Tangle - The Flock surveillance cameras debate.

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

In recent weeks, public opposition has grown toward vehicle-tracking cameras used by law enforcement in criminal investigations. Private manufacturer Flock Safety operates the largest network of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) in the United States, with approximately 127,000 cameras across the country. The company has recently faced scrutiny for potential civil liberties violations and misuse by police officers, prompting some localities to review or cancel their contracts with the company. Ad-free podcasts are here!Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: Do you support law enforcement’s use of Flock cameras? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast written by: Isaac Saul and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, and place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and it's a crazy week. This is just a crazy, crazy week coming back from a week off. It's nutty. A little look into my life.

On Thursday, I'm doing a Reddit AMA. I'll board a Greyhound Bus to Buffalo. Yeah. I'll share more about that in the post on the Reddit AMA why I'm on a Greyhound Bus to Buffalo. It has to do with fantasy football. Anyway, you can drop in on that AMA now and post any questions you have about national politics or Tangle or me.

I'm going to spend Thursday afternoon responding to those questions. This morning, I went on breaking points with Sagrant Jetti and Crystal Ball to discuss Trump's border wall coming to the Big Ben region in Texas where I own property. And this Friday, I'm publishing a piece I've been working on for weeks on the efficacy of Doge and what the group actually accomplished. By the way, I'm still trying to talk to any former Doge staffers. I've been unsuccessful in doing that. If that's you, shoot me an email, Isaac, I-S-A-A-A-C at Reed-Tangle. and we can connect securely via signal if you want. But today, we're not talking Big Ben or Reddit or Doge.

We're diving into the flock camera debate, a classic case of security versus privacy with the added spice of some public blowback. We've also got a quick look back on what happened this day, August 18th in 1920, and I'm joined on the show today by senior editor Will K. back. Will, I'm going to pass it over to you. Thanks, Isaac. All right, here are today's quick hits. The 60-day deadline for the U.S.-Iran peace agreement set in June expired on Monday. President

Donald Trump said the United States is not seeking an extension to the deadline. Two, President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the U.S. peace plan for Gaza, which Israel has rejected. The sides expressed optimism after the talks, but did not announce a breakthrough. Three, the trial in a case brought against MEDA by a coalition of 29 state attorneys general begins on Tuesday in California. The social media company is accused of illegal practices leading to addictive behavior in teens and children and could face a maximum penalty of up to $1.4 trillion if found liable.

Four, the House Ethics Committee announced an investigation into Representative Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat from California, over potential sexual misconduct related to his relationship with a House staffer. And five, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said that construction work in Big Bend National Park has been paused while he conducts an in-person review of the building site. Turning now to the latest twist in the controversy over the surveillance company, flock. So nationwide, it has more than 120,000 cameras used by more than 6,000 law enforcement agencies. But there have been claims these license plate readers have been misused by some officers, including for stalking. In recent weeks, public opposition has grown toward vehicle tracking cameras used by law enforcement in criminal investigations. Private manufacturer flock safety operates the largest network of automated license plate readers, ALPRs, in the United States,

with approximately 127,000 cameras across the country. The company has recently faced scrutiny for potential civil liberties violations and misuse by police officers, prompting some localities to review or cancel their contracts with the company. Since 2017, Flock has built camera systems that track vehicle license plates, and the company currently partners with roughly 7,000 police departments and 5,000 private entities. The cameras are placed along roads and in other public areas, using artificial intelligence and infrared technology to interpret license plates. Flock then stores the information, as well as vehicle makes, models, colors, times, and locations,

in databases accessible by law enforcement across county and state lines. Law enforcement has credited the technology with aiding in high-profile cases, such as the manhunt for the suspect later convicted of attempting to assassinate President Donald Trump in September 2024. It has also been used to catch drug traffickers, identify suspects in violent crimes, locate missing persons, and recover stolen vehicles. Critics of this technology have accused the networks of enabling police abuse and mass warrantless surveillance, which has sometimes led to mistaken arrests. Others have objected to state and local agencies

that share ALPR data with federal immigration authorities. Investigative reports have also uncovered allegations of misuse by individual officers, such as one who shared an undercover agent's license plate details with a suspected drug dealer, and another who tracked his estranged wife's movements over 700 times. A Washington Post report published earlier this month found at least 50 officers have been charged with or accused of misusing ALPR systems. In response to the public backlash on August 13th, Flock announced a series of changes to its system,

including limiting the default amount of time the company retains data from one month to one week and implementing a program to lock out law enforcement officers who perform, quote, abnormal searches. Civil liberties groups have argued that these changes do not address. underlying concerns about ALPRs and called on police departments to end their contracts with flock and companies like it, which some have done. In recent months, individual cameras have also been vandalized or destroyed across the country. Today we'll hear perspectives from the left and right on flock cameras, followed by executive editor Isaac Saul's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Here's what the left is saying. The left opposes the use of

flock cameras, and many suggest that bad actors will be able to circumvent the new guidelines. Others link the cameras to broader concerns about technology's influence over public and private life. In USA Today, Sarah Pekino asked, why are we just watching America become a surveillance state? Since the AI boom, companies have begun selling their surveillance services to anyone who will buy. The most satisfied customer seems to be the U.S. government. Flock, a nationwide camera system for reading license plates powered by artificial intelligence, has recently been in the news for what happens when police officers misuse the technology. Faceless corporations aren't the only ones policing our behavior through mass surveillance.

We are also creating the panopticon among ourselves. The government could do something, and the authorities are, sort of. There seems to be bipartisan support for ending the use of surveillance pricing and grocery. stores, but on the other hand, the U.S. government benefits from these surveillance tools. If the powers that be are not seeing the downsides to this issue, then it's unlikely they're going to ban surveillance technology. Companies also don't have the internal motivation to curb these practices. Privacy could soon be a luxury only afforded to the wealthy. To combat this, we must all reject the idea that surveillance is safety. In Gizmodo, A.J. Dellinger said,

Flock is trying to find out how much of the surveillance state they'll tolerate. After an immense amount of backlash against its cameras and automated license plate readers, Flock announced a slew of changes to how it handles and shares information with law enforcement. The company is shortening its default data retention period from 30 days to seven. It will also start to proactively lock out a user flagged for potential abuses and will require administrative approval to regain access. That's well and good in theory, though actually making good on the abuse prevention falls on law enforcement, which they have a pretty spotty track record on.

For instance, Flock previously implemented a tool that was supposed to automatically block impermissible data requests, like tracking a person seeking an abortion, as happened to a woman in Texas. But in practice, it was wildly easy to circumvent. The Register Guard reported that in one case, an officer entered a search reason of, he-he-he-he, and it was approved. As for the actual communities affected by flock, they'll be hard-pressed to believe that a person ready to tear down a flock camera is going to have their mind changed by shortening the recommended data retention window from 30 days to 7. In Salon, Amanda Marcotte wrote,

People are sick of tech billionaires trying to control our lives. Flot cameras have become a symbol of growing anger over the efforts by technology oligarchs to impose their dystopian fantasies on the country. replacing liberal democracy with a surveillance state. Flock's safety embodies the dishonesty that has been the prevailing theme of tech corporate communications and marketing for at least the past decade. While the cameras are sold to the public as a banal traffic safety measure, they have prompted an outpouring of stories about how they're being used to violate civil liberties and undermine democracy. Flock's behavior represents a microcosm of a larger trend in tech that should alarm freedom-loving Americans,

regardless of political affiliation. Silicon Valley enriched itself with promises that the cyber revolution would mean more freedom and democracy by enabling the flow of information and communication. Still, it's a promising sign that people are rebelling against flock cameras. Along with the protests against data centers, it's a sign that the public is desperate for a way to fight back, not just against AI, but also the anti-democratic forces

fueling this latest tech wave. Now here's what the right is saying. The right is mixed with many saying flock cameras violate civil liberties. Others note that flock is already changing in response to market and citizen pressures. Some argue that the systems improve public safety. In Cato at Liberty, Mike Fox argued, automated surveillance threatens a free society. Taken to its logical extreme, the absolute prevention of crime would require proactive, universal confinement. If no individual enjoys freedom of movement, no crime can occur.

A free society deliberately accepts a baseline of risk to prevent state-sanctioned oppression. Proponents frame ALPR networks as objective impartial alternatives to subjective traffic stops, promising to curtail crime while eliminating human bias. In doing so, they routinely dismiss public concern as populist paranoia or an implicit defense of lawlessness. However, this pro-surveillance narrative relies on a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of government in a constitutional republic and ignores the reality that institutional power is inevitably abused. Far from an impartial equalizer, private surveillance grids construct an unconstitutional panopticon that automates police error, mimics authoritarian tracking, and invites systemic abuse. reclaiming constitutional privacy from private surveillance vendors requires bold, targeted action at the federal level. In a free society, companies that thrive on infringing upon constitutional rights should not be economically viable.

In town hall, Dimitri Bolt said, Flock cameras are controversial, but this is what accountability can look like. As a private company, susceptible to the forces of a free market, flock must appeal to the broader public if it wants to. to turn a profit. It cannot do so if there's widespread opposition to its product. Flock is therefore incentivized to make changes that demonstrate it takes society's concerns seriously. It is also important to remember that if residents were unaware of these cameras being installed, the failure lies with Flock, then with the lack of accountability local elected officials

and law enforcement agents feel toward their constituents. You may oppose Flock and that is fair, but the company has been operating in community, for years. The more difficult question is this. Why have voters continued to support the local officials who authorized its use without demanding transparency, limits, or public consent? None of this means we must support Flock, but it does challenge opponents to explain with more than just abstract appeals why its well-documented public safety benefits are not worth the surveillance risks involved. In the Atlantic, Charles Fane-Lean wrote, in defense of Flock, The case for flock is simple.

Cameras help police catch criminals. That reduces crime through two channels, incapacitating offenders who are caught and convicted, and increasing the certainty of apprehension, which theoretically should deter criminals from offending in the first place. But is it true in practice? Although the research base is still developing, the answer is probably.

A 2017 study found ALPRs were correlated with a reduction in violent crime, and a 2019 paper found suggestive but not conclusive evidence of a reduction in auto theft and robbery. The Fourth Amendment's protections exist exactly because of the very real potential for the abuse of police officers' extraordinary powers. The question, though, is whether we need to forego the crime-reducing benefits of ALPRs in order to minimize the risks to our privacy. Such absolutism is unwarranted. Intelligently regulated, ALPRs can be one, among many tools in the toolbox of smarter and therefore less severe police forces. Dumping the cameras would just be foolish. All right, that is it for what the left and writer saying.

So now I'm going to pass it over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for the left and the writer saying, which brings us to my take. When I was in college, one of my final assignments for a senior year writing class was to pen the first part of a screenplay. I set my film in the 2030s, and the plot was that there was a small group of people, only hundreds in the United States, whose photos and videos had never been captured and put online. They were all living together and communicating through analog technology in a kind of antiquated underworld culture, desperately hoping to avoid the man, an amorphous system that used public and social media data to manipulate individuals and society at large. The opening scene was a couple, waking up in bed together and the woman slipping out of the window and down the fire escape into this urban setting, where she definitely made her way through the streets while avoiding getting caught in the background of selfies and tucked close to building walls to dodge surveillance cameras.

I often think about that screenplay and the message I was hoping to convey, the dystopian nature of all our images digitized and uploaded somewhere up there in the cloud, how you can't board a plane or walk down a city street without being captured, and how we all seem to have completely seated any right to our privacy. And maybe most importantly, how our willingness to take a small technological step can create a totally different world from even 20 years ago. Of course, I've been thinking about it even more as awareness about flock cameras has been spreading like wildfire across the United States.

transparently, and as my screenplay might convey, I have a viscerally and often irrationally negative reaction to surveillance networks. It's not that I don't want crime to be solved. Of course I do. I'm sure that if my wife were kidnapped, I'd fight to use every single flock camera in America to find her. It's not that I assume the worst of police officers or even the companies making this technology.

I don't. It's just that by accepting the premise that we are always being watched, that our behaviors are constantly recorded and stored and shared, we are giving away something deeply liberating, a powerful sense of autonomy and independence that were slowly, consistently, and passively allowing to be snuffed out. I feel this often. I felt it this last week when I tried to fall off the grid in Cape Cod,

yet everywhere I went I was in the frame of someone's iPhone filming on the beach or within the audio sphere of their Spotify playlist on rural hiking trail. I feel at any time I fly, especially with the new airport norm of having your photo taken and handing over your ID. A few years ago, I was sitting at an intersection

in suburban Pennsylvania late at night, waiting to turn at a no right turn on red intersection, and the light wouldn't change. After 25 or 30 seconds with no cars in sight, I lost my patience and I just turned right. A couple weeks later,

the red light camera ticket showed up in the mail and I felt a deep sense of injustice. this sense that a cop, a real person, should have had to be there and spoken to me before giving me a ticket. I know some of my reaction is more emotional than rational, especially as related to flock cameras. Americans are recording and memorializing every minute of their day,

posting every third thought that comes to their brains on social media, carrying around pocket-sized bits of technology that offer a much larger intrusion on our privacy than any perch camera ever would. We're not just allowing this power, but in many cases actively and voluntarily out of mere convenience. Shoot, we've already turned our doorbells into security cameras, and now we're supposed to get worked up about license plate readers. Yet, I'm thrilled about the attention and the anger and the distaste.

Part of what makes flock upsetting for so many people is that their proliferation is being pushed by the state and without the consent of the govern. The cameras are there, capturing and recording whether we want them to be or not. police departments are buying and installing them without any say from their communities and sometimes in the face of widespread opposition. We sense, collectively, that something about this is wrong, that these cameras are a step in a direction we don't want to go, even if their cause and purpose might be just. I'm glad for that. And now I think there are probably three paths forward.

Path one is that we accept that flock cameras are going to be a thing, but we do our best to limit their use and make them as sensitive to our privacy as possible. We tighten the rules significantly on where they can be placed, who can access their data, and when. We operate with a really simple North Star. Misusing this network is a grave offense. In this world, a police officer accessing the cameras to stalk his ex-wife doesn't just get suspended or fired.

He also goes to prison. We deter criminal law enforcement behavior with the same harsh punishment law enforcement defenders always tell us works, and we hope camera use is narrowed significantly to solving consequential serious crimes. Path two is that we push to ban these kinds of cameras from being installed outright. This might be unrealistic, and the destination is almost always less important than the direction, as the movement requires a political force centered on privacy. The thrust here is simple.

Flot cameras are just a step too far toward a dystopian privacy-free future. If we allow them to proliferate, what's next? How long till every car is sold with a law enforcement design sensor or every home security system can be accessed on an ad hoc basis to listen in on conversations or review footage? Or sidewalks and parks and light poles are equipped with listening devices too. We can justify all manner of forfeited rights and privacy in the name of fighting crime or terrorism.

We've been doing it for decades. Going forward, if police want to see, stick a flock camera on a light pole in front of my house, easily watching all my comings and goings, I'd resist. It's true that we get to record police and that we get to put body cameras on them, but that's because they are the state accountable to us. Even so, I don't get to access police body camera footage whenever I want in a public database the way police can now access flock cameras. We reframe the issue in simple terms. If law enforcement wants to access surveillance footage of any kind, they can get a warrant and collect it from privately available video devices

that already exist across the country. If they want to solve crime, they can use traditional methods. Their problem, not ours. Path three is that we accept, as Mark Zuckerberg once said, that privacy is no longer a social norm. It's ironic to fight flat cameras while walking around with an iPhone. Every website you visit or app you use is capturing your data. Locations you visit are tracked by Google or Apple while conversations in your home are recorded by Google or Amazon, and yet we're fretting over crime-solving cameras. Privacy is actually already dead, and flock isn't any worse than the surveillance we already submit to. There's no point in fighting technology that at least is doing some good by solving crime. Five years from now,

flock cameras have proliferated exponentially, becoming normalized in our society, and the regulations to rein them in are more superficial than limiting. My strong preference is that we take path one or two, but my sense is that we are on path three. As a millennial, I'm now the last generation in America that will remember what it was like to go to high school or a concert or dinner without a smartphone. The generations behind me have no sense of that freedom and no attachment to it and no reason to think flock cameras are any more of a threat than a Google search bar. Most Americans, even the ones my age and older, don't bother to consider their privacy these days, let alone fight for it.

Even I feel stuck. I take small measures to protect myself, whether it's fancy privacy apps or leaving my phone out of my bedroom or occasionally rejecting terms of service. Yet any logical, rational approach to protecting your privacy in 2026 if you actually wanted to would all but exclude you from common society. It'd be impossible to function while truly holding onto your digital or real-world privacy. It is impossible. The screenplay I started to write 15 years ago is no longer set in a fictional future, the present, that present, it is here. Except in this reality, there's no underworld society holding on to what we used to have. All right, that is it for my take. Today, we have a staff dissent from associate editor Karina Pacheco, so I'm going to pass it over

to her. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Peace. Thanks, Isaac. Much of the concern around flock cameras and surveillance is anchored in privacy, including Isaacs. But I'm far less concerned about my likeness, the most public thing about me, being captured in public spaces. Whenever a serious crime happens or is threatened, we rely on video footage to identify, track, and bring the perpetrators to justice. It's hard for me to be outraged at the existence of a technology that we're thankful to have

the moment we need it. Of course, bad people do bad things. The officers who misused flock cameras for their own nefarious, purposes are reprehensible and, like anyone who commits a crime, should be held to account when they do so. But arguments that use flot cameras to prove we're quickly descending into fascism ignore the baked-in guardrails we enjoy in the United States. Accountability, free speech, and the rule of law all prevent the worst-case scenarios from coming to fruition. Flot cameras are still new, but I'm confident the law will catch up, just as it has with geo-fencing or cell phone

terms of service or other technology meets privacy issues. I'd much rather any shady, any shady, criminal or threatening activity be brought to light, then watch as it's hidden or obfuscated under the guise of privacy. Now, kicking it back to Will for the rest of the podcast. We'll be right back after this quick break. Thanks, Karina. All right, now a note on this day in history. The United States Women's Rights Movement began in earnest during the 19th century

and picked up steam after the Civil War. While early feminists called for both economic and political equality, the movement quickly focused on suffrage. In 1817, California Senator Aaron A. Sergeant introduced the Susan B. Anthony amendment, which would grant women the right to vote, but Congress rejected it. Suffragists continued working to secure women's right to vote, but the winning plan was not concocted until 1916 by National American Women's Suffrage Association President Kerry Chapman Kat. Katz's proposal focused on gaining support for a federal amendment

as well as state and local laws. As local support grew, and after several more rejections, Congress passed the Anthony Amendment in 1919, sending it to the states for ratification. To become part of the Constitution, the amendment needed approval from 36 of 48 states. By August 1920, 35 states had voted yes, eight had said no,

and four states didn't plan to hold a vote. Suffragists pin their hopes then on Tennessee, which called a special legislative session to vote on the amendment. On August 18, 1920, after the amendment had passed the state senate, the Tennessee House held its votes on the 19th Amendment. The legislators first voted on a motion to table the amendment, which would have effectively killed it. But after a delegate deadlock, the speaker called for a direct vote.

During the final vote, Representative Harry Byrne, who had first voted to table the amendment, surprised the chamber by voting aye. unbeknownst to everyone at the time, in Byrne's pocket was a letter he received that morning from his mother, Phoebe Feb Byrne, urging him to, quote, be a good boy and vote for suffrage. The amendment passed the Tennessee legislature by one vote, making Tennessee the final state needed for ratification. The 19th Amendment, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, was officially enshrined in the Constitution eight days later. And lastly, here is our Have a Nice Day story. Betty Bromage, age 97, was hospitalized after a stroke in 2025 that affects her to this day.

The incident created challenges for a hobby she picked up at age 85, wing walks, or walking on the wings of a biplane while it is in flight. A year after the stroke, Bramage set out to break her own Guinness World Record of being the oldest female to complete a wing walk, accomplishing the goal on August 4th, and all while raising money to support the stroke unit where she was treated. Bromage hinted that she is not done yet either. Quote, I'll have to think of something when I'm 100, something special, she said. BBC has this story, and we'll drop a link to it in today's show notes. All right, that's it for today's edition.

Thanks as always for being with us. Hope you have a great day, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Koback and associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.

To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.