Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley claimed Sunday, without providing evidence, that online resistance to his company was artificial and created by Russian bots, according to leaked audio obtained by 404 Media.
Langley claimed during the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Orlando, Florida, that online protests against Flock were not real and were staged by Russian bots, according to 404 Media. Langley claimed without providing proof that Flock opponents were paid off and that he would prefer never to do an interview with the press again, 404 Media reported.
“These people are being paid to say these things,” Langley said in the leaked audio.
“Online chatter about Flock is down 50% after Ukraine bombed a Russian data center last week […] it’s anonymous bots, and it’s not real,” Langley told the conference, stating his theory that hatred for Flock is astroturfed.
“Whenever this industry finds a highly effective tool, it has to go through this period of intense debate. But then you get on the other side. I think right now we’re not at the bottom, but we’re real, dang-near close to it and about to come back up on the other side,” Langley said.
Flock Safety is an American company that operates automatic license plate readers (ALPR) and conducts video surveillance. This information can be used to trace people’s whereabouts with precision, raising privacy concerns. Law enforcement can access Flock data without a warrant, according to 404 Media.
There are over 144,000 Flock cameras across the country, according to DeFlock, an open-source project tracking Flock ALPR.
Flock Safety did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Flock protests have occurred across the country as Flock expands its surveillance technology. Barry Harris, a beekeeper from Wilmington, North Carolina, emphasized the bipartisan nature of Flock resistance at an anti-Flock rally in August.
“There’s gays, straights, young, old, liberals, way-left liberals, Genghis Khan conservatives to the right here,” Harris said about the rally’s attendees.
The San Jose Police Department fired an officer who used the Flock network to assist a relative accused of domestic violence in tracking down the alleged victim. A Florida woman was jailed when Flock cameras falsely connected her to a deadly car crash.
“In Milwaukee, prosecutors charged a police officer who allegedly searched his girlfriend’s license plate 124 times and her former boyfriend’s plate 55 times, entering ‘investigation’ as his justification each time,” Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said in support of Flock regulation.
While Congress hasn’t proposed any bills to outright ban Flock cameras, several bills would restrict the use of Flock surveillance data. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed a bill to restrict federal funding for Flock, and Hawley introduced a bill to prevent the sharing of Flock data with non-governmental third parties.
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