Their cities dropped Flock surveillance cameras. They’re still being watched.
Congratulations USA. Your tireless activism successfully forced Flock Safety to start packing up its dystopian spy cameras. The only catch? The cameras are still there.
It turns out that breaking up with a surveillance state tech company is about as easy as cancelling a gym membership.
While cities wait months for Flock to pick up its junk, local officials have resorted to the highest-tier military countermeasure available: wrapping the multi-million-dollar cameras in trash bags.
But don't worry Americans, your local city council has a foolproof plan to fix this data-privacy nightmare. They are replacing Flock with a cozy, obscure little mom-and-pop startup called Axon—a $48-billion police-tech behemoth that also manufactures Tasers and already owns a monopoly on your local police department’s body cams.
Axon has absolutely not been lurking in the shadows like a vulture, rubbing its hands together while watching Flock's PR burn. It is a complete coincidence that they swooped into seven cities across five states the exact second contracts expired.
Local police are thrilled about the switch. Longmont's Assistant Police Chief, Phil Piotrowski, reassured everyone that Axon takes the "exact opposite approach" to data privacy. And by "opposite approach," he means Axon uses an AI platform called Fusus to literally "connect the dots across your entire data ecosystem."
Because nothing screams "data protection" quite like letting an advanced artificial intelligence web together private cameras, city feeds, and business data into one giant, omnipresent panopticon. A panopticon is a circular institutional building design that allows a single watchman to observe all inmates in a prison without them knowing if they are actively being watched
Human beings have never had the power to link everything together with AI before, but hey, what could possibly go wrong?
Naturally, the democratic process for approving these multi-million-dollar contracts was entirely open and transparent. In Longmont, residents were given a brief, beautifully vague presentation before lawmakers unanimously voted "Yes." Activists and software engineers who wanted to ask annoying, buzzkill questions about "encryption" and "data ownership" were graciously allowed to speak—right up until the council's literal countdown buzzer cut them off mid-sentence.
Democracy at its finest!
Meanwhile, on the East Coast, the city of Syracuse officially dropped Flock months ago. The local police department eventually had to go around manually unplugging the abandoned cameras themselves because the company couldn't be bothered to collect them. But local residents can sleep easy knowing that even if the city cameras are off, the ones mounted at the local Lowe’s and Home Depot are still tracking every single license plate that passes by. Because municipal policy might change, but corporate surveillance is eternal.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...rveillance
Congratulations USA. Your tireless activism successfully forced Flock Safety to start packing up its dystopian spy cameras. The only catch? The cameras are still there.
It turns out that breaking up with a surveillance state tech company is about as easy as cancelling a gym membership.
While cities wait months for Flock to pick up its junk, local officials have resorted to the highest-tier military countermeasure available: wrapping the multi-million-dollar cameras in trash bags.
But don't worry Americans, your local city council has a foolproof plan to fix this data-privacy nightmare. They are replacing Flock with a cozy, obscure little mom-and-pop startup called Axon—a $48-billion police-tech behemoth that also manufactures Tasers and already owns a monopoly on your local police department’s body cams.
Axon has absolutely not been lurking in the shadows like a vulture, rubbing its hands together while watching Flock's PR burn. It is a complete coincidence that they swooped into seven cities across five states the exact second contracts expired.
Local police are thrilled about the switch. Longmont's Assistant Police Chief, Phil Piotrowski, reassured everyone that Axon takes the "exact opposite approach" to data privacy. And by "opposite approach," he means Axon uses an AI platform called Fusus to literally "connect the dots across your entire data ecosystem."
Because nothing screams "data protection" quite like letting an advanced artificial intelligence web together private cameras, city feeds, and business data into one giant, omnipresent panopticon. A panopticon is a circular institutional building design that allows a single watchman to observe all inmates in a prison without them knowing if they are actively being watched
Human beings have never had the power to link everything together with AI before, but hey, what could possibly go wrong?
Naturally, the democratic process for approving these multi-million-dollar contracts was entirely open and transparent. In Longmont, residents were given a brief, beautifully vague presentation before lawmakers unanimously voted "Yes." Activists and software engineers who wanted to ask annoying, buzzkill questions about "encryption" and "data ownership" were graciously allowed to speak—right up until the council's literal countdown buzzer cut them off mid-sentence.
Democracy at its finest!
Meanwhile, on the East Coast, the city of Syracuse officially dropped Flock months ago. The local police department eventually had to go around manually unplugging the abandoned cameras themselves because the company couldn't be bothered to collect them. But local residents can sleep easy knowing that even if the city cameras are off, the ones mounted at the local Lowe’s and Home Depot are still tracking every single license plate that passes by. Because municipal policy might change, but corporate surveillance is eternal.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...rveillance
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