--- title: In Leaked Audio, Flock CEO Tells Cops Backlash to the... description: Flock CEO Garrett Langley told police chiefs at a private conference that opposition to his company's license plate readers isn't real. In leaked audio, he... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/in-leaked-audio-flock-ceo-tells-cops-backlash-to-the-company-isn-t-real-9xioxnk9e twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: In Leaked Audio, Flock CEO Tells Cops Backlash to the Company Isn't Real | daily.dev og:description: Flock CEO Garrett Langley told police chiefs at a private conference that opposition to his company's license plate readers isn't real. In leaked audio, he... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/in-leaked-audio-flock-ceo-tells-cops-backlash-to-the-company-isn-t-real-9xioxnk9e og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/9xiOXNk9E.png og:image:alt: In Leaked Audio, Flock CEO Tells Cops Backlash to the Company Isn't Real og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # In Leaked Audio, Flock CEO Tells Cops Backlash to the Company Isn't Real **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Flock CEO Garrett Langley told police chiefs at a private conference that opposition to his company's license plate readers isn't real. In leaked audio, he claimed without evidence that social media backlash is mostly driven by Russian bots, saying chatter dropped 95 percent since July and 50 percent overnight after Ukraine struck a Russian data center with a drone. He repeated a theory that 404 Media has described as disproven. Langley said his wife told him never to apologize and that he'd prefer to stop doing press interviews. Flock's network now spans around 80,000 cameras, and dozens of cities have canceled contracts over the past 18 months. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How many license plate reader cameras does Flock have in its nationwide network? Flock's national network includes around 80,000 automatic license plate reader cameras, according to a recent count. This network lets police in one jurisdiction search camera data from departments across the country, which differentiates Flock from competitors like Axon that don't offer the same nationwide search capability. _Those tracking surveillance tech policy follow ALPR network developments like this on daily.dev._ ### Why did Flock's CEO say social media criticism of the company dropped so much? Garrett Langley claimed social media chatter about Flock fell about 95 percent since July, with a 50 percent overnight drop after Ukraine struck a Russian data center with a drone. He suggested this proved opposition was driven by paid Russian bots rather than genuine public concern, a theory previously disproven. _Readers evaluating corporate claims about manufactured backlash can track the story on daily.dev._ ### Have any cities canceled their contracts with Flock's license plate reader system? Yes, dozens of cities canceled their Flock contracts over the past 18 months. The cancellations followed growing public scrutiny over police abuse, false arrests, and use of the technology for immigration enforcement tied to Flock's automatic license plate readers. _Municipal officials weighing surveillance vendor contracts can follow this trend on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 115 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-26). **TL;DR:** Commenters are overwhelmingly critical of Flock and its CEO, dismissing the 'Russian bots' claim as a deflection and viewing the company's mass surveillance network as a genuine, organic target of backlash; a vocal minority defends the technology as a useful crime-fighting tool. **Sentiment:** 8% positive · 17% mixed · 75% skeptical **The case for** - Some argue license plate readers plausibly help police locate stolen vehicles and track suspects in real time. - A few point to falling crime rates and credit surveillance tools, though others dispute the causal link. - Some see value in public-space surveillance generally, even if skeptical of Flock specifically as a vendor. **The pushback** - Many argue the 'Russian bot' explanation is an unfalsifiable excuse that dodges accountability for real grassroots opposition. - Several say Flock's data retention and third-party access create serious risks of abuse, stalking, and dragnet surveillance beyond its stated crime-fighting purpose. - Multiple commenters cite personal or local research finding no statistically significant crime reduction attributable to Flock cameras. - Several criticize the CEO's refusal to apologize despite admitting past mistakes as evasive and a bad signal about the company's values. - Some draw a comparison to historical complicity (e.g., IBM/Nazi Germany) suggesting the technology could enable harms far beyond its stated intent. **By community** - hackernews (heated): Discussion is dominated by sharp disagreement between people who see Flock as an authoritarian surveillance threat and a smaller group defending it as an effective crime-fighting tool, alongside a long tangential argument about police violence and political terminology. **Hottest debate:** Whether license plate reader surveillance actually reduces crime and justifies its privacy/abuse risks, versus being an ineffective tool for mass surveillance and potential authoritarian overreach. **Open questions** - Does Flock's technology demonstrably reduce crime rates beyond general post-pandemic crime trend reversion? - What safeguards, if any, actually prevent misuse of Flock data by operators, third parties, or federal agents? - Will politicians who've publicly opposed Flock (e.g., citing a state ban) follow through with concrete action? **Highlights** > I ran an in depth study of Flock for my city. It's been deployed here for several years. What I found is that there is no statistically significant correlation between Flock being installed and any reduction in any kind of crime. I suspect my city is not unique in this regard. Flock rode a post-COVID wave of general crime reduction and claimed responsibility for it, but it appears that the only meaningfully effective use of Flock is for stalking, terrorizing immigrants, assembling opposition dossiers, and parallel construction. > — [felixgallo on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249887) > As soon as you make vague and unsubstantiated claims that people physically gathering to protest against you or your company are paid protestors you immediately lose whatever credibility you had in the first place (though you likely had very little already if this is where you are) in the eyes of anyone with a functional brain. > — [georgemcbay on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50250306) > > “I give my wife a lot of credit. She was, like, you should never apologize,” Langley said. “Sure, people make mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes in the last nine years. I made a lot of mistakes this summer. But we do good work.” So this guy admits he did things that he shouldn't have then contends that he shouldn't have to say sorry for them? Am I reading this right? Isn't the point of an apology to acknowledge the bad outcome and signal to aggrieved parties that the offender will try avoid repeating the negative behavior? If yes and this guy is refusing to do it then what does that say about his world view? > — [alexjplant on hackernews · 4 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249463) > I am a pro-flock real person. I'll get down-voted and likely flagged for saying this so you may believe I don't exist but I do. Crime has gone down considerably in the last two years. > The declines were reflected in several of the FBI’s long-term measures. The 2025 robbery rate of 49.4 per 100,000 was the lowest in 20 years, while the rape rate of 36.1 was the lowest since 2012. The murder rate was the lowest in the past 20 years. I imagine giving police the ability to apprehend violent criminals through technology is driving this reduction in crime. Not a stretch. You can think that this is not worth the tradeoff, but if you think giving police a tool like Flock will not have an impact of apprehension of criminals you have your head in the sand. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/violent-crime-falls-at-hist... https://www.richardhanania.com/p/flock-mass-surveillance-and... > — [bko on hackernews · 6 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249688) > The Flock CEO is another example of investor blindness to founder weirdness. It used to be a positive signal if a founder was a bit odd. But compared to current tech industry leaders, what's odd? Garrett Langley scares the normies. That's fine if your audience is just cops. But it doesn't go over well with the public at large. By many accounts Steve Jobs could be a raging asshole, but he never showed that face to the public. But if the people advising you are accelerationists with a thing for the antichrist, you're going to be clueless about what normal people think of you. > — [Zigurd on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50249839) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50248005) · 177 points · 115 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop](https://daily.dev/posts/flock-s-ceo-faced-me-after-its-cameras-led-to-my-wrongful-stop-rafow6a6k) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 1 comments - [Flock CEO calls for ‘compromise’ as surveillance company faces growing backlash](https://daily.dev/posts/flock-ceo-calls-for-compromise-as-surveillance-company-faces-growing-backlash-lgvwy1upp) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Surveillance company Flock cuts staff as privacy backlash grows](https://daily.dev/posts/surveillance-company-flock-cuts-staff-as-privacy-backlash-grows-wproobzpt) · TechCrunch · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [Flock surveillance cameras are spreading across the US](https://daily.dev/posts/flock-surveillance-cameras-are-spreading-across-the-us-9dx0pt2ac) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/in-leaked-audio-flock-ceo-tells-cops-backlash-to-the-company-isn-t-real-9xioxnk9e) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"In Leaked Audio, Flock CEO Tells Cops Backlash to the Company Isn't Real","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/in-leaked-audio-flock-ceo-tells-cops-backlash-to-the-company-isn-t-real-9xioxnk9e","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/in-leaked-audio-flock-ceo-tells-cops-backlash-to-the-company-isn-t-real-9xioxnk9e"},"datePublished":"2026-10-26T19:23:54.609Z","dateModified":"2026-10-26T21:49:34.166Z","description":"Flock CEO Garrett Langley told police chiefs at a private conference that opposition to his company's license plate readers isn't real. 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