CEOs Skip Senate Hearing About Automated Surveillance

Technology CEOs did not show up to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Wednesday about mass surveillance concerns related to Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs).

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who chairs the Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, invited CEOs Garrett Langley of Flock Safety, Rick Smith of Axon Enterprise, Greg Brown of Motorola Solutions and Filip Kaliszan of Verkada to testify about their products’ access to Americans’ data. Five witnesses, including alleged victims of automated surveillance and a cybersecurity engineer, testified before the committee.

“The CEOs of Flock Safety, Axon, Motorola Solutions, and Verkada declined to testify today,” Hawley said on X.

Hawley announced Friday that he invited the CEOs to testify after the subcommittee opened an investigation into automated surveillance technologies. A Verkada spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation Friday they would be “unable” to attend the hearing.

“Unfortunately, our CEO is unable to attend next week’s hearing. We are in communication with the Subcommittee and are providing information to assist Chairman Hawley and Ranking Member Durbin as they prepare for the hearing. As we’ve explained to the Subcommittee, none of our customers can search a national Verkada network – because none exists. Our customers can only access the data in their own systems,” the spokesperson said.

Flock Safety, Axon and Motorola Solutions did not respond to the DCNF’s question on why they did not appear.

Among those who testified were Lindsey Isaacs, a driver from Florida who was wrongfully accused of fleeing a fatal car accident due to data collected from Flock cameras. She spent 13 days in jail and faced eight felony counts, according to Hawley’s letter to Langley in August.