Benn Jordan tells Decoder the ALPR problem exceeds Flock

Benn Jordan, the musician and researcher whose Flock Safety investigations landed him in front of a Senate subcommittee, told The Verge's Decoder that the public fight over Flock has distracted from a larger surveillance market operating in the same way with less noise.

"Flock has been the low-hanging fruit, just because they were the loudest and most defensive," Jordan said, "whereas every other company was just taking a step back and cashing the checks." He named Axon, Verkada, and Motorola Solutions as competitors running similar camera and data infrastructure.

That framing is already shaping policy. On September 3, Senator Josh Hawley expanded his Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism probe beyond Flock to include Axon, Verkada and Motorola. Jordan has testified before that subcommittee, and he told Decoder that hundreds of local governments have canceled Flock contracts since his investigation began roughly two years ago.

He is not calling for abolition. Jordan said he has kept a channel open to Flock CEO Garrett Langley, describing his vulnerability disclosures to the company as "an olive branch" even while his public criticism has sharpened. The alternative he pitches to cities is narrower: locally owned cameras feeding locally owned databases that police can only query with a warrant from a judge.