{"id":749,"date":"2026-06-26T16:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thethriftydev.com\/blog\/?p=749"},"modified":"2026-06-26T19:33:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T19:33:18","slug":"flock-cameras-surveillance-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thethriftydev.com\/blog\/flock-cameras-surveillance-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"Flock Cams, Surveillance Drones, and the Civil Disobedience Field Manual"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last updated:<\/strong> June 26, 2026 Current threat level:<\/strong> SEVERE<\/p>\n

Mass surveillance in the United States is no longer hypothetical. It is not a future risk, a conspiracy theory, or a paranoid fantasy. It is a $7.5 billion industry with 90,000 cameras on American roads, 1,500+ police drone programs in the sky, and a court system that has not yet decided whether any of it is constitutional.<\/p>\n

This is the field manual for living inside that system without surrendering to it.<\/p>\n

It covers what has been built, what the courts have and have not said, what tools exist for seeing it, evading it, and dismantling it, and what the American tradition of civil disobedience has to say about resisting systems the law has not yet caught up to.<\/p>\n

The position of this article is simple: mass surveillance infrastructure is unconstitutional regardless of whether current laws technically permit it.<\/strong> Carpenter v. United States<\/em> (2018) established that pervasive location tracking is a search. The fact that lower courts have not yet applied that holding to ALPRs and drones does not make those networks constitutional. It makes the courts slow.<\/p>\n

You do not have 10 years to wait for the Supreme Court to catch up.<\/p>\n

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What Has Been Built<\/h2>\n

Flock Safety: The Private Company Running a National Panopticon<\/h3>\n

Flock Safety is an Atlanta-based startup founded in 2017. As of June 2026, it has raised approximately $950 million in venture funding, most recently a $275 million round in March 2025 led by Andreessen Horowitz at a $7.5 billion valuation<\/strong>. Its 2024 revenue was $300 million in ARR. It employs roughly 1,500 people. Its CEO is Garrett Langley. (Reuters, March 2025<\/a>; CNBC Disruptor 50, June 2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The company operates approximately 90,000 cameras across approximately 7,000 networks in 49 states<\/strong>, scanning vehicle license plates an estimated 20 billion times per month<\/strong>. More than 5,000 law enforcement agencies are under contract. (ACLU of Massachusetts, October 2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n

That is the public-safety side. Flock also sells to private customers: HOAs, apartment complexes, 7 of the 10 largest U.S. shopping malls, 10 of the 40 largest U.S. healthcare providers, and more than 100 public school systems. In June 2025, Flock launched "Business Network" allowing private companies to share data and add vehicles to hotlists collaboratively. (Flock Safety blog, June 2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The Hardware<\/h3>\n

Flock’s product line, as of 2026:<\/p>\n