{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/icymi-hawley-chairs-subcommittee-hearing-exposing-flock-cameras-calls-for-accountability/", "ICYMI: Hawley Chairs Subcommittee Hearing Exposing Flock Cameras, Calls for Accountability", "2026-09-28", "2026", "2026-09", "Republican", "Senate", "MO", "Josh Hawley", "H001089", "www.hawley.senate.gov", "hawley", "https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases/page/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) chaired a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime hearing on Flock cameras and the threat they pose to national security and the privacy of everyday Americans. This hearing follows Senator Hawley\u2019s investigation into major automated license plate reader (ALPR) companies and the nationwide AI surveillance network they have created. Hawley invited the CEOs of Flock, Axon, Motorola, and Verkada to testify in the hearing and provide answers to the American people. Each declined.\n\nFlock did provide some answers in a written letter to Senator Hawley, agreeing that Congress needs to create a federal framework to regulate these cameras. Flock also admitted to instituting some guardrails on their products after coming under public scrutiny.\n\nIn the hearing, Chairman Hawley began, \u201cThere are many players in this industry, but there\u2019s one name that really stands out above the rest, and that is Flock. If you haven\u2019t heard of Flock, all I have to say is Flock\u2019s probably heard of you. In fact, the truth is, you have probably been scanned and surveilled and tagged and logged multiple times this week alone, and that\u2019s because Flock, by its own admission and its own statistics, maintains a network of 120,000 individual cameras in 49 states all across this country. It estimates that those cameras scan and then generate some 20 billion images. That\u2019s what it means: 20 billion images of individuals in their cars or on their motorcycles or other vehicles every single month.\u201d\n\nHe continued, \u201cFlock is a privately held company. Based on what we know, it\u2019s backed by a venture capital firm. It\u2019s worth about $10 billion, and it has amassed in a very short time frame a surveillance network unlike any we\u2019ve ever seen in this country. And really, what makes it unique, based on what we can tell from the reporting and the reporting on what these networks can do\u2026 What seems to make these networks unique is not just the sheer number of cameras, it\u2019s the fact that they\u2019re all linked together and powered and searchable by AI. It\u2019s unlike anything we\u2019ve ever seen in this country before.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis is still the United States of America, and it shouldn\u2019t be that when you walk out your door in the morning, you just have to agree and assent and accept the fact that you\u2019re going to be on camera morning, noon, and night,\u201d Hawley asserted.\n\nChairman Hawley asked Alasdair Whitney, Legislative Counsel for the Institute of Justice, \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference between this technology that we\u2019re talking about today, this AI-powered technology, and a traditional license plate reader technology? \u2026 My understanding is what we\u2019re talking about here today, with this linked network of private cameras all uploading to the cloud, searchable and powered by AI, is something very different.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou said it. The fact that this technology is now interlinked with cameras across the country in this network that allows a government official or an officer in one side of the country, say California, reconstruct the past movements over weeks or even months of somebody driving in Maryland or Virginia is something that is both qualitatively and quantitatively different than \u2026 a technology that we\u2019ve ever seen before, and that is why we are concerned about this,\u201d Mr. Whitney responded. \u201cA couple of years ago, you couldn\u2019t possibly sift through 20 billion images with just a few officers, or even 100 or 1,000 officers. But AI now makes it much easier to do that with, again, a click of button or a couple of keystrokes.\u201d\n\nHawley questioned, \u201cIf you have hundreds of billions of images now that are being collected and collated and available on the cloud, and you\u2019ve got AI able to search them, you really can reconstruct, or the AI can reconstruct, the very granular movements of individuals over long periods of time. Isn\u2019t that right? I mean, they could track me driving from Missouri out here, taking my kids to school, going to church, doing everything that it is that I do, and you could do it for days and weeks at a time using this this vast network. I mean, am I exaggerating? Is that is that right?\u201d\n\nWhitney answered, \u201cYou are not exaggerating. That is exactly right. I mean, again, we\u2019ve heard from the proponents of this technology \u2026 that they don\u2019t use it to track people. I think that that\u2019s just simply not true. The value of this technology is tracking the people and is determining where they are and what they\u2019ve been doing.\u201d\n\nChairman Hawley then asked Benn Jordan, a cybersecurity engineer, \u201cThe the CEO of Flock has said \u2026 that Flock has never been hacked \u2026 Now, based on what you know, is that accurate?\u201d\n\nMr. Jordan responded, \u201cI would say that\u2019s inaccurate. The company has, at various times, changed the definitions of the word \u201chacked, tracked data, breached. But in the general definition of accessing unauthorized data, yes, I would say that they\u2019ve been hacked.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow how vulnerable, in your professional opinion, are flux systems that contain all of these images, billions with a B, billions of images?\u201d Hawley questioned.\n\n\u201cThe Flock devices that we tested were running on an old version of Android that has been out of service for years, and newer devices of Flocks run on a modified kernel of Android, which is far from government-grade security,\u201d Jordan answered.\n\n\u201cHow easy would it be for a bad actor to download, modify, and/or upload false ALPR data into this system?\u201d asked Senator Hawley.\n\nJordan said, \u201cI did find an administrative interface, as I mentioned earlier, online of live cameras, which is easy as clicking a link and then hitting a delete button to get rid of footage or something like that \u2026 In some cases, I was able to go back a week and read what was on someone\u2019s phone screen as they were texting somebody walking under the camera.\u201d\n\nHawley then turned to Lindsey Isaacs, a women wrongfully accused because of a Flock camera.\n\nHe said to her, \u201cI just want to come back to you and your extraordinary story, because I think it illustrates the the dangers here of this technology if it\u2019s not properly cabined and accounted for. I think we have a picture of you with your your beautiful new Durango, here it is. I think right. This is this is you, and that Durango does look like it\u2019s in pristine shape.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat was the day I got it,\u201d Ms. Isaacs responded.\n\n\u201cNow, as I understand it, the Durango that was involved in the vehicular crash that indeed caused three other people to die was a vehicular homicide. That Durango was maroon, red. Is that correct? This this Durango doesn\u2019t look red to me. What color is this?\u201d he asked.\n\n\u201cThis is a black Durango,\u201d she affirmed.\n\nSenator Hawley queried, \u201cYou are returned as a false positive out of an AI search in the flock system. We know it wasn\u2019t a traditional license plate search because they weren\u2019t your your car was never there, correct? There are no images of your car at the scene. Is that correct? And there was no assertion by anybody ever that you were there. Is that correct? It was just that the flock cameras, based on some description, some general description entered into them. The AI pulled out your car and said, \u2018This this is a match,\u2019 correct? And that led to 13 days in jail for you, including solitary confinement, and you very, very nearly lost your entire livelihood. Isn\u2019t that right?\u201d\n\nIsaacs responded in the affirmative to all his questions.\n\nChairman Hawley concluded, \u201cThe Constitution is as valuable and as valid today as it was when it was first written. If anything, the Bill of Rights protections are probably more important today than they were all those years ago because the threats to our liberties are actually much greater, and the technology that both bad foreign actors, private actors, corporations, and government have at their disposal are much more powerful. We need the Bill of Rights more than we ever did, and we\u2019ve got to find a way to enforce it.\u201d\n\nWatch the full hearing here.", 1, "2026-09-29T11:07:12Z", "2026-09-29T11:08:49Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/icymi-hawley-chairs-subcommittee-hearing-exposing-flock-cameras-calls-for-accountability/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5853703953325748, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}