Flock Exposed - The Senate Hearing, September 2026
On Wednesday, September 23, 2026, the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism held a hearing titled "Always Watching: Flock's Nationwide AI Surveillance Network." It was bipartisan, it was chaired by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, and it was the first time this technology was examined at length in the Senate with sworn witnesses.
Source: United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, hearing record
For anyone who has stood up at a town board meeting and been told this is a settled, routine, uncontroversial piece of police equipment, the hearing is worth knowing about in detail.
The Empty Chairs
Senator Hawley's office invited the chief executives of the four largest companies in this industry: Garrett Langley of Flock Safety, Rick Smith of Axon Enterprise, Greg Brown of Motorola Solutions, and Filip Kaliszan of Verkada. None of them appeared.
Source: CNBC, "Flock, Axon dodge Senate hearing after invite from Chair Josh Hawley"
Four companies whose products are installed on public roads in thousands of American towns declined an invitation to answer questions about them in public, under oath. "I think we need to hear from them," Hawley said.
Source: Roll Call
Who Did Testify
Four witnesses appeared: a driver wrongly identified by the system, an independent security researcher, a policy counsel from the American Civil Liberties Union, and a sitting county sheriff.
The Cost to One Driver
Lindsey Isaacs of Florida testified about what happens when the system is wrong. In April 2026 she was accused of driving the vehicle involved in an October 2025 crash on Interstate 4 near DeBary that killed three people. The identification came from Flock camera data. She spent 13 days in jail, then two weeks out on bond, before the charges against her were dropped.
Source: The Hill
She told the subcommittee plainly: "I was falsely accused of a triple vehicular homicide."
Source: CBS12 News I-Team
This is the part that never appears in a vendor presentation to a town board. The pitch describes the cases solved. It does not describe the person who loses two weeks of their life to a machine's confident mistake.
The Security Findings
Benn Jordan, an independent security researcher, described systemic vulnerabilities he had found in the network. Dozens of Flock cameras were streaming openly online. Administrative interfaces were exposed. Law enforcement account credentials were listed for sale on the dark web.
Source: Three takeaways from the Senate hearing on Flock's camera network
His question to the senators was the one every town official should be asked before signing a contract: "Why create this much data when we can't secure it?"
A Sheriff's Account
Perhaps the most striking testimony came from Sheriff Ross Teeple of Pinal County, Arizona, a law enforcement officer testifying about his own concerns with the technology in his county. Teeple said he asked the company directly whether artificial intelligence was used in its cameras, and was told that it was not. He later saw a statement from the company indicating otherwise. When he raised the discrepancy, he described the answer he received as chilling. In his account, he was told: "That wasn't the AI you were asking about."
Source: Fox Carolina, live hearing coverage
If a sitting sheriff, an actual paying customer with the authority of his office behind him, cannot get a straight answer about what the equipment does, a town trustee should ask what chance an ordinary resident has.
The Oversight Argument
Chad Marlow, Senior Policy Counsel at the ACLU, testified on the gap between the company's stated safeguards and what those safeguards actually accomplish. His central point was that the security procedures the company points to do nothing to prevent misuse of the cameras by the people authorized to use them. An audit log records a search. It does not stop one.
Source: American Civil Liberties Union
Alasdair Whitney, Legislative Counsel at the Institute for Justice, also participated in the proceedings, and the ACLU noted that in August 2026, cities were terminating their contracts at a rate of more than three per day.
Source: American Civil Liberties Union
A State Official Weighs In
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias publicly voiced support for the Senate's scrutiny of Flock Safety and other automated license plate reader operators. That is a state's chief officer over vehicle registration and driver records backing federal examination of how this industry handles the data it collects.
Source: Quincy Herald-Whig, "Secretary of state backs scrutiny of license plate surveillance firms"
How Hawley Closed It
Before adjourning, the chairman said: "We need the Bill of Rights now more than ever."
What This Means Locally
A Senate subcommittee hearing does not change a single line of law by itself. But it changes what a local official can plausibly claim not to know. After September 23, 2026, no board member can describe this as a routine, uncontroversial purchase that nobody has questioned. The record now includes sworn testimony from a wrongly jailed driver, a security researcher who found the cameras streaming to the open internet, and a sheriff who says he could not get a straight answer from the vendor.
Questions to Ask Your Town
Has the board reviewed the September 2026 Senate subcommittee hearing record before renewing or approving any contract?
What happens in our town if the system misidentifies a resident's vehicle, and who is liable?
Has anyone independently verified that our cameras are not exposed to the open internet?
What written answer has our department received about exactly what artificial intelligence functions these cameras perform?
If more than three cities per day were canceling these contracts, what did our board consider before keeping ours?
Does our policy do anything to prevent misuse by an authorized user, as opposed to merely recording it afterward?
This page will be updated as more factual sources become available.