Flock Offered Webinar Teaching Cops How to Surveil 'No Kings' Protesters

Flock Offered Webinar Teaching Cops How to Surveil 'No Kings' Protesters (404media.co) 61 Thursday 404 Media reported that Flock taught America's cops "how they could surveil the No Kings protests" against President Trump (as well as "small parades") in a webinar last year that described "using a mix of Flock's technology and law enforcement's own databases." In the webinar, Flock's director of market management Caity Peak explains how real time crime centers — which are police surveillance centers that utilize Flock cameras and other surveillance cameras — can be used for emergency response, but can also be used to surveil "established events" like 4th of July fireworks displays, parades, bike races, Mardi Gras, and protests. The webinar shows just how routine the idea of always-on surveillance has become, and how casually it is used during extremely innocuous events. Peak explains that police can use FlockOS, a software platform that combines Flock's automatic license plate readers (ALPR), drones, gunshot detectors, 911 data, and other surveillance cameras (including ones Flock does not own) into a "single pane of glass" or single piece of software to look at various types of surveillance in one place during both emergencies and relatively mundane events in a city or town. "Imagine that you're an incident commander, and you're working this No Kings Protest," Peak explains while a dashboard shows a series of surveillance tools overlaying the city of Denver. "If I'm somebody assigned a traffic post that's working this No Kings Protest, I really don't have time to go in [...] and look at all these places [for different intelligence]. This is an example of viewing all of that in one place...." The dashboard Peak shows includes traffic information, a "response plan" for the protest, the floor plans of nearby buildings, as well as a series of video feeds of both outdoor-mounted cameras and cameras inside businesses and government buildings. 404 Media and the Electronic Frontier Foundation previously showed that police have specifically used Flock cameras to monitor the No Kings protests and other First Amendment-protected activity... This webinar shows this type of surveillance is not anomalous, and is specifically taught by Flock. The webinar also shows that Flock's latest public stance — that its ALPR cameras are noninvasive technology, that they take only static images at a single place and time, and that they are primarily used to solve the worst crimes — is wildly misleading. Flock has time and time again pitched itself to police as a sort of operating system to solve crime and do real-time surveillance and predictive policing. ALPRs are just one part of this broader surveillance apparatus that Flock has created, markets to police, and teaches them how to use. "Imagine that you're an incident commander, and you're working this No Kings Protest," Peak explains while a dashboard shows a series of surveillance tools overlaying the city of Denver. "If I'm somebody assigned a traffic post that's working this No Kings Protest, I really don't have time to go in [...] and look at all these places [for different intelligence]. This is an example of viewing all of that in one place...." The dashboard Peak shows includes traffic information, a "response plan" for the protest, the floor plans of nearby buildings, as well as a series of video feeds of both outdoor-mounted cameras and cameras inside businesses and government buildings. 404 Media and the Electronic Frontier Foundation previously showed that police have specifically used Flock cameras to monitor the No Kings protests and other First Amendment-protected activity... This webinar shows this type of surveillance is not anomalous, and is specifically taught by Flock. The webinar also shows that Flock's latest public stance — that its ALPR cameras are noninvasive technology, that they take only static images at a single place and time, and that they are primarily used to solve the worst crimes — is wildly misleading. Flock has time and time again pitched itself to police as a sort of operating system to solve crime and do real-time surveillance and predictive policing. ALPRs are just one part of this broader surveillance apparatus that Flock has created, markets to police, and teaches them how to use. Re: (Score:1) Just more reasons to get rid of flock and create laws that prevent things like flock. Because Axon and others just replace flock. We live in a strange time of double-speak and authoritarian rule. This does not change what a dragnet is and does or why dragnets are illegal. Re:Ooooh. (Score:5, Insightful) Just more reasons to get rid of flock and create laws that prevent things like flock. Because Axon and others just replace flock. We live in a strange time of double-speak and authoritarian rule. This does not change what a dragnet is and does or why dragnets are illegal. It's interesting the first comment is basically repeating the elite view "we already know everything about you, get over it". Something that they definitely don't apply to themselves. What is different is that in current US law, you can more or less outsource the actual dragnet to private industry and then treat the data you get back as unsourced tip offs that you don't need to justify. There are some attempts to limit this, mostly after moments when politicians get tangled up in similar situations, but it really is a big change from historical rules. Re: (Score:2) Sorry, but BOTH sides have pushed this forwards. Admittedly the Republicans have pushed more eagerly, but that doesn't exonerate the Democrats. Basically what's going on is "People act to make their jobs easier. If that's illegal, they try to either work around, ignore, or change the law. Re:Ooooh. (Score:5, Informative) You seem to be really dumb. This is more evidence. That this specific evidence addresses a movement you apparently do not like does not make its general significance invalid. Either everybody has rights or freedom, or nobody has them. And that includes you, even if you lack the mental capacity to understand that. Re: (Score:3) So... we get rid of the Flock-style cameras. What about the satellites that can read a text message through your car window No satellite can read text messages through your car window. Look up diffraction-limited image resolution [libretexts.org] Re: (Score:3) Indeed. But the person you answered to is not concerned with truth or facts. They just want to be contrarian to sabotage the discussion. Re: (Score:2) BTW... have you been getting 502 errors on the site today? Some cloudflare 502 error pages, yes. Reload fixes it, so probably just a load-balancer not properly excluding a slashdot backend instance that is down or unreliable. Re: Ooooh. (Score:1) This is why we need to ban encryption! Or get larger screens on our phones.... wait a minute! Re: (Score:2) I never understood t he whole "No Kings" thing... Say what you will about "No Kings", but it was the most effective protest in recent memory. Do we have a king now? No. So, obviously it worked! Re: Ooooh. (Score:1) So, you don't want surveillance of you and you buddies at Burning Man... cool. I'm quite liberal in all respects, including sex, drugs and rock and roll, but I wouldn't be caught dead with those hippies. They can keep their shaman healing crystals and pot and live at burning man for all I care. People can do what they want as long as they keep it to themselves and not those who want no part of it. CHAZ/CHOP is fine with me as well, in fact it's pretty entertaining, just keep it contained to willing participants. Did you not want your cell phone company to share a single byte of data? Nope. Though pretty much the only data they have on me is what towers I us Re: (Score:2, Interesting) Ooooh, I am so outraged. They surveilled No Kings, just like they surveil everything else. Fair is fair, people surveilled the Yes Kings rally on Jan 6th, 2021. More unsettling here is that Flock and, apparently, the Police are being so blatantly partisan - not surprising though. It makes one wonder how unbiased Flock coverage and reporting is going forward. So I don't think that was surveillance (Score:2) Re: (Score:1) Does your opinion differ at all from the MAGA agenda? It does? Well congrats! Because MAGA is a purity test. If you're not 100% with them you're considered a a foe, So enjoy the surveillance state. Re: (Score:2) Sure but "bring jobs back" is something everyone says and broadly something everyone agrees with. Trump from the beginning said he was gonna do it with broad global tariffs, which he did and it was a high consensus of anyone with economic knowledge that this was a bad idea. Same with getting rid of illegals, you know it's something we've told should be good, they're lawbreakers after all but outside of the legal issue there was also never really a good idea, particularly when you have a pretty good economy Re: (Score:2) Sure but "bring jobs back" is something everyone says and broadly something everyone agrees with. Be careful what you wish for. [reddit.com] Re: Ooooh. (Score:1) From where I sit, you and maga are the same thing. Flock: Privacy Rapists (Score:2) Re: (Score:1) Huh? Re: (Score:2) Consent is the difference between it and lovemaking. A legitimate government listens to 90% of its citizens when they agree on an issue. Delegated powers and such. Ebb and Flow (Score:2) I don't follow politics closely, but even I can tell that the pendulum is going to swing back—how hard, I don't know; a lot can happen between now and 2028. Almost no real change will take place, of course, but the people bitching now can go back to cheering, and the people cheering now can go back to bitching—wherein “cheering” is a ritual that mostly involves bitching about the past. I choose to bitch in the comments section of Slashdot. Re: Ebb and Flow (Score:2) Re: (Score:1) Right now, we're sending people to be tortured in foreign concentration camps, converting warehouses to imprison people, and are fighting a pointless war in Iran. Citizens were killed by the US government, and they did not even pretend to investigate. We've replaced the state dept with bribes to the president and his kids. All of this was because some people wanted to use 'retard' as an insult again. Things do not have to swing back far to make life less awful for many people. Re: (Score:1) I choose to bitch in the comments section of Slashdot. Rather than smashing Starbucks windows? You are to be commended. But others will choose the latter option. Because they have nothing to say in support of their ideology. Other than "Starbucks is bad" perhaps*. *It is. But there are other places that burn their coffee as well. Re: (Score:2) Are you voting? If the answer is no then you're part of the problem. Re: Ebb and Flow (Score:1) So they're either with you or they're against you. What's entertaining about that is when George Bush said it, he made it very clear that he wasn't even talking to you, but you took it to mean that anyways because that's how you've always wanted it to be. Re: (Score:2) To be clear, does the "you" in that first sentence mean "democracy"? Because that really seems like the only way to interpret it. Re: (Score:2) Are you voting? If the answer is no then you're part of the problem. I've always thought that was a weird position to take. If someone can't even be arsed to vote in the first place, what makes you assume they'll cast an informed vote that is statistically distinguishable from randomness? If you want to move the needle, you have to convince the people who actually do vote to vote differently. Re: (Score:2) Because it's what the public asked for? Due to incidents like the Floyd murder, some earlier ones that lead to Seattle Police Department's consent decree and others, the public demanded increased surveillance. Both fixed cameras (Flock) as well as body worn (Axon). In order to provide after the fact objective evidence about police behavior. Now, if you want the cameras turned off, the police beatings can resume. Big brother watches everyone. Re:Why would they use a 'Big Brother' example? (Score:5, Informative) Now, if you want the cameras turned off, the police beatings can resume. I do not think that giving police seminars on how to use Flock cameras to do surveillance on protest marches and make tabulations of the license plates of all the people attending such marches, was intended as a tool to stop police beatings. Re: (Score:2) o provide just the sort of monitoring that the public asked for. No, this is monitoring the police and government asked for. Because investigating actual crimes is hard work and cops are lazy. Re: (Score:2) Not lazy enough to hit the body cam "off" buttons. Until public FOIA requests caught them at it. Re: (Score:2) Did Flock tell you that? Re:Why would they use a 'Big Brother' example? (Score:4, Insightful) Because it's what the public asked for? Due to incidents like the Floyd murder, some earlier ones that lead to Seattle Police Department's consent decree and others, the public demanded increased surveillance. Both fixed cameras (Flock) as well as body worn (Axon). In order to provide after the fact objective evidence about police behavior. Now, if you want the cameras turned off, the police beatings can resume. Big brother watches everyone. Bullshit. Who asked for this? List some names. Re: (Score:2) Because it's what the public asked for? Due to incidents like the Floyd murder, some earlier ones that lead to Seattle Police Department's consent decree and others, the public demanded increased surveillance. Both fixed cameras (Flock) as well as body worn (Axon). In order to provide after the fact objective evidence about police behavior. Now, if you want the cameras turned off, the police beatings can resume. Big brother watches everyone. People asked for bodycams since law enforcement personnel can't be trusted without nanny cams. Re: (Score:2) Due to incidents like the Floyd murder, some earlier ones that lead to Seattle Police Department's consent decree and others, the public demanded increased surveillance Primarily (if not entirely) of cops, which is not the same as wanting these Flock cameras, or the Flock system. Re: (Score:2) Primarily (if not entirely) of cops The body cameras are pointed at the public. And the Flock cameras aren't needed to track cops. Their radios already track their locations. They could have just stopped right here... (Score:1) Yeah this is barely news (Score:1) I recognize that the authorities do you need to keep tabs on political organizations because they have a bad habit of becoming violent but we spend a insane amount of energy monitoring left wing political organizations that very clearly have no violent tendencies whatsoever. And it's painfully obvious that it's just the right wing getting in power and going after their enemies. It's fr Re: (Score:3) You're an idiot. Neither side is pure. There are plenty of left wing folk that like to hurt people. For that matter, the division between "left wing" and "right wing" isn't a simple choice, there are multiple dimensions involved. There used to be a lot of right wing pacifists. I haven't heard of any recently, but that may be due to what information is published rather than to what's actual on the ground. Authoritarians come in every stripe. They aren't all equally bad, but you can't make the distinctio Re: (Score:2) Violence only works for the right wing because violence requires people that obey without question and follow orders and that's the opposite of the left wing. Ryan Routh's September 2024 attempt on Trump, the UnitedHealthcare CEO killing (December 2024), the arson at Governor Shapiro's residence (April 2025), the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington (May 2025), the Boulder firebombing (June 2025), the Alvarado and Dallas ICE facility shootings (July and September 2025, two detainees killed in Dallas), and the Kirk assassination. ALL hard-Left extremists. Re: (Score:2) the only reason they didn't become a Navy SEAL was woke dei. I didn't join because I don't like the taste of crayons. So much for "land of the free" (Score:2) Hmm (Score:3) Turning a bipartisan distrust of Flock into an another anti-MAGA with us or against us issue. I don't think it's 404 Media's intent, but I don't think Flock is unhappy to see it happen either.