveillance? I'll say it again. Can we not?

Do we really need this guy in the mix too? During the next time of unrest, will we want to deal with Garrett Langley Xing about how his drones are on the case and reposting some Andy No propaganda, while Elon comments about white genocide under it. We have too many of these dudes. We don't need another dude. It's so obviously a mistake we will all regret later. So thank goodness, this is the moment where we get to decide.

And it's slipping by fast. Luckily, as I keep saying, everyone hates this. And so after the break, we will talk about what the public response to flock cameras has done. been so far. And it'll be cathartic. Be right back. Birthday party Sunday night, but board meeting Monday morning, what's a birthday board member to do? Don't worry, you can still celebrate your fratbrose big five-o while being a respectable CFO of businessman Inc. the next morning with Z-biotics pre-alcohol

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Heart-pounding action films and the people who love them. Me! Just gonna say them. Top Gun Maverick, Transformers Rise of the Beast, Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves. They're on Pluto TV! Lots of stuff is! Including one of my all-time favorites, All the Colors of the Rainbow,

starring Jack Black, Seth Green, Millie Bobby Brown, Jeremy Allen White, Scarlett Johansson, Amber Tamplin, Jennifer Gray, Henry Golding, Emily Blunt, Violet Davis, Indigaluna,

Maroonie Maroonie Marlon Brendan Frazier, Margo Ruby, Mafusia la Ali, Magenta Al-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-Ley, Vanillion Anderson, Tyler Perry Winkle, Pedro Pastel, Paul Tano, Jesse Lemons, which I should have used in the fruit one a few weeks ago, dang it, that's a note from Jonathan, you should have used that for the fruit one, but here we are. Elliot Bage, I-O-Redeboree, Sadie Spink, Paul. Paul mescalptus, mescalptus, mauve Apatow,

lilac Keith Stanfield, Florence Hugh, good, and Orange You Glad, I didn't say Banana de Armas, which he also could have used in the fruit one. Nice one. Okay, let's go back and do that again. Never mind. Anyway, this whole thing, you know, the, you know, this Pluto TV. Stream now, Payne Ever.

We're back. We're very angry because we're talking about flock cameras and it's dipshit CEO Garrett Langley who thinks people tracking his cameras are terrorists like Antifa. For the record, he later apologized for calling them terrorists. Perhaps because he realized that if a group surveilling his cameras are terrorists, then what does that make him? Gee, golly, wouldn't it be great if this guy

perhaps no longer had a company to run. It would feel pretty good if we as a country united to reject flock cameras everywhere, which good news is already happening. Because it turns out that forced mass surveillance is something that nobody thinks is good, or rather, almost nobody. Because at the end of the day, everyone wants to be safe. That hasn't changed. And that will probably never change.

Just like everyone wants to have food, everyone wants to have a roof. Those are just these core. It's Maslow's hard. I give need. Safety is up there. And it's high. I think for your company, like you're going to just have to lead

and you're going to have to be ahead of these things. Of course, the All In podcast loves it. You know, they don't even play poker on that podcast, right? Why call it that? Change the name or play poker. But look, there's the picture he had framed

about how he's a fucking snitch who sucks. Speaking of snitches who suck, Laura Lumer is also apparently a fan of flock cameras because she's a demon from the upside down and loves everything that's bad. Also, she eats cat food for money. Hey there, folks.

We here at the show, do always take our reporting very seriously, and we know that's why you come here to the most fair and balanced team in news and journalism. We work hard to research and fact check and make sure that we've earned and that we keep your trust.

But sometimes we don't get it quite right, and because of your trust in us because we know that the truth matters, we will always be accountable and correct ourselves, even if we catch something after the fact. It's okay to, and in fact, it's necessary to be able to say, hey, we got this one wrong. So out of respect for you and the truth, we want to issue this correction. Laura Lumer ate dog food, not cat food. She ate dog food for money. So, back to the show. Anyway, so they got those two supporters versus everyone else. Like, boy, the comments of that all-in video.

Boy, nobody likes it. That video does make an interesting point, though. This point. I think publicly for everybody to agree and disagree on the margins about these things, but it's up to the community to make these decisions, I think, and I think that's the high order bit here. And I think that's what you're starting. to really get right is, hey, this is your community stress.

You don't want it? Turn it off. Good idea, Guy. If a community doesn't like these cameras, they should shut them off, which happens to be what's happening all over the country as we speak. And not just in tiny podunk towns that I, a big city folk, look down upon. Los Angeles has suspended its contract with flock, along with Dayton, the Los Angeles of Ohio. Dayton actually put trash bags over their cameras.

because they didn't trust the company enough to actually shut the cameras off, and also to perhaps signal that the company was trash or garbage. Overall, it's not looking good for flock because no one likes them or wants them. So they've been nixed in roughly 100 cities and 56 jurisdictions. Although, to be clear, many more cameras are still being put up than what's being taken down. So we're not declaring victory here. After all, what are the communities that want them gone, but the police are refusing to get rid of them? Well, listen, look, listen, and look, champ.

We at the Shoddy certainly would not encourage any acts of vandalism in this great country, the United States of America. That would be wrong and illegal and bad. All we're going to do is talk about instances where other people did vandalize or disable flock cameras, which is bad to do, and we hate them for it. So over in Oakland, a bunch of people have been paint bombing the flock cameras. Meanwhile, in Grand Junction,

a dude got drunk and shot several flock cameras down. Seems less like a concerted activist effort and more like something you should work out with this therapist, but okay. And then there are the people who cut down a bunch of cameras in Houston. People who, by the way, everyone loves for doing these crimes that we don't condone.

Because everyone hates flock cameras. In one case, a U.S. Air Force engineer was caught destroying 13 of these cameras, and people have subsequently raised thousands for his legal defense. Because everyone hates them. Over in Claremont, Ohio, the Dayton of Ohio, a grand jury just straight up refused to indict a man who was accused of destroying a flock camera. He was caught on camera near the scene of the crime, but they let him walk because everyone,

Hates flock cameras. In Winona, Minnesota, the police posted on Facebook that someone or several people had taken down or destroyed every single flock camera they had. That post was then met with almost a thousand comments of support for the alleged perpetrators, and the police there just fucking let it go and said they wouldn't replace the cameras. Dude, the police were like, hey, someone destroyed all our flock cameras and everyone in the town was like, cool, we love that and fuck you. And the cops just gave up. They cyberbullied the police out of a surveillance state. That's incredible. An entire country came together to declare that the destruction of flock cameras is good and should not be seen as a crime. This is a flock camera and some terrorists

believe that these infringe on our liberties. I'm not here to comment on that, but I'm here to show you guys the most efficient way to cut aluminum pipe. There are so many people scoring easy internet points by casually instructing the public on acts of civil disobedience. Here's a guy who has a following for going around his town and physically holding a big sign in front of flock cameras. No law against holding a big sign, right? But I'm sure they're all a bunch of lefty pink of terrorists.

Like Garrett Langley said, Antifa types, right? Do we have a clip of Antifa really going to town on flock cameras that we can show? There are dozens, maybe hundreds of similar videos of people destroying license plate readers, cutting down the poles, running into them their cars, spray painting them. There are how-to videos and how to disable them with high-powered lasers. You can buy on Amazon.com, which apparently fried their circuits. We're not endorsing that, of course. But there are videos, in other words, of people who don't feel they have any other recourse whatsoever.

making one last-ditch attempt to preserve the one thing that makes them free in this or any other country, their birthright, by the way, and it's called privacy. They don't have it. They'd like it back. They think the Constitution Garrett and tease it to them. Their lawmakers don't care. Their leaders don't care. Their police departments don't care.

They don't think it's to make them safer. They understand that it's to strip them of their most basic humanity, which it is. Oh, man, look at that blue-haired freak. Get a job, lefty. Go throw some more bricks through a Starbucks, you anarchist beatnik. Get a bow tie. Now, to be clear, screw that guy. Fuck him, in fact.

He would be saying the exact opposite about civil disobedience in a different scenario. He should be trusted as far as the demon he pretends to believe in can throw him. But the point is, everybody hates this for good reason, too. And it's important that we keep refusing to accept it. It's important that we make it clear how wildly unpopular this is to everyone, except Laura Lumer, who unfortunately might be the only person whose opinion will matter. Speaking of AI, flock cameras, you haven't talked a lot about these flock cameras. A lot of law enforcement say they really help them.

Would you be willing to back that? No, I sort of like them because of that, because of law enforcement. But some people don't. They think it's an infringement. They help catch a lot of criminals. I like them. Damn it! Someone please get to him before Lumer does.

Natalie, Natalie, hey, Natalie, I know you're watching. Thank you for all the fan mail. It's extremely off-putting. We do not know each other. But print out some anti-flock memes and slap them on his desk. Do it now while he's napping for the love of God. I know he seems to be on the wrong side of this issue,

and only this issue, of course. But I actually think this is something we can get Trump to flip on if the right people talk to him. He's a criminal, after all, so he probably doesn't want a bunch of cameras keeping track of his whereabouts. Not to mention that everybody hates this, so both parties can score easy points by getting rid of these flock cameras. It's both heartwarming and frankly, a little surprising. Like, Tucko? Really?

That guy isn't exactly anti-cop. And Los Angeles suspended their use of these cameras? That city invented police brutality. It never existed until Daryl Gates came up with the idea after hitting his head in the bathroom. He was like, Great Scott! What if the police hit people on the head? It's kind of wild that the right wing back the blue folks are completely in line with the lefties on blue sky regarding this. And we have a theory.

Our theory here at the Shoddy is that this push against flock cameras goes far beyond concerns about surveillance. But rather also stems from everyone looking around at a country. that's been completely hijacked by billionaire tech CEOs and having enough. We have had so much bullshit forced upon us, the Metaverse, AI, and now these god-awful data centers that we're just, we're just, we're just done.

Our cities are clogged with semi-functional delivery drones and Waymo cars that nobody really asked for. We are so beyond the days where Silicon Valley was actually inventing revolutionary technology to fix a common problem. and are now in this endless cycle of rich guys making wild promises about Mars bases and robot butlers in order to live off investor capital for the rest of their lives. Practically everything they do is busted and shitty and getting the way.

Elon Musk is diverting public transportation budgets so he can pretend to build a two-mile death tunnel for his own cars. SpaceX is dumping trash on the fucking moon. The entire AI industry's pitch is that it will take all of our jobs and there's nothing we can do to stop them from building then enslaving God. At best. That's their selling point. No one asked for any of this or was asked permission. And now they're like, great news everyone. We're putting up dystopian cameras everywhere. You go without so much as a vote. And we're we're fucking sick of it. Everyone is so freaking sick of it. And frankly,

We need to take this energy we have for flock and extend it out to all this crap. I think we're all starting to realize that the tech industry is slowly inserting themselves as this fourth branch of our government that nobody wants. And if there's anything this moment of history should be known for, it's the rejection of that. Enough of this! Enough of these hollow money dipshits with zero experience hijacking our major infrastructure. Enough of this specific type of guy. that when you work on important things, some people will disagree, and that's okay.

It means you should work harder. We're so done. Everyone hates this. Like, remember all those anti-vax people from back in present day? Those people were enraged that the government would mandate that everyone allow a private company to invade their bodies, even if it was in the name of public health and safety. Of course, if they didn't want the vaccine, they could have just gotten tested. regularly for the virus, but whatever.

Also, they were wrong and should get a vaccine. But also, this is what they were feeling, right? This is that. But unlike vaccines, there's no need for these cameras. Our society has done fine before these cameras. Crime is down, in fact. Can't stress enough that you should get your vaccines, especially the Cody brand vaccine I'm releasing this fall.

It protects you from warmbows. Or it attracts warmbows, I forget. I will check before it goes to market. But if you are one of those anti-vax weirdos or mad about the mask mandates, I'm sorry for calling you a weirdo, but also you should be just as angry about flock cameras, right? This is way worse than the imagined Fauci dystopia during the pandemic that, as we see if we look around, didn't happen. I'm mainly pointing this out because if you have any maga person in your life, you can easily get them on the fuck-flock bandwagon by pointing that out.

There are so many reasons and angles for why everyone hates these. Like, hey, are you a cop? Any cops out there watching this show? I bet. Well, if you are, do you want to get replaced by AI? Or heck, you know what's not healthy? Pining over your ex. So come on, Piggy, I'm sorry I called you Piggy,

but come on, Piggy, say no to those flock cameras. So you can get over your heartbreak in a healthy way. Everyone's so on their phones, stalking their exes. Oh my gosh, am I right? Come on, cops, go touch grass. But only the grass that Cody didn't pee on because otherwise, that's my grass. That's Cody grass.

And this is my chair now. It's my chair. How's it going, everybody? What's up? Oh, right. Like and subscribe, do all this stuff, YouTube.com, leave a comment. Make sure to check out our patreon.com to some more news.

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Take your chances and order. place your bets. On the broadside, we take you into the heart of the South, with stories that'll surprise you. Bigfoot apparently loves glow sticks. He likes to party, I guess. Exactly, he's a raver. And topics that dig into the muddy margins of history.

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