The NSA collected phone records on millions of Americans without a warrant – and it took Edward Snowden to blow the whole thing open.
Now a private company is running something bigger, and most people have no idea it exists.
What Hawley's investigators just uncovered about who can search that database would have been unthinkable ten years ago.
120,000 Cameras and Nobody Asked Congress
Flock Safety has planted more than 120,000 AI-powered cameras across 49 states. Every month, those cameras scan more than 20 billion vehicles – logging license plates, make, model, color, location, and time. Not just criminals or suspects. Everyone.
Sen. Josh Hawley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, sent a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley. The senator laid out what most Americans don't know: Congress never authorized this network.
"Your company's internal policies are, in practice, the only safeguards for hundreds of millions of Americans," Hawley wrote.
There are no federal laws governing how Flock stores your data, who it shares it with, or how long it keeps records of where you've been.
A company founded by three Georgia Tech alumni in 2017 built a national surveillance infrastructure with no warrant requirement and no congressional sign-off.
"I'm investigating Flock cameras to determine who has access to hundreds of millions of Americans' data and what they're doing with it," Hawley said. "Americans deserve answers."
The Supreme Court Already Warned Us This Was Coming
This isn't a new fight. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter v. United States that the government needs a warrant before pulling historical location records. The Court held that people retain a privacy interest in the full record of their movements over time – and that comprehensive retrospective tracking is a different constitutional problem than a cop watching someone walk down a street.
Flock is doing exactly what Carpenter warned against – warrantless, population-wide tracking – with no judicial check in sight.
Robert Frommer, director of the Institute for Justice's Project on the Fourth Amendment, said the fix is straightforward: "Go to a judge, explain to the judge why you should be able to use this tool."
That hasn't happened. Law enforcement agencies search Flock's database without court approval. ICE, the Secret Service, and the Navy's criminal investigation division all had access to Flock's nationwide network. No judicial oversight. No public knowledge.
And in at least 50 documented cases nationwide, officers have exploited that access to stalk ex-girlfriends, ex-wives, and romantic rivals – including a North Carolina officer who ran one woman's plate 31 times to track her movements for personal reasons.
Flock says agencies control their own data-sharing settings. Frommer doesn't buy it.
"The fact that they technically control the data is a false promise when reality has shown that these things are often spread much further than agencies expected," he said.
Cities Are Already Pulling the Plug
Cities and counties across the country stopped waiting for Congress and started cutting Flock loose.
The Pflugerville City Council in Texas voted unanimously to end its agreement with Flock after losing confidence in the company's safeguards. All 28 cameras are being shut off. Pflugerville Police Chief Willie Richards said the cameras had helped protect the community but that confidence in the vendor's data practices was gone.
Hood County, Texas made the same call. Constable John Shirley covered the cameras personally and posted photos online.
"That kind of permanent, warrantless tracking doesn't belong in a free society," Shirley wrote. He added that privacy isn't optional and that mass surveillance isn't how his county operates.
Tempe, Arizona shut off its entire Flock system and won't be replacing it.
Flock acknowledged it had mistakenly connected two out-of-state agencies to Texas's statewide sharing network, exposing those agencies' data to a broader pool than anyone realized.
"We take responsibility for that error," the company said.
Multiple Republican members of Congress have already introduced legislation – from outright bans on federal Flock purchases to mandatory warrant requirements before any government surveillance of American citizens. Hawley has given Flock until September 8 to produce all requested records.
Hawley just made sure Americans finally know what Flock built – and who's been using it.
Sources:
- Stepheny Price, "Hawley rips Flock's sprawling surveillance web as Texas cities cut cameras over privacy and data fears," Fox News, August 26, 2026.
- Nicole Silverio, "Hawley Launches Investigation Into Flock Over Surveillance Concerns," Daily Caller, August 26, 2026.
- Harold Hutchison, "Josh Hawley Launches Senate Probe Into Flock Camera Network, Demands Records by September 8," WLT Report, August 27, 2026.
- "Scoop: Senate Republican investigates Flock cameras," Axios, August 26, 2026.
- "Josh Hawley launches Senate probe into Flock's surveillance cameras," RSB Network, August 27, 2026.
- "Police Used Flock's License Plate Network to Stalk Women in at Least 50 Cases," TechTimes, August 4, 2026.
