Flock Safety Update While organizers won a cancellation of Austin's contract with Flock this year, it looks like Flock might still be active in Austin via the Austin Housing Authority. Flock is listed in the 2025 budget from this 10/17/2024 meeting: www.hacanet.org/wp-content/u...

This week, we’re sharing two segments: A chat with Palestinian writer and assistant professor @hamayel.bsky.social ; Plus a segment of the October 2025 B(A)D News with network participants discussing thinking through resisting the rise of fascism thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2025/11...

For people who are interested in and working to develop abolitionist interventions and groups to help keep each other safe, we have a new resource that aims to help demystify a few things about how we create these organizations and formations, and how we sustain them. Read it here:

For the nerds out there, some serious Flock Safety security vulnerabilities: github.com/GainSec/anti...

NEW: Senator @wyden.senate.gov says AI-camera company Flock is violating federal law by not enforcing multi-factor authentication. 404 Media previously found Flock credentials included in infostealer infections.

Ed, co-founder of @sassisouth.bsky.social (Southerners Against Surveillance Systems & Infrastructure), speaks to The Final Straw Radio about the proliferation of surveillance infrastructure in the South (and more broadly in United States). thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2025/11...

❗Flock Safety Update ❗ According to a public records request, the Greensboro Police Department no longer has a contract with Flock Safety as of 9/30. That's not the end of Flock in Greensboro, though. What did the Greensboro Police Department say when asked about Flock? 👀 🧵

Join us, @fightforthefuture.org, @sassisouth.bsky.social, @eos-nola.bsky.social, and more in an amazing line-up of community organizers TOMORROW to fight against facial recognition and other racist #surveillance #tech. It's not too late to register: fftf.link/nola

TEACH-IN alert 🛠️!! Tomorrow at 7ET we’re joining @stepuplouisiana.bsky.social @sassisouth.bsky.social & other NOLA community voices united in the fight against racist tech to discuss what it means to build safe communities that reject the lie of surveillance = safety. RSVP👉http://fftf.link/nola

“This is an assault on our democracy and right to free speech, powered by the algorithm and paid for with our tax dollars.”

Update on our research into police surveillance technologies across Texas.

Come through to this digital teach-in to learn about real time facial recognition use in New Orleans and how you can resist in your city. 10.29 at 6pm CT Hosted by Eye on Surveillance

Flock's director of public affairs is a former AIPAC lobbyist for some reason. It's like the Cylons hiring Darth Vader as spokesperson.

Legion of Doom to partner with the Sinister Six.

The Texas Department of Public Safety has a rather large contract with Flock Safety: "The total Not-to-Exceed for this contract is $27,388,302.50."

From @wyden.senate.gov, “Abuse of Flock cameras is inevitable, and Flock has made it clear it takes no responsibility to prevent or detect that. For that reason, I must now recommend that communities that have installed Flock cameras reevaluate that decision.” www.404media.co/ice-secret-s...

🔥 Another one! Who is keeping count? Hays County, TX voted to end their Flock contract! 🔥 www.fox7austin.com/news/hays-co...

🔥 And another one! Lockhart, TX voted against Flock Safety in a 6-1 vote last night. 🔥

Installing gunshot detection tech on or around schools is going to result in police shooting a student. citizenportal.ai/articles/590...

🔥 Good news out of Eugene, OR today regarding their use of Flock Safety ALPRs. The City Council voted 8-0 to recommend to the City Manager that the city turns the cameras off. 🔥

Take note of the quotes from the Flock employee in this article: “Even if Flock took a stance on permitted use-cases, a motivated user could simply lie about why they're performing a search. We can never 100% know how or why our tools are being used.”

To learn more about "Tangles" social media monitoring software developed by the Israeli company Cobwebs (now owned by Nebraska based surveillance key player Penlink) check our 2024 report exposing many technical details: unicornriot.ninja/2024/cobwebs...

"Currently, you need a waiver from the FAA to fly a drone farther than you can see it." "With Flock’s help, police departments can get waivers approved in just two weeks. The company’s private-sector customers generally have to wait 60 to 90 days." www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/30/1...

The products named here, Penlink's Tangles and Webloc, are used throughout the South by local, county, and state level police. We plan on reporting on this more soon but here are some screenshots of invoices from around the South. First, an agreement with the Cary (NC) Police Department.

If you want to know what’s really going on with AI, talk to data workers. I’m so grateful for all I’ve learned from the U.S. AI supply chain workers who talked to us about data work. Check out a new report with @alphabetworkersunion.org & @cwaunion.bsky.social: cwa-union.org/ghost-worker...

Body-worn and dashcam footage capture a conversation between a Tennessee State Trooper and ICE about a May immigration sting in Nashville, as the state refuses to release the names or faces of those involved. ✏️: @sarahgracetaylor.bsky.social

In the latest from Flock Safety, the audit logs available for download on the company's demo transparency portal include searches for "abortion" and "immigration." Is the company showing potential customers how to do immigration and abortion searches? transparency.flocksafety.com/flock-safety...

"But the lawsuit against Norfolk sheds light on just how frequently drivers’ movements are recorded without a warrant for that information." We must be clear about the harms of ALPRs. Warrants won't sufficiently limit how ALPRs significantly expand police power. www.nbcnews.com/tech/securit...

LIVE NOW! Lessons in International Solidarity Join internationalist organizers discussing the lessons contemporary international solidarity movements can learn from past struggles. Organized with @commjusticeexch.bsky.social Stream here:

Comrades in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, join us for a presentation on 10/4 at 3pm at the Burrow on the police surveillance apparatus in place in the Triangle. No background knowledge or experience necessary. Email us questions at [email protected].

In our latest, @dreanyc123.bsky.social returns to discuss how healthcare workers can resist ICE and refuse to participate in criminalizing the people the care for, and the resources available from Beyond Do No Harm www.patreon.com/posts/138979...

Good piece in terms of detailing how police use tech and data for violent purposes. The recommendation for stronger guardrails has proven to be insufficient time and time again. The only way to prevent data from being used for violent purposes is to never collect the data in the first place.

First, people subjected to police power and state violence have never had access to privacy. Second, surveillance is never safety. www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2...

The latest example of the revolving door of public officials and police who move to work for private surveillance companies. "At Flock, he will lead public affairs for the eastern U.S., working with local governments that use the company’s technology." signalcleveland.org/cleveland-ci...

"In 2009, Thiel wrote, 'I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.' In 2025, his coterie seems to be making a full-court effort to follow through on the implications of that observation." truthout.org/articles/far...

Well look at that.

"[T]he Centinela system will include almost 10,000 cameras, nearly 2,000 license plate readers, and 13 police command subcenters statewide, able to deploy facial-recognition technology and conduct cross comparisons with a biometrics database..." www.texasobserver.org/texas-chihua...

A primer on the billionaire barons and corporate leaders profiting off ICE’s escalated assault on immigrants.

Who is Really Fueling your AI? Precarization and Resistance in Data Work. September 17th 2025 11 AM EST / 17:00 CET in Berlin @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social 🔗 Register in-person: tickets.weizenbaum-institut.de/jl89e/ 📽️ Watch online www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA3w...

"Most prisons are so short-staffed that the National Guard continues to be necessary to maintain basic operations. And we continue to live with the indefinite suspension of recreation, programs, commissary. . ." Joseph Wilson on the current state of NY's prisons.

This week, I talk to @dreanyc123.bsky.social about the role of criminalization in authoritarianism and fascism—and why we need more outlaws, and less confusion about what the law protects and who it targets.

Join SASSI for a digital workshop on Wednesday, October 1st from 7-8:30pm ET to learn how to identify and map Flock Safety cameras in your community and city as a tactic in challenging the use of automated license plate readers in your city.

"Langley, who described those threatening the company as 'terrorists'..." www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...

"War on Drugs everywhere is a deliberately punitive war that destabilizes communities, blocks access to care, and maintains colonialism and capitalism through carceral systems of police & prisons & borders & gentrification & involuntary treatment." www.weavingourworlds.ca/wow-statemen...

"Lafayette... wasn’t alone in deactivating safeguards. Documents obtained from another department piloting the Axon software, in Fort Collins, Colorado, shows police similarly disabling footers acknowledging that the reports were produced using AI." www.motherjones.com/criminal-jus...

"Freeman didn’t disclose his role with Fusus in conversations with at least 14 other cities during a period spanning at least two years, and at least nine of those cities went on to make or amend millions of dollars worth of contracts with Axon Fusus" theintercept.com/2025/09/02/a...

Thinking about this piece by Rory Fanning right now.

For our friends in Texas, #FlockSafety holds contracts with multiple Education Service Centers, including ESC 4 (Austin) & 13 (Houston). There's prob more... Is Flock enabling CBP/ICE to monitor families via schools? ESC 4: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26... ESC 13: esc13.net/services/flo...