Why on earth does an organization that supposedly sells license plate readers must contribute to politicians’ campaigns? The Chicago Sun-Times has uncovered how Flock Security has been contributing to the campaigns of native officers whose jurisdictions buy its expertise. We’re instructed these cameras are crucial to guard the general public from crime. But the corporate amassing info on the actions of hundreds of thousands of Individuals is now financially supporting politicians linked to its authorities clients. At what level do we start questioning why a surveillance contractor wants political affect within the first place?
Illinois election data present that Flock contributed $6,000 between 2021 and 2025 to the political group supporting Cicero City President Larry Dominick. Cicero started working with Flock round 2020 and now operates 31 of its cameras. Flock additionally contributed $1,000 to Lake County Sheriff John Idleburg’s marketing campaign in 2025 after the county authorized the acquisition of 15 cameras the earlier yr. One other $500 went to Dan Jungles, an unsuccessful candidate for Will County sheriff, whose division operates 25 Flock readers. These contributions are documented, though there is no such thing as a proof that contracts had been awarded in change for marketing campaign cash. The officers concerned insist the donations had no affect over their selections. High quality. Then why is a surveillance firm contributing to their political campaigns in any respect?
Flock additionally maintains a lobbying operation in Illinois, using corporations together with Cozen O’Connor Public Methods and Nationwide Methods LLC. Cozen O’Connor reported roughly $485,000 in political contributions since early 2024, though that spending covers quite a few shoppers and can’t be attributed solely to Flock. The corporate’s CEO, Garrett Langley, has additionally made political contributions personally. Flock shouldn’t be merely promoting cameras and ready for police departments to put orders. It’s collaborating within the political system that determines how surveillance expertise is bought and controlled.
The corporate now serves greater than 7,000 legislation enforcement companies nationwide, together with over 500 in Illinois. Its cameras {photograph} passing automobiles, document license plates, and connect timestamps and areas to these observations. Police can search the knowledge and obtain alerts when a car matches an investigative database. Police may search ANYONE and monitor their whereabouts with the clicking of a button. The cameras don’t distinguish between criminals and law-abiding residents when amassing info. Everybody passing the digital camera is recorded.
The size of automated surveillance is extraordinary. Illinois State Police reported {that a} separate license plate reader system operated by Motorola scanned greater than three billion automobiles in a yr, with fewer than 3% of scans producing flagged matches. These figures don’t describe Flock’s community, however they exhibit the amount of data these methods can gather. Billions of observations are gathered whereas solely a small fraction produce investigative alerts. We now have moved far past an officer observing a license plate on a public street. Know-how now permits the federal government to assemble searchable data displaying the place automobiles have traveled over time.
The constitutional questions are critical. The Fourth Modification was supposed to guard Individuals in opposition to unreasonable authorities searches. A license plate could also be publicly seen, however there is a gigantic distinction between a police officer seeing a car drive previous and a authorities company having the ability to reconstruct an individual’s actions by way of a community of cameras. Know-how has created surveillance capabilities that earlier generations might scarcely have imagined, and the legislation remains to be struggling to find out the place the boundaries ought to be drawn.
Flock’s contributions had been comparatively small in contrast with the big sums spent in nationwide elections. That doesn’t make them irrelevant. The general public ought to be capable of study these relationships with out being instructed that questioning them is someway unreasonable. The actual situation is how a lot energy the federal government ought to possess over the day by day actions of its residents. Individuals are already residing in an setting the place their monetary transactions, communications, and on-line actions generate huge portions of data. Automated license plate readers add bodily motion to that increasing assortment of information. The federal government doesn’t must observe somebody in a patrol automobile when a community of cameras can document the place that individual’s car seems.
I’ve warned repeatedly that governments by no means willingly give up energy as soon as they purchase it. Surveillance expertise is especially enticing as a result of it may be expanded quietly, justified by way of public security, and operated with restricted public visibility. The businesses supplying these methods have each incentive to encourage additional adoption. The politicians overseeing them have a accountability to make sure that the general public’s constitutional protections are usually not sacrificed within the course of.
Flock’s documented marketing campaign contributions expose one other connection between authorities surveillance contracts and political financing. Individuals have each proper to query why an organization amassing details about their actions is financially supporting officers related to its clients.
