Hi neighbors,
You’ve probably heard the old children’s story If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. The lesson is simple: once you give away that first cookie, the mouse always comes back for more.
That is exactly what is happening with Flock Safety.
The company that convinced our City Council to buy license plate cameras is already moving into new territory: microphones in public places that do not just listen for gunshots, but for human voices. In their marketing materials, they brag about a feature that alerts police when someone is “screaming.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reported yesterday that Flock is adding “human distress detection” to its Raven product. These are high-powered microphones mounted on poles above our streets. What they pick up, how they decide what counts as distress, and how that audio is stored or shared are all still unclear. But the risks to privacy, civil liberties, and even personal safety are obvious.
The bigger lesson is this: once we let surveillance into our community, it does not stay contained. Companies like Flock promise narrow uses to get a foot in the door. Once the infrastructure is in place, new features appear, new risks emerge, and our ability to say “no” shrinks.
This is why so many of us have been pushing to cancel the Flock contract before cameras are installed. It is not just about license plates. It is about the future direction of our community.
Thanks for reading and for staying engaged.
Until next time,
Dustin