Senate Leadership In Both Parties Dragging Feet On Using Force Of Law To Rein In Flock

Senate leaders in both parties have yet to propose using the force of law to address surveillance concerns related to Flock Safety and related companies.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded Sunday that Flock Safety delete any non-crime information the technologies collected, provide information on how much data from its cameras sits on its servers and answer whether any federal agency accessed the data in a letter to Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley — but he stopped shy of threatening to issue a subpoena to extract the information. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Majority Whip John Barrasso have yet to take a strong stance against the technology or proposed taking action using the force of law to hold the technology companies accountable for the risk posed to Americans’ due process rights.

“A company can’t just come in and collect personal information about our entire lives and not answer any questions about it. We have no insight into what contracts this company has here, or how much of this information law enforcement is using,” Schumer said in the letter. “Let me be clear. Any federal agency using this network to track Americans exercising their rights in our own state is unacceptable.”

“This company said the data on its cameras was encrypted and secure. Then hackers took one down and found the key sitting right there,” Schumer continued. “Most Americans just want to get to work and get home to their families without a private company keeping a file on where they go. The next step here is simple: turn the lens around and zoom in on Flock.”

Schumer’s letter ended without a subpoena threat to the company to obtain the information.

Thune and Barrasso had not spoken out against Flock or pushed for legislation to either add guardrails or ban the cameras. Thune said he supported adding light guardrails to artificial intelligence (AI) models, but did not specify if he wanted those guardrails to be placed on automated license plate readers (ALPRs).

Thune, Barrasso and Schumer did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley opened an investigation into Flock cameras and held a hearing on the mass surveillance technologies. None of the technology CEOs, including Langley, appeared for the hearing.

Hawley did not respond to the DCNF’s question about whether he was frustrated with leadership’s lack of response to Flock cameras.