Last night, in a 5–1 vote, the Longmont City Council agreed to pause all data-sharing with Flock, decline any expansion of its contract, and begin searching for alternatives. Councilmember Diane Crist was the lone vote in opposition.
Dozens of residents spoke in support of the decision to move away from Flock’s surveillance cameras.
Flock Safety markets itself as a crime-fighting technology company, but its system is built on mass license-plate scanning and large-scale data collection. The company was recently acquired by Palantir, a defense-contracted data-mining giant known for working with ICE, law enforcement agencies, and the intelligence community. Palantir was co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, whose hard-right, anti-democratic political views and funding ties to extremist candidates have made the company’s growing role in domestic surveillance a point of national concern. Palantir’s tools specialize in predictive policing and large-scale surveillance systems — widely criticized for privacy violations, constitutional concerns, and disproportionate harm to communities of color.
Find the full meeting here:…