In Defense of Flock
This article examines the role of Flock Safety's automatic license-plate reader (ALPR) technology in modern policing. It highlights the tension between the system's effectiveness in crime prevention and growing concerns regarding mass surveillance and privacy rights.
Why it matters
It addresses the ongoing debate over the balance between public safety and civil liberties in an era of increasing technological surveillance.
Police cameras can help make the criminal-justice system both fairer and less punitive—if we let them.
David Goldman / AP August 10, 2026, 9:46 AM ET Share Save Crime in San Francisco, Jarico Anderson announced last year, “is over with.” Anderson, who raps under the stage name Dreamllife Rizzy, would know —he’s a convicted felon. Lately, though, he says that cameras have been making criminal life inconvenient. “Soon as you slide past that motherfucker with some stolen plates, they going to issue a warning to every SFPD station in that area, if not the entire city, and they going to start dispatching” officers to that area, Anderson said on an episode of the popular hip-hop and culture podcast No Jumper . “And when they catch you, they’re going to catch you.”
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