Up in Washington, a new bill is looking to cut off the money supply for towns and cops hooked on Flock Safety cameras. Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, is the one pushing it. His proposal would strip federal funds from any local government or police department running these controversial surveillance systems. It is a move directly aimed at how these networks get built out and paid for across the map.
Flock Safety has been busy laying cable. It has quietly become the preferred eye on the street for police, a go to surveillance tool for tracking vehicle movements. Since 2018, these cameras have wired themselves into more than 5,000 police agencies nationwide. We are talking about nearly 90,000 cameras now, all of them watching the streets, scanning every license plate, day in and day out. That is a massive network, one that raises plenty of questions about privacy for anyone just trying to get to work or pick up groceries without being tracked by default. This bill is an attempt to put a wrench in that machine, to slow down its spread through the wallet.