The FBI spent years spying on Americans without warrants and called it national security.
Now a company with 120,000 cameras knows where you drove every day this week.
And Ron DeSantis just said something about it that no one expected from him.
Flock Safety License Plate Readers Track 20 Billion Vehicles a Month
Flock Safety's network scans 20 billion license plates every month across 49 states.
Every vehicle that passes a Flock camera gets photographed, logged, and fed through computer vision software into a searchable national database accessible by law enforcement agencies across the country – none of whom need a warrant to check where your car has been.
Sen. Josh Hawley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, sent CEO Garrett Langley a letter with a blunt assessment.
"Congress never authorized the network your industry has built," Hawley wrote. "Your company's internal policies are, in practice, the only safeguards for hundreds of millions of Americans."
The only thing standing between Flock's national database and abuse is Flock's goodwill.
Hawley gave Langley until September 8 to hand over company records – every documented misuse going back to 2021, data on the system's accuracy, a full accounting of revenue sources, and the complete terms under which outside agencies can search the database.
When Police Use Flock Cameras for Stalking and False Arrests
The abuse cases are not theoretical.
A Haines City, Florida, police officer was arrested in August after his owndepartment caught him using the Flock database to track his estranged wife.
A week later, a Sarasota officer was arrested for querying a specific vehicle more than 300 times with no investigative justification.
A North Carolina police officer used the system to track her boyfriend's ex-wife.
These are the ones who got caught.
Hawley's letter also highlighted the case of a Florida woman who spent 13 days in jail and faced eight felony counts – including three vehicular homicide charges – for a crime she did not commit, after Flock's system produced a false positive match.
One California police department reviewed their own Flock alerts and found 71 percent of them were wrong.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis addressed it at a press conference.
"When I see a police officer using this to track an ex-girlfriend, I'm like, you know what the hell's going on?" DeSantis said. "I don't want to have this become a surveillance state."
DeSantis – who has spent his career as one of law enforcement's most reliable allies – said the technology has gotten "out of control" and is now pushing Florida legislators to impose guardrails.
He tried to get ahead of exactly this problem during the last legislative session, pushing what he called an AI Bill of Rights to protect Floridians from surveillance overreach by tech companies.
The bill failed in the Republican-controlled House refused to bring it to a vote – with Speaker Danny Perez arguing AI regulation should be left to the federal government.
Now those same Floridians are watching police officers use camera networks to stalk their wives.
The backlash is so widespread that Americans are taking matters into their own hands.
DeFlock, an opposition tracking group, has documented more than 135 communities pulling Flock contracts.
Citizens in at least 36 states have vandalized, sawed down, spray-painted, and shot the cameras.
Flock's CEO publicly called the activists who mapped the cameras' locations "terroristic" for building a website.
Josh Hawley Opens Senate Investigation Into Flock Surveillance Network
President Trump was asked about the Flock controversy in the Oval Office.
"Well, it's being studied right now," Trump said. "You have pros and cons. We'll have an answer soon, in the coming weeks."
That answer could arrive faster now that Hawley has forced the issue.
The Missouri senator wants every document by September 8. He's not waiting for Flock to self-police. The company has already demonstrated its internal oversight means nothing – last December a configuration error left live camera feeds open on the public internet for anyone to watch. Flock's CEO called it a vendor mistake. He said they were "accountable."
Accountable enough to let officers stalk women with their system. Accountable enough to leave live feeds open to the public internet.
Flock built the infrastructure of a surveillance state through private contracts with local governments, deliberately cutting Congress out of the process.
There was never a vote. There was never a debate. There were just cameras going up one by one until a single Atlanta company could map where any American drove on any given day.
That's not law enforcement. That's a private surveillance empire built on a loophole – and the senator who chairs the committee on crime just put them on notice.
Sources:
- Josh Hawley, "Hawley Launches Investigation Into Flock Safety," Daily Caller, August 26, 2026.
- "Sen. Josh Hawley Probes Flock Safety Over National Surveillance Concerns," The Hill, August 26, 2026.
- "Hawley Rips Flock's Sprawling Surveillance Web," Fox News Digital, August 26, 2026.
- "DeSantis Says Flock Cameras Are 'Out of Control,'" WFLA Tampa, August 26, 2026.
- "Trump Says Flock Cameras 'Being Studied,'" Washington Examiner, August 2026.
- "Flock Announces Security Changes Amid Backlash," One America News Network, August 13, 2026.
