Moving through any American city, how many ways are we surveilled? Through security and traffic cameras, cellphones, GPS, expenditures and other online activity. With political leaders in alignment with startups that believe they can “eliminate all crime in America,” we must understand that surveillance without restriction is not only technologically possible, it is imminent.

Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based startup, was founded in 2017. Five years later, it was granted patent US11416545 B1 for an “object detection and data association” system. Since then, this technology has been proliferating through more than 4,000 law enforcement agencies in California and beyond at extraordinary speed thanks to the activities of a handful of financially, politically, and ideologically interested parties.

Among those who have been instrumental in expanding Flock’s reach, most notably, are a cadre of politically conservative tech executives with strong financial interests in furthering surveillance technology. They include Garry Tan of Y Combinator, who was an early funder, as well as his friend, billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel, who is connected to Flock through his investment firm, Founders Fund.

Other politically connected enthusiasts are billionaire and frequent political donor Chris Larsen of Ripple Labs. Larsen spent $9.4 million to fund the San Francisco Police Department’s Real-Time Investigation Center. In 2024, he donated $250,000 to Mayor London Breed’s Proposition E which expanded and enabled SFPD usages of drones and surveillance technology. Notably, two members of the local branch of the Democratic Party — Trevor Chandler and Lily Ho — are Flock employees. Both were elected, in large part, with funds from Larsen and other members of the city’s wealthy right-wing donors.

These lobbying efforts have paid off. Numerous Democratic leaders from Governor Gavin used to investigate people who’ve had abortions, to monitor protesters, and to locate undocumented immigrants. Newsom to Mayor Daniel Lurie, despite publicly posturing against the civil liberties violations of the Trump Administration, are doing all they can to speed the legislative path of these technologies. The effect will be to obliterate privacy to a degree previously unimaginable. Newsom is said to have personally called the Oakland City Council’s Rules Committee earlier this month to urge the adoption of Flock.

Earlier this week, the Oakland City Council voted by a margin of 7-to-1 to renew Flock’s contract at a cost of $2.5 million despite vocal opposition from residents. “You are doing more to advance Trump’s agenda in Oakland than anyone,” said James Montgomery. “They’re AI-enabled surveillance systems with a documented history of heinous privacy violations.” Flock’s automatic license plate readers have been used to investigate those who have had abortions as well as to monitor political protesters, and to target undocumented immigrants. Only Councilmember Carroll Fife voted against renewing the contract, voting “Flock no.”

In San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area, since 2024 up to 400 Flock cameras using AI automatically collect and process license plate data from all passing vehicles without warrants or any suspicion that the law has been violated. That information contains timestamps, location, driver or passenger identities from more than 5,000 communities, allowing a simple license plate scan to collect detailed information on the daily routines of millions of people.

The implications of this technology are little understood by the public. A warning recently came when Richmond Police Chief Tim Simmons shut down the license plate readers temporarily after discovering (their) data was searchable (by outside agencies).” Surveillance has already threatened those exercising their First Amendment rights by funneling their personal information to other federal agencies including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It has the potential to cause harm to others who are acting outside the interests of an increasingly authoritarian Trump Administration.

San Francisco has been a testing ground for surveillance technology. It serves as an example of the future planned for us by politically and financially interested tech executives and the elected officials who do their bidding. It is one in which the surveillance state is privatized, ubiquitous, inescapable, and most critically requires no warrant or pretext for itself.