Surveillance States · Investigation · 2024–2026
Flock taught cops how to watch a protest.
A leaked training video shows the country's biggest camera-surveillance company walking police through tracking a peaceful anti-Trump protest — and a second leaked guide coaching them how to defend the cameras in public.
FACT
§2 · Thesis
A plate network sold to catch car thieves is a protest-tracking system the moment someone aims it at a protest — and the leak shows the company itself teaching police to aim it.
The webinar, the search logs, and the PR guide are FACT (404 Media, TNR, EFF). Flock's public-safety defense is carried. We grade the watching, not a prosecution.
The number
4,000+searches citing ICE/immigration
queries of Flock's national database (June 2024–May 2025) that officers justified with 'ICE,' 'immigration,' or similar — often in sanctuary jurisdictions meant to wall local data off from federal immigration enforcement.
404 Media
§5 · Graded Claim
A leaked Flock webinar taught police how to use its tools to monitor a protest.
FACT
404 Media reported a leaked Flock training webinar, led by a Flock director of market management, walking police through using FlockOS 'Real-Time Crime Centers' to monitor 'small parades, unexpected protests, disasters' — with a No Kings anti-Trump protest as the worked example, watching surrounding traffic and flagging vehicles.
§5 · Graded Claim
It showed how to turn a plate-read into an alert — and a database query into a reason to escalate.
FACT
Officers were shown how to set ALPR alerts on distinctive vehicles (flag a car with 'multicolored wheels,' get pinged when it passes — so you know a crowd is forming before anyone's posted), and how pulling a plate into Flock's 'Nova' search across jail/warrant/dispatch records hands police a fast justification to escalate — e.g. a 90-day tow instead of a citation. FlockOS bundles plate-readers, drones, gunshot detectors, and 911 data into a 'single pane of glass.'
§5 · Graded Claim
Police and Border Patrol used Flock plate-readers to track people at No Kings protests.
FACT
Not just training: law enforcement, including Border Patrol, used Flock's automated license-plate readers to track demonstrators at First Amendment-protected No Kings protests in 2025.
§5 · Graded Claim
The EFF found 50+ instances of agencies searching Flock data for protests and activists.
FACT
The Electronic Frontier Foundation found more than fifty instances of agencies querying Flock's servers for activity tied to protests and specific activist groups — a network sold for stolen cars turned toward political activity.
§5 · Graded Claim
A separate leaked Flock guide coaches police on how to defend and promote the cameras.
FACT
404 Media obtained a Flock guide built around 'owning the narrative,' coaching departments to push back on criticism and promote the tech publicly — the surveillance vendor writing the PR script for the agencies that buy it, as the ICE and protest reporting surfaced.
§7 · Why it matters now
The camera that watches the parade is watching the marchers.
Knowing you can be logged — plate and route — for showing up to a lawful protest is the kind of thing that keeps people home; that chill is the core Surveillance States harm. It builds on Flock Safety (the ALPR network, stalking abuse, ICE data-sharing) and Ban Flock, Buy Axon (the same surveillance, rebranded). The 'own the narrative' guide is a Who Controls What You Get to Know story: the vendor sells the cameras and writes the talking points that keep the public comfortable with them.
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