{"id":18739,"date":"2026-09-15T09:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=18739"},"modified":"2026-09-15T09:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:14:09","slug":"california-cops-are-using-flock-cameras-to-spy-on-a-small-wisconsin-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/15\/california-cops-are-using-flock-cameras-to-spy-on-a-small-wisconsin-village\/","title":{"rendered":"California Cops Are Using Flock Cameras To Spy On A Small Wisconsin Village"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is just ridiculous how we’re tracked and how recklessly police search the database. This is a warning that when agentic AI spyware on computers finally gets rolled out with digital ID, you’ll literally be in a digital Panopticon with no escape. And the sad part is people are paying for a lot of the spying devices, e.g. Ring cameras, Meta glasses, vehicles and smartphones with signal tracking to big tech…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2026\/09\/15\/california-cops-are-using-flock-cameras-to-spy-on-a-small-wisconsin-village\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Police departments with Flock camera fever are \u2018addicted\u2019 to the nationwide surveillance tool.<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

By: Dan Lennington<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elm Grove is a quiet village of about 6,500 in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, 15 minutes from downtown Milwaukee. Like many municipalities, officials in Elm Grove recently caught Flock fever, installing six cameras that constantly surveil the village\u2019s main streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flock Group, Inc. is a tech company that has sold more than 120,000 cameras to governments, schools, hospitals, shopping malls, and neighborhood associations. Marketed as ALPRs \u2014 automated license plate readers \u2014 they capture far more than plates: passing vehicles, pedestrians, backyards, and sometimes even the inside of vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flock uploads the images and videos from its nationwide network of cameras into a massive location-history database. Flock\u2019s AI tools create a \u201cvehicle fingerprint\u201d for each vehicle \u2014 every scratch, dent, bumper sticker, trailer, roof rack, or other noticeable feature is logged. Flock can document where you\u2019ve been in the past month, where you are today, and even predict where you\u2019re going in the future and who you\u2019ll travel with. As with most emerging AI tech, the sky\u2019s the limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s notable about Elm Grove\u2019s six cameras is not that they exist, but that the cameras are searched more than a million times most months. But Elm Grove officers aren\u2019t doing the bulk of that searching. Audit logs obtained through public records requests by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty<\/a> show that Elm Grove\u2019s officers only search their own cameras a few dozen times a month for minor local crimes, like traffic infractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The million searches come from other departments. Once an agency searches outside its jurisdiction, the searching is reciprocal. For example, if an Elm Grove officer runs a national search, then any of several thousand agencies can run a nationwide search that includes Elm Grove\u2019s camera network. And now it happens all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Records called \u201cnetwork audit logs,\u201d maintained by every Flock customer, tell the story of these nationwide searches. Based on Elm Grove\u2019s own records \u2014 and records from five other Waukesha County agencies \u2014 Gavin Newsom\u2019s California Highway Patrol is by far the most frequent nationwide searcher of Flock cameras. CHP runs about 50,000 nationwide searches a month, querying images and videos collected from thousands of agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHP isn\u2019t the only heavy nationwide searcher. The FBI runs around 20,000 searches a month. Other frequent users include Louisville Metro PD, the Hillsborough County (Florida) Sheriff\u2019s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Michigan State Police \u2014 each running queries 13,000 to 16,000 times a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are they searching for? Most of CHP\u2019s nationwide searches involve traffic infractions, theft, or hit-and-runs \u2014 somewhat understandable, but that does not explain why CHP is searching Elm Grove cameras for crimes on the Pacific Coast Highway, for example. Other agencies typically give vague reasons for their nationwide searches. Wisconsin cameras are pinged more than 50,000 times a month for searches labeled as \u201cother,\u201d \u201cinvestigation,\u201d or \u201cnot applicable.\u201d That\u2019s not much of an insight into whether police are properly using the Flock database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, some searches are downright bizarre. In July 2026 alone, agencies ran these nationwide searches covering Elm Grove\u2019s six cameras:<\/p>\n\n\n\n