Tag: mass surveillance

Flock Safety Defends Cameras After AI System Triggers Wrongful Police Stops Of Two Journalists

Plymouth, Minnesota – Automotive journalist Joel Feder and his wife were detained by multiple police officers in a coordinated stop while driving a Jaguar Land Rover press vehicle, after Flock Safety’s automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras flagged the car based on a flawed database entry.

According to Feder’s detailed account in The Drive, officers boxed in the $155,000 Range Rover in a Kohl’s parking lot after the vehicle triggered alerts via Flock’s network. Police had been tracking it for days, believing the New Jersey manufacturer plate (34 10 DTM) was stolen. Officers approached with hands on their weapons, ordered the couple out of the vehicle, and conducted pat-downs before verifying the car’s legitimacy through Jaguar Land Rover. Feder subsequently obtained and published the body camera footage of the encounter.

The incident stemmed from an incomplete report of a similar plate (34 03 DTM) lost during a photo shoot in California, which was entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database simply as “34 DTM.” Flock’s AI system matched Feder’s plate – ignoring the smaller middle digits – and generated alerts. Local officers did not fully verify the complete plate visible in Flock’s own images.

The problem was not confined to one vehicle. Last Wednesday, fellow auto journalist Tim Esterdahl, publisher of Pickup Truck + SUV Talk, was pulled over by two officers in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, while driving his 14-year-old child in a $105,000 Range Rover Sport loaned to him by Jaguar Land Rover for review. Its plate: New Jersey 34 08 DTM. Jaguar Land Rover has been working to correct the underlying reports.

Flock Safety maintains that its cameras performed as designed, matching partial plates per law enforcement preferences for hotlist alerts. Chief Communications Officer Joshua Thomas told The Drive the system was asked whether those characters were present and correctly answered that they were – it simply was not built to flag that additional characters existed. He conceded that for alerts originating from NCIC rather than an individual agency’s custom list, the system arguably should test for an exact match rather than mere presence, and called that fair feedback to take back to his team.

Thomas said Flock is working to get the original police report corrected and is meeting with the FBI officials who curate NCIC to develop a way for incomplete data to be flagged as such for officers seeing automated alerts in the field. He emphasized that a camera alert “does not equal probable cause,” comparing it to an alarm going off, and stressed that the system depends on both valid inputs and humans verifying outputs.

But the scale is what makes the error rate consequential. Thomas said the system is roughly 99 percent accurate while performing approximately 20 billion reads per month – arithmetic that leaves on the order of 200 million misreads every month. How many of those escalate into armed stops is unknown.

Plymouth police acknowledged shortcomings in verification but pointed to the challenges of varying license plate formats nationwide. According to the department’s Flock transparency portal, the city operates 18 cameras that read more than 580,000 license plates in a recent 30-day period, generating over 14,800 hotlist hits – one of which was Feder.

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FLOCK SAFETY: The Great Normalization (Nobody Declared Martial Law… Yet America Began Looking Like It Anyway)

There are stories that announce themselves with explosions, riots, or breaking-news headlines, and then there are stories so subtle that they quietly rewrite an entire society before anyone realizes what has happened. This is one of those stories. During the preparation of this investigation, several retired police officers, private security professionals, emergency responders, and ordinary citizens described nearly identical experiences despite living hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. None believed they were witnessing anything extraordinary at first. It was only when they looked backward—sometimes over a decade—that a disturbing pattern became impossible to ignore. Streets had not become military checkpoints overnight. Neighborhoods had not suddenly filled with surveillance towers. Instead, the changes arrived one camera, one drone, one security contract, and one “temporary” emergency measure at a time until extraordinary security became indistinguishable from ordinary life. What follows is not an argument against public safety, nor an attempt to romanticize a past that was hardly free from crime or violence. It is an examination of a transformation that has occurred quietly enough for most people to stop seeing it altogether.

There is an old saying among investigators that people rarely notice change while it is happening. They notice it only when they compare today’s reality with memories that have remained frozen in time. Memory preserves snapshots, while history moves continuously. That disconnect explains why so many citizens insist that nothing fundamental has changed even as the physical landscape around them becomes increasingly populated by surveillance cameras, armed guards, automated license plate readers, biometric scanners, drones, and predictive security technologies. No single installation appears revolutionary. No single policy seems capable of altering the character of a society. Yet history rarely advances through dramatic leaps. More often, it advances through thousands of small decisions that seem perfectly reasonable when viewed independently but become historically significant when examined collectively.

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Lawmakers Urge CDC to Track Vitamin K Shot Refusals as More Parents Say No

Two Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to begin tracking how often parents decline vitamin K injections for newborns, saying the absence of national data is hindering efforts to prevent a rare but potentially fatal bleeding disorder.

In a letter sent to CDC Acting Director Jay Bhattacharya, Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.), a pediatrician, and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) urged the agency to establish surveillance for vitamin K shot refusals, cases of vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB) and related infant deaths.

The request follows a ProPublica investigation that raised concerns about increasing refusal rates and gaps in public health monitoring.

“The CDC has the tools to better understand the burden of vitamin K shot refusal, VKDB and VKDB-related deaths,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge you to use them, and to share that data with the public, so that we can prevent tragic illness and death in infants.”

Though a database would compile patient information, experts suggest that federal and state privacy laws prohibit the disclosure of any personal details.

Deven McGraw, chief regulatory and privacy officer at Citizen Health, said routine data collection is used to monitor tracking and deployment of recommended public health interventions.

“Typically data like this are reported in a de-identified way, or with identifiers removed, as the purpose is for surveillance and to inform policy and not for punishment,” McGraw told The Defender.

‘There is no such thing as zero risk’

Vitamin K injections have been recommended for newborns in the U.S. for decades to help prevent dangerous bleeding during the first months of life.

The shot is not a vaccine, but it has increasingly become caught up in broader debates surrounding childhood immunizations and medical misinformation, according to pediatricians and public health experts.

Physician and researcher Dr. Suzanne Humphries recently told CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD” that media coverage of the issue relies more heavily on fearmongering than empirical data.

Citing figures extrapolated from European populations, Humphries stated that if babies were not given the vitamin K shot, their death from brain bleeding would occur at a rate of approximately 0.26 to 0.9 per 100,000 births.

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Massive Security Blunder Exposes San Francisco Police’s Expanding Drone Surveillance

A major security lapse has exposed hours of live surveillance footage from the San Francisco Police Department’s drone program.

The footage offers a rare glimpse into the scale of aerial policing now taking place over one of America’s largest cities.

According to WIRED, two cybersecurity researchers discovered that live feeds from five SFPD drones had been publicly accessible through a web link generated by drone manufacturer Skydio.

The stream reportedly remained exposed for months before it was taken offline.

The leaked footage showed drones tracking suspects through city streets, monitoring apartment buildings, following vehicles, and assisting officers during arrests and investigations.

In one example, multiple drones tracked a suspect across San Francisco before officers surrounded and arrested him following what police described as an alleged vehicle theft-related incident.

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House Passes Bill Preventing Credit Card Companies from Tracking Gun Sales

On July 14, 2026, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to block credit card companies from tracking gun and ammunition sales.

The bill, H.R. 1181, passed on a vote of 221 to 201. Two-hundred-and-fifteen Republicans voted for the bill, along with five Democrats and one Independent.

H.R. 1181 is sponsored by Riley Moore (R-WV).

Breitbart News reported Moore’s introduction of the bill on February 12, 2025, noting that he titled it the “Protecting Privacy in Purchases Act.”

He introduced it after major credit card companies succumbed to the gun control lobby during the Biden Administration and made plans to track the sales of guns and ammo.

For example, on September 11, 2022, Breitbart News pointed out Visa caved to pressure from gun control groups and New York Democrats, agreeing to flag gun and ammo purchases via a merchant code. The Associated Press observed that Mastercard and other major credit card companies also agreed to flag gun sales. On March 2, 2023, Breitbart News noted Discover was slated to begin tracking gun and ammunition purchases with the new MCC in April 2023.

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They Divided Us to Build a Cage: Why the Elite Are Terrified of Our Mutual Hatred for Mass Surveillance

For the better part of a decade, the ruling class and their corporate media lapdogs have executed a masterclass in divide and conquer. They have successfully weaponized social media algorithms to ensure that you hate your neighbor over issues that, statistically speaking, will never impact your daily life. The machine thrives on outrage, moral signaling, and tribal affiliation, turning entirely niche issues into existential worldview clashes while the state quietly builds a panopticon in our backyards.

We have been conditioned to tear each other apart over superficialities. Whether it is a statue of a long-dead politician in a city park or corporate HR departments mandating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion trainings, the establishment hands down the scripts and the masses predictably read their lines.

Look at the absolute hysteria surrounding transgender athletes in college sports. If you measure the outrage by the sheer volume of screaming online, you would think this is the most pressing crisis in human history. Yet, as NCAA President Charlie Baker recently testified, out of more than 510,000 collegiate competitors, there are fewer than 10 known transgender student-athletes.

Millions of people are devoting countless hours of their fleeting lives to wage digital warfare over an issue that affects less than 0.002 percent of the athletic population. The same goes for the compelled use of pronouns and the endless online battles over misgendering. Trans-identifying individuals make up barely one percent of the population, meaning the average adult can go months or years without ever encountering a situation where pronoun enforcement dictates their reality.

Yet corporate HR policies and viral confrontation videos keep the flames fanned, pitting individual conscience against institutional demands while the people in power laugh all the way to the bank. These issues are specifically designed to keep the masses at each other’s throats. As long as the left and the right are busy fighting over who uses which bathroom or whether a piece of bronze should be melted down, they are completely ignoring the boot on both of their necks.

But a profound shift is happening, and the establishment is terrified. Despite the billions spent on propaganda to keep us divided, there is one undeniable issue that is bringing society back together: our shared disdain for the surveillance state. It turns out that making an argument for the government to track your every move, log your license plates, and listen to your conversations is pretty difficult to do without sounding like a complete tyrant.

Regardless of which flavor of freedom you prefer, the realization that the surveillance state is the enemy of all peaceful people is finally taking root. My account on Twitter/X is notoriously shadowbanned, artificially throttled by the algorithms to keep this exact anti-authoritarian message from reaching the masses. Yet, I recently posted a meme about a man destroying Flock safety cameras and pleading not guilty on the grounds that mass surveillance violates our fundamental rights.

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The Latest Model Cars: Big Brother Is Watching You

Big Brother is a character in George Orwell’s novel 1984, the entity that governs Oceania, through the tyrannical single party – the Ingsoc. No one knows about it, but it is omnipresent through telescreens with strong propaganda and controlling everything.

An article written by Steve Watson in Modernity.news, gives an account of how the surveillance state has found its new frontier: the dashboard of your car. What was once a symbol of American freedom and independence, automobiles are rapidly transforming into a high-tech cage that watches their every move and can override their decisions at will.

In a post shared on X, users detailed the multiple complaints about Subaru’s improved “EyeSight” AI system, which is present in the latest models. According to drivers, the system gets quick glimpses beyond their intentions to plan their route. At the same time, Biden-era federal mandates were put in place to make this level of surveillance mandatory on every new vehicle by 2027.

They even catch a momentary glance to change a song or admire the landscape and activate constant alerts. Thus, its new Emergency Stop Assist with Safe Lane Selection function can detect an “unresponsive” driver and issue increasing alerts through sounds and vibrations at the steering wheel, and then take full control: automatically brake, reduce the vehicle’s speed, direct it to the side of the road, and activate hazard lights.

This is not an optional trick but would be imposed by the state. It’s being rolled out as standard “safety” technology, but drivers call it a domineering electronic babysitter who treats competent adults like children. It serves as a chilling preview of where the entire auto industry is headed under government pressure.

This type of intrusive surveillance is precisely the tool that a police state would dream of to exert total control over personal movements. If authorities achieve deeper integration with these systems, they could effectively decide when, where, and who can drive.

The launch of Subaru is just the latest sticking point in a broader push toward vehicle surveillance that goes far beyond basic security. A federal mandate – included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 – requires all new passenger vehicles sold in the US to include advanced drunk or drug-impaired driving prevention technology, starting with 2027 model years.

As detailed in the New York Post report, this means infrared cameras and sensors that constantly monitor eyes, faces, head position, and behavior for distractions, drowsiness, or deterioration, with the power to prevent the car from starting or limit its operation. It seems very appropriate, but it implies a great deal of arbitrariness if it comes into the hands of bureaucrats.

Manufacturers are already patenting and deploying even more aggressive systems, including biometric scans that analyze everything from gait to heart rate to AI face scanning, lip reading, and emotional monitoring. The problem is that the data won’t stay in the car: it could make its way to insurers for risk scoring, law enforcement, or worse, to the knowledge of Big Brother: as cross-checks of drivers with police databases, before the vehicle is even allowed to move.

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Chip Roy Unveils Bill Requiring Hospitals Participating in Federal Healthcare Programs to Report Immigration Status Data

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) is introducing legislation that would require hospitals participating in federal health care programs to ask patients to indicate their immigration status.

The hospitals would have to report aggregate totals, including the number of patients who say they are not lawfully present in the United States. 

Roy’s “Illegal Alien Patient Reporting Act” would amend Title XI of the Social Security Act and exclude hospitals from participation in federal healthcare programs if they fail to comply with the legislation’s reporting requirements.

“For years, Americans have watched overcrowded emergency rooms, rising healthcare costs, and strained hospital resources while being kept in the dark about the potential billions of taxpayer dollars spent on healthcare for those who are in the country illegally,” Roy told Breitbart News.

“That lack of accountability is unacceptable and absurd,” the Texas Republican continued. “The Illegal Alien Patient Reporting Act delivers the transparency and accountability Americans deserve by ensuring hospitals report the extent to which illegal aliens are adding to the fiscal burden of our healthcare system.”

Under the bill, hospital admission, registration, and other intake forms would be required to ask patients or their authorized representatives to indicate the patient’s immigration status.

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Brussels Has Opinions About Your Social Media Feed

The European Commission wants the power to force a redesign of the apps on your phone. Regulators in Brussels said Friday that Instagram and Facebook break European law because the products are built to hold your attention. They are ready to fine Meta as much as 6 percent of its global revenue, more than $12 billion, until the company rebuilds the apps to Brussels’ liking.

The preliminary findings target the ordinary machinery of a modern feed, from infinite scroll and autoplay to push notifications and the recommendation systems that decide what you see next. The Commission’s proposed remedy seems like a product spec written by a government. It wants autoplay and infinite scroll switched off by default, real screen time breaks built in, and the algorithm retuned so it stops working so hard to keep you around.

The finding falls under the Digital Services Act, the law Brussels uses to police what Europeans can post and see online.

The machinery now aimed at button placement and video autoplay is the same machinery built to decide which content stays up and which comes down. Once a regulator can order how an app is designed, the distance between design and speech runs short.

Someone has to define “addictive,” and under this law that someone is the government. The Commission says Meta pushes users into “autopilot mode” and failed to weigh the risks its design poses to minors and what it calls vulnerable adults.

The behavior it describes, opening an app and scrolling longer than you meant to, is familiar to anyone with a phone. The question is who gets to name it a harm and prescribe the cure.

“Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms. The Digital Services Act provides a clear framework to hold platforms accountable for the addictive design and effects of their services. We are fully committed to enforcing our legislation in Europe,” said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.

The title alone shows how wide the mandate has grown. One official holds a brief that spans “tech sovereignty, security and democracy,” and from that chair rules that a scrolling feed threatens public health.

Meta rejects the finding. “We disagree with these preliminary findings, which don’t accurately take into account the significant steps we’ve taken to protect teens.

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While The Political Circus Distracts Us, Flock Builds The Digital Police State

“You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”

– George Orwell, 1984

While Americans remain transfixed by the political circus – cheering for their preferred party, jeering at the opposition, obsessing over every manufactured outrage and waiting for the next spectacle – the Surveillance State continues its steady march forward.

The government is watching.

It watches where you go, whom you meet, where you worship, what medical offices you visit, what political rallies you attend, what protests you join, what books you read, what websites you visit and what causes you support.

It watches through your phone, your car, your doorbell, your appliances, your purchases, your social media accounts and the cameras positioned along the roads you travel every day.

This is how freedom dies in the digital police state: not always through dramatic declarations of martial law or soldiers stationed on every street corner, but through the gradual construction of a technological dragnet—an electronic concentration camp—so pervasive that privacy becomes impossible and anonymity becomes suspicious.

Enter Flock Safety, a private surveillance technology company whose automated license plate readers have spread throughout thousands of American communities.

These cameras, which do much more than photograph license plates, represent the next evolution of the government’s public-private surveillance partnership.

They document the time and location of every passing vehicle and record identifying characteristics such as its make, model, color, damage, roof racks, bumper stickers and other distinctive features. That information can then be placed in a searchable database and used to retrace a vehicle’s movements over time.

Yet the real power—and the real danger—of Flock does not come from the cameras alone.

It comes from artificial intelligence.

A camera can photograph a car. Flock’s AI-powered platform can identify and categorize a vehicle, compare an observation with stored records, generate alerts, identify connections and help police reconstruct where that vehicle has been.

AI is what transforms a photograph into the building blocks for a suspect society.

With AI, every driver becomes a data point. Every data point becomes a pattern. And every pattern becomes a suspicion.

This is how ordinary movements become potentially suspect and subject to government scrutiny. It allows law enforcement agencies to search not only for a complete license plate number but also for partial plates and physical descriptions such as vehicle color, make, model, damage, roof racks, bumper stickers and other identifying characteristics.

A police officer might ask the system to locate every red pickup truck with a ladder rack seen near a protest, every vehicle that repeatedly visited a particular address, or every car observed traveling between two locations.

The artificial intelligence does the sorting. The database supplies the history.

The government receives a list of potential suspects.

This is no longer surveillance conducted by individual officers following particular leads. It is surveillance conducted at machine speed, across entire populations, with algorithms deciding whose movements merit further scrutiny.

Consider the scale of what is taking place.

License plate cameras now log approximately 20 billion vehicle scans every month.

Twenty billion.

That is not targeted policing. That is mass collection.

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