u/Vaporized_Dreams

Whether you're opposed to Flock cameras, or you just like to hold our government officials accountable on their word, we have an amazing opportunity to protect the privacy of everyday citizens while still allowing our police department to investigate crimes.

During the recent Flock meeting, a question was raised as to why Hemet PD still holds onto the 30-day data retention period after Flock has reduced their retention period to 7 days. Chief Arellano stated that Flock has not made that change yet, but when they do, the Hemet Police Department will reduce the city’s retention period to 7 days.

To clarify, Flock has already made this change. On August 13th of this year, Flock updated its default retention period to 7 days. They also rolled out a free "Evidence Mode," which allows detectives to freeze specific data for active cases. This completely resolves the department's concerns about losing evidence while still protecting our everyday privacy.

Because Hemet has a legacy contract, the choice now rests with the city to manually opt-in to the 7-day standard. 

Please take 2 minutes to call, email, send a message, or mail a letter to the Hemet Police Department to politely request that they contact Flock and transition our city to the new 7-day default retention period.

Hemet PD Contacts:
Mailing Address: 450 E Latham Ave, Hemet, CA 92543
General Info: info@hemetpd.com
Social Media Officer: jgibson@hemetca.gov
Facebook Contact: https://www.facebook.com/HemetPolice
Instagram Contact: https://www.instagram.com/hemetpolicedepartment
Non-Emergency Line: (951) 765-2400

Sources:
Hemet's Flock Meeting Recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_QSxfGQpSc&t=4665s

Flock Retention Period Changes:
https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-guardrails-address-lpr-privacy-concerns-and-police-transparency

https://www.flocksafety.com/legal/flock-evidence-policy

If anyone here is willing to help me get Hemet's 30 day data retention period dropped down to 7 days like the Chief of police said he would during the meeting, I already have a letter drafted up, or I can provide you with all the necessary information and you can write your own. Sending more than 1 email, letter, or message on their social media platforms, will make sure this doesn't slip through the cracks. This small change in their policy will go a long way in protecting our privacy, though there is still a lot more work to be done.. Let's make sure the Chief isn't making empty promises. Leave a comment or send me a DM if you'd like to help with this 🙏

For those who couldn't make it to the Flock meeting yesterday, here is a quick breakdown of what happened, and what was discussed. The Hemet Police Department hosted a public presentation on their use of Flock technology, followed by a lengthy Q&A session, and a tour of their Real Time Information Center (RTIC). They stated that the meeting was being recorded, and that they'd try to upload the recording, though I'm not sure when or where that will take place.

The department was respectful, gave residents unlimited time to speak, and listened without interrupting. However, several critical details and concerns came to light:

Meeting & Technology Overview

The Format: A 30-minute overview presentation on Flock, followed by a 1 1/2 hour open Q&A, and a tour of the Real Time Information Center (RTIC). At the door, attendees received a "myth vs. fact" flyer from the department that primarily focused on Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) but omitted other Flock products.

Real Time Information Center (RTIC): The RTIC is a small room, featuring a row of desks and monitors, as well as an entire wall of screens broadcasting live intersection feeds (likely Flock Condor models). A separate, non-live monitor appeared to handle the ALPR database.

PTZ Shopping Center Cameras: The solar-powered trailer units with blue lights at major retail centers are Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) units meant to curb retail theft. Since these are on private commercial properties with owner permission, this didn't raise privacy concerns for attendees.

Budget & Contracts

The Cost: Hemet’s annual surveillance program costs roughly $600,000. Taxpayers fund $500,000 of this directly through city funds, while the remaining $90,000 comes from grants.

Vandalism Costs: A reported 13 Flock cameras have been destroyed in Hemet, driving up costs due to extra service calls and hardware repairs.

The Contract: Hemet originally locked into a 5-year contract with Flock in 2020. When asked if they would switch to a year-to-year contract to prevent being locked into a long-term commitment, the Chief noted that longer terms are cheaper but agreed to consider a year-to-year structure.

Key Q&A and Community Concerns

Constitutional Concerns: Several residents pointed out that this system violates their constitutional rights. The Police Chief stated he does not believe this is a violation, and indicated the department will continue using the technology unless Congress or the Supreme Court rules otherwise.

Data Retention Timelines: Due to nationwide privacy concerns, Flock reduced its default data retention period from 30 days to 7 days in August 2026. When the Chief was asked why Hemet still holds onto the 30-day retention period, he stated that Flock has not officially dropped its recommended time, and that Hemet would follow suit when they do. Flock keeps existing contract holders like Hemet at 30 days unless the local agency proactively requests the change. To help police make this switch, Flock now includes a free "Evidence Mode" feature. This allows detectives to manually lock and freeze specific footage needed for active, ongoing investigations, ensuring crucial case evidence isn't deleted while still protecting the daily privacy of regular citizens after 7 days. Since the Chief stated he would match Flock’s standard, residents have a clear opening to follow up and ask Hemet PD to manually request the switch to 7 days.

Drone Call Signs: When asked why 1 out of every 3 police drone flights lacks a call sign or a stated reason for the flight in public logs, the officer running the drone program stated he would look into why this data is missing, if there was a glitch in the system, and that he would update that information if possible. I will continue to monitor the drone flight logs and see if this issue gets resolved, and will follow up if it doesn't.

Audit Transparency: In response to requests to make internal camera audits public record to prevent misuse and verify oversight, the Chief stated he would look into the possibility.

Social Media Quietness: When asked why the department ignores comments and criticism on their Flock-related social media posts, the Chief explained they prefer not to engage with public criticism online, adding that managing those responses would require a full-time employee.

Overall, I appreciate everyone who took the time to attend and share your perspective, whether you are in favor of the Flock system or opposed to it. It's incredibly important that our community stays engaged on these issues. I hope Hemet PD continues to host these open forums in the future, and I highly encourage anyone who couldn't make it this time to come out and make your voice heard at the next one

In April 2020, the Hemet Police Department became a foundational testing ground for a powerful new surveillance network. Official Hemet City Council documents note that the city was one of the first police agencies in the United States to partner with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based startup founded in 2017. Before this partnership, Flock had primarily marketed its cameras to neighborhood homeowners associations (HOAs) and private entities. However, by June 2020, Hemet went live with its first 20 intersection cameras, integrating the private tracking system directly into its Real-Time Information Center (RTIC) and serving as an early municipal pipeline for a corporate startup.

This rapid integration quickly turned Hemet into a corporate marketing tool. During the first few months, Hemet PD used the data to recover stolen vehicles and execute arrests. While the city celebrated, Flock capitalized, heavily using Hemet's rapid data results as a national marketing blueprint. Hemet effectively became a proof-of-concept case study, which Flock used to pitch and sell its invasive camera networks to thousands of other law enforcement agencies across the country.

While Hemet was the earliest adopter of this network in Riverside County, its role as a national "early adopter" helped normalize city-wide tracking nationwide. By embedding a young startup's private surveillance infrastructure into public policing long before the technology faced widespread public scrutiny, Hemet helped clear the path for an apparatus that monitors citizens across more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies today. What began as a localized experiment in Hemet ultimately served as a catalyst for the massive expansion of private surveillance across the United States.

In April 2020, the Hemet Police Department became a foundational testing ground for a powerful new surveillance network. Official Hemet City Council documents note that the city was one of the first police agencies in the United States to partner with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based startup founded in 2017. Before this partnership, Flock had primarily marketed its cameras to neighborhood homeowners associations (HOAs) and private entities. However, by June 2020, Hemet went live with its first 20 intersection cameras, integrating the private tracking system directly into its Real-Time Information Center (RTIC) and serving as an early municipal pipeline for a corporate startup.

This rapid integration quickly turned Hemet into a corporate marketing tool. During the first few months, Hemet PD used the data to recover stolen vehicles and execute arrests. While the city celebrated, Flock capitalized, heavily using Hemet's rapid data results as a national marketing blueprint. Hemet effectively became a proof-of-concept case study, which Flock used to pitch and sell its invasive camera networks to thousands of other law enforcement agencies across the country.

While Hemet was the earliest adopter of this network in Riverside County, its role as a national "early adopter" helped normalize city-wide tracking nationwide. By embedding a young startup's private surveillance infrastructure into public policing long before the technology faced widespread public scrutiny, Hemet helped clear the path for an apparatus that monitors citizens across more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies today. What began as a localized experiment in Hemet ultimately served as a catalyst for the massive expansion of private surveillance across the United States.

Proponents of Flock cameras often argue that tracking public data is a small, harmless sacrifice to ensure community safety. However, this logic sets a dangerous precedent.. it trades core constitutional liberties for the illusion of total security. As Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". If we accept the pro-Flock premise that rights can be negotiated away for a slight reduction in crime, we open the door to eroding the entire Constitution. To see how quickly this logic collapses under its own weight, look at what happens when you apply that exact same "temporary safety" argument to the rest of our fundamental rights:

The 1st Amendment protects your right to worship and associate privately. However, mass plate readers can log every car parked outside churches, mosques, and political rallies.
Would you hand over a logbook of every church service, political meeting, or private gathering you and your children attend if the police promised it would help them identify local radicals?

The 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense and security.
Would you give up your right to own a firearm if the government promised it would prevent a criminal from ever using one against your family?

The 3rd Amendment prevents the government from forcing citizens to house soldiers during peacetime to save on military housing.
Would you let a soldier move into your child’s spare bedroom if the government promised it would lower your personal federal income taxes?

The 4th Amendment protects you from warrantless tracking. Yet, these networks permanently map your daily movements across public roads without a judge ever signing a warrant.
Would you let the government attach a permanent GPS tracker to your bumper if it meant finding your own car if it ever gets stolen?

The 5th Amendment guarantees the presumption of innocence. Instead, this system treats everyone as a suspect, building digital movement profiles on millions of citizens under no active investigation.
Would you give up your right to remain silent if you were pulled over tomorrow and forced to immediately prove to an officer where you have been driving for the last 30 days?

The 6th Amendment guarantees your right to a fair trial by a jury of your peers to prevent wrongful, rushed convictions.
Would you give up your right to a jury if you were falsely accused and a judge could fast-track you straight to prison to save the taxpayers money?

The 7th Amendment preserves the right to a jury trial in civil lawsuits to ensure regular citizens, not just powerful entities, decide legal disputes.
If a massive corporation sued you for your life savings, would you let an automated AI algorithm decide the verdict if it guaranteed a faster resolution for the court system?

The 8th Amendment prohibits excessive, barbaric punishments to ensure penalties fit the severity of the crime.
Would you authorize the police to publicly beat a shoplifter on your street if it guaranteed that no one would ever break into your local grocery store again?

The 9th Amendment protects fundamental rights not explicitly listed, like personal privacy. These cameras obliterate that privacy by recording when you visit a therapist, a divorce attorney, or a medical clinic.
Would you give up your right to medical privacy if the state promised to lower your health insurance premiums in exchange for a log of every doctor and specialist you visit?

The 10th Amendment ensures that powers not explicitly given to the federal government belong to local states and communities. However, mass surveillance networks create centralized federal and multi-state data-sharing webs that bypass local town oversight.
Would you surrender your right to vote on local town policies if an automated federal agency promised it could manage your neighborhood's security from Washington?

The 14th Amendment guarantees that the law must treat all citizens equally. In practice, these cameras are disproportionately placed in low-income and minority neighborhoods, creating a biased tracking loop.
Would you accept the police setting up a permanent, around-the-clock checkpoint right outside your neighborhood if it meant dropping the local crime rate by 5%?

The 14th Amendment also protects you from arbitrary state actions. Because the software suffers from plate misreads and database typos, innocent drivers are routinely stopped at gunpoint over computer glitches.
Would you willingly accept the risk of being treated like a violent felon if you knew a simple computer typo could get you pulled over at gunpoint on your way to work?

The 15th and 19th Amendments guarantee all citizens the sacred right to vote without discrimination or interference. Yet, positioning mass surveillance grids outside voting centers means the state logs the exact date, time, and frequency of your civic participation.
Would you be willing to sign your name and your political party on a public billboard outside your polling place if the government promised it would eliminate voter fraud entirely?

The 24th Amendment ensures that citizens do not have to pay a fee to exercise their constitutional rights. Yet, proponents of automated enforcement casually argue that if you cannot afford rising registration fees, toll errors, or automated fines, you simply shouldn't drive.
Would you agree to pay a private tech company a mandatory digital fee every single time you back out of your driveway if it promised to use that money to fix your local roads?

If you answered 'no' to a single question on this list, even the ones that have nothing to do with Flock, then you have conceded the entire safety debate.. you agree that a positive outcome can never justify stripping away a fundamental right.

You cannot claim that sacrificing liberties for public safety is a virtuous compromise, only to backpedal the second a right you personally care about is on the chopping block. That isn’t a principled stance, it is pure hypocrisy. Our Constitution was deliberately designed as an interconnected shield. It does not allow us to bargain away the 4th Amendment for temporary safety while expecting the rest of our freedoms to remain intact.

The moment you concede that the government can systematically track your daily movements without a warrant, you yield the very ground required to defend every other right on this list. If you are willing to give up the 4th Amendment to catch a car thief, how can you complain when the exact same logic is used to strip away your property, your privacy, or your voice?

So, ask yourself: Are you truly willing to let a private tech company redefine your fundamental liberties, or do you only value the Constitution when it is convenient for you?

A physical breach of a Flock Safety automated license plate reader by a hacking collective known as stegan0gram has exposed the massive scale of local surveillance networks. Instead of merely vandalizing the equipment, the hackers dismantled a camera and its solar-powered assembly directly from the field to reverse-engineer its components. By analyzing the hardware, they successfully bypassed security measures to extract a local encryption key, granting them full access to the device's internal storage and operating software. The raw files were subsequently shared with transparency organizations and investigative journalists, fueling a broader public discussion on privacy.

The data recovered from the single compromised unit revealed a staggering volume of daily public logging. Over a brief 21-day period, the lone camera logged roughly 50,000 vehicles and generated more than 1.6 million images, proving that a single passing vehicle triggers a rapid burst of up to 100 individual photos. Furthermore, the localized software did not just read license plates; it actively tracked humans, bicycles, and dogs. The system cataloged highly specific details like car dents and bumper stickers, and it stored thousands of brief, one-to-two-second video clips alongside high-resolution still images.

The security compromise has amplified the national debate surrounding automated police surveillance. Flock Safety stated that the unauthorized removal of its hardware is illegal, maintaining that its centralized cloud network remains secure and unaffected by the physical theft. However, the revelation has already drawn sharp political reactions, motivating federal lawmakers to propose restrictions on public funding for automated license plate readers, while other political figures continue to defend the technology as a vital tool for modern law enforcement.

Behind the camera networks monitoring thousands of American cities lies a tightly woven network of elite Silicon Valley capital designed to dominate the modern tech, AI, and military markets. Driven by Peter Thiel’s contrarian defense philosophy and Ben Horowitz's "American Dynamism" framework, this financial nexus has scaled companies like Flock Safety from passive observation tools into integrated components of a broader, automated war machine. To understand the true trajectory of domestic surveillance, one must look past the hardware on the streets and examine the billionaire architects constructing the algorithmic pipelines that govern them.

Peter Thiel (Founders Fund):
In 1998, Peter Thiel co-founded PayPal, steering it as CEO to a $1.5 billion acquisition by eBay in 2002 while building a core team including Elon Musk, dubbed the "PayPal Mafia." He went on to become a legendary contrarian investor, securing a 10.2% stake in Facebook with a historic $500,000 angel investment in 2004, the same year he co-founded Palantir Technologies, a CIA-backed big data powerhouse providing advanced data-mining software to global intelligence and the Pentagon. He later channeled this focus into Founders Fund, a venture firm managing roughly $17 billion in assets notorious for taking early, bold risks on civilly or politically sensitive public safety, defense, and deep-tech infrastructure that traditional Silicon Valley firms avoid.

Ben Horowitz (a16z):
A venture capitalist of Ashkenazi Jewish descent raised by a Marxist-turned-Trump strategist father, manages over $90 billion in assets at a16z, backing giants like Meta, OpenAI, and Flock Safety. He has expanded the firm's footprint in Israel by appointing partner Asaf Ezra to scout deep-tech startups, building on previous high-profile backing of Israel-founded cloud titans Wiz (security graphing) and Pinecone (AI vector memory).

Thiel & Horowitz Business Relationship:
Through Founders Fund and a16z, Thiel and Ben Horowitz combine their financial leverage to scale physical-world giants like Flock Safety, SpaceX, and Anduril Industries—an autonomous defense firm that builds AI-powered drones, surveillance towers, and weapon systems for the US, Israel, and other allied countries. By backing Anduril, Thiel and Horowitz seamlessly tie their investment portfolios together; Anduril directly connects to SpaceX by leveraging private aerospace manufacturing pipelines, integrates advanced machine learning models akin to OpenAI and xAI, and mirrors the data-fusing public safety footprint of Flock Safety and Palantir to corner the modern, algorithm-driven Western military market.

Palantir:
Palantir Technologies functions as a hyper-advanced data-synthesizing engine that integrates massive, chaotic streams of data such as satellite imagery, as well as phone logs and records, into a single cohesive visual map of human connections and targets for Western intelligence and military agencies. Rather than collecting information directly, its core software excels at weaving disparate databases together to automate intelligence tracking.

Domestic Operations & Global Battle Management:
Across the U.S., Palantir aggregates data for local law enforcement to map criminal networks and construct predictive crime heat maps. It also powers the critical backend data-tracking infrastructure for ICE to manage enforcement and automate mass deportations. In active combat, this same data-fusing power acts as a digital command brain through AI platforms like TITAN and the Maven Smart System (MSS), which automatically scan drone and satellite feeds to deliver targeting coordinates directly to battlefield operators. These dual-front capabilities have secured Palantir a dominant monopoly over the U.S. military software market—anchored by a $10 billion multi-year Army contract

Algorithmic Failures & Civilian Harm:
The compressed timelines of Palantir’s automated targeting systems have faced severe scrutiny for accelerating processing speeds at the expense of strict human verification, contributing to civilian casualties in active conflict zones. Most notably, the military's reliance on Maven Smart System algorithms fueled by outdated intelligence resulted in a devastating airstrike on a repurposed school in Minab, Iran, which killed 156 civilians, including 120 children, alongside broader unquantified civilian harm in tracking ecosystems across Iraq, Syria, and Gaza.

The Future of Domestic Drone Payloads:
The architectural evolution of domestic public safety drones represents the next frontier where the technologies of surveillance and active warfare converge. While law enforcement drone networks like Flock Safety currently function as passive eyes in the sky, utilizing specialized optical cameras, thermal imaging, and automated license plate readers, rising public safety pressures and rapid hardware advancements make a shift toward tactical intervention highly likely. This trajectory is expected to advance seamlessly from non-lethal compliance payloads like pepper balls, tear gas, and remote Tasers for crowd control, to heavier, kinetic, and algorithmically targeted weapons systems designed to neutralize threats without putting human officers in harm's way.

The Risk of Domestic Algorithmic Failures:
As these flight payloads scale from data collection to physical force, the primary danger shifts to the inevitable translation of battlefield software failures onto American soil. If domestic agencies begin relying on compressed AI timelines to deploy force, the system introduces the exact vulnerabilities seen in international theaters: a single outdated municipal database entry, a misidentified license plate, or a corrupted address log could trigger an autonomous drone to deploy lethal or non-lethal force against the wrong target. Furthermore, the immense speed of these automated targeting systems cultivates "automation bias," causing human operators to blindly trust computer recommendations and approve kinetic actions before verifying the real-world context on the ground.

The Accountability Gap:
The privatization of public safety and national security tech by elite Silicon Valley architects leaves behind a massive legal and ethical vacuum. When an automated system eventually acts on flawed data within the United States, establishing clear legal culpability among software developers, hardware manufacturers, and local police departments will mirror the exact, deeply contested accountability gaps currently observed in global combat zones. Without strict statutory guardrails, the line between foreign military operations and domestic policing will continue to blur, transforming civilian streets into automated test beds for the defense establishment's next generation of data-driven warfare. How far will they push the boundaries in the name of safety before it's too late to turn back?

In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the government generally must obtain a warrant based on probable cause to access historical cell phone location data. Applying the mosaic theory, the Court determined that aggregating weeks or months of retrospective location records creates an intimate portrait of a person's life, and that individuals do not voluntarily surrender this privacy simply by using modern technology.

Courts and legal scholars evaluate how tracking a car via automated license plate readers (ALPRs) mirrors tracking a person via a cell phone. The core legal debate centers on whether a network of fixed street cameras can build the same "deeply revealing" time machine that a cell phone does.

1. Retrospective Power ("The Time Machine")
The Carpenter Principle: The Supreme Court noted that historical tracking gives the government a retroactive "time machine." Police don't just watch where you are going now, they can look backward across months of past data to see where you were before you were ever a suspect.
Application to Flock: Flock creates the exact same retroactive capability. Because Flock cameras automatically store pictures of every passing car in a searchable cloud database (typically for 30 days), police do not need a warrant to type in a license plate and instantly pull up a map of a driver's historical, day-by-day movements over the previous month.

2. Involuntariness ("The Modern Necessity")
The Carpenter Principle: The government argued that users "voluntarily" share their location with cell companies. The Court rejected this, ruling that carrying a cell phone is indispensable to modern life. Because a phone tracks location automatically just by being turned on, a citizen cannot realistically opt out.
Application to Flock: Privacy advocates apply this by arguing that driving a car is equally indispensable for working, buying groceries, and taking children to school. Because Flock has built an inescapable "mesh network" of thousands of cameras across neighborhoods and highways, a citizen cannot realistically opt out of being tracked if they wish to participate in modern society.

3. The Intimate Window ("The Mosaic Effect")
The Carpenter Principle: The Court ruled that while an isolated location point is harmless, compiling thousands of points over time creates an "intimate window" into a person's life. It exposes their "familial, political, professional, religious, and sexual associations", details that are otherwise completely private.
Application to Flock: While seeing a car on a single public street reveals nothing private, pulling up a month of Flock data connects the dots to form an intimate profile. It reveals exactly how often a person visits a psychiatrist, what church they attend, which political rallies they frequent, and whose house they stay at overnight, transforming casual public observation into a deeply revealing portrait of their private life.

The intersection of the Carpenter precedent and Flock Safety exposes a defining tension of the modern era: the eroding line between public visibility and total surveillance. In today's digital age, carrying a smartphone and driving a vehicle are no longer optional luxuries; they are strict societal necessities required to maintain employment, access healthcare, and participate in daily life. By transforming these everyday necessities into tracking beacons, networks like Flock do not merely observe public roads, they quietly compile an inescapable, retroactive mosaic of our private lives without judicial oversight. As these surveillance webs continue to expand, the legal battle over Flock will ultimately decide whether citizens must surrender their constitutional right to privacy simply as the cost of admission for living in a connected society.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-402

If you browse through the Eyes On Flock website (which pulls data straight from Flock Safety Transparency Portals), the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office stands out at the top of the list for automated data sharing in the U.S. As of now, there are 336 different local law enforcement agencies, towns, and private entities (like HOAs and businesses) across the country that are actively feeding their Flock ALPR data straight to the Riverside County DA. Riverside County is also top of the list across the country for total cameras (1,771), as well as vehicles captured (5,735,517) and active searches (12,367) just in the last 30 days. Riverside County has built one of the most aggressive regional camera networks in the U.S, and they have plans to expand even further over the next few years.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors authorized a framework agreement with Flock, valued at $1.67 million for its first year, with pre-approved options to extend through June 2028 for a total potential cost of $7.8 million (100% taxpayer funded). This specific contract authorized 210 additional cameras to heavily expand the Sheriff's Department's existing footprint of 328 cameras for their agency, specifically prioritizing unincorporated county areas.

Learn more at https://eyesonflock.com

Hemet was the first law enforcement agency in Riverside County to introduce the Drone as a First Responder (DFR) program. According to Hemet PD, the DFR program is an advanced public safety model where unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) are stationed at centralized launch sites, such as police station rooftops, and deployed autonomously to 911 calls to arrive ahead of ground units. Once triggered by a dispatch alert, the drone is flown remotely by a drone operator at police headquarters using internet-based software, instantly streaming real-time video to dispatchers and field officers' mobile screens. This overhead view optimization allows law enforcement to assess high-risk scenes safely before arrival, track fleeing suspects, locate missing persons, and cancel ground responses to false alarms to preserve valuable city resources.

If you look at Hemet's drone flight transparency portal for the month of September, there have been a total of 44 drone flights so far, where 14 of those flights were not given a call type / reason for the flight. That's nearly 1 out of every 3 flights that lacks the public accountability data required to verify why the drones were in the sky. Leaving these logs permanently blank constitutes a breakdown in public transparency. It shifts the burden of trust to the community and fails to address whether unauthorized random neighborhood patrols (which are officially banned by department policy) are occurring.

The software that these drones run off of is provided by Motorola Solutions. Motorola's ultimate goal is a single-pane software suite called Command Central Aware. A Flock ALPR camera flags a stolen car > The 911 dispatch system automatically notifies the drone > The drone launches autonomously and heads straight toward those coordinates while mapping the vehicle's flight path publicly. This brings full autonomy to the drone program, where computer errors are bound to happen, as we've seen with Flock.

The drones themselves are Chinese-manufactured by DJI Enterprise. DJI is a Chinese tech giant based out of Shenzhen that controls roughly 70–80% of the drone market. The DJI drone platforms use onboard computer vision and predictive machine learning. Features include AI Spot-Check (visually recognizing and framing specific objects automatically on repeat flights) and Smart Track (predicting a target's path if a person or vehicle moves behind an obstruction), backed by multi-sensor payloads and a 3D Laser Rangefinder.

The U.S. federal government banned new DJI drone models by placing the company on the FCC’s "Covered List," categorizing its technology as a national security risk due to concerns over data privacy and foreign espionage. Because these enterprise drones are heavily utilized to map critical infrastructure, utilities, and police jurisdictions, U.S. intelligence agencies feared that Chinese national intelligence laws could compel DJI to hand over sensitive high-resolution spatial data and video feeds to foreign servers, even though the flight data is already being uploaded to the cloud. The FCC has completely blocked the authorization and import of any newly engineered DJI hardware, forcing a mandatory industry-wide phase-out by January 1, 2029.

To insulate itself from the upcoming 2029 cutoff, the City of Hemet has approved contract resolutions to lease integrated Flock Aerodome Drones as a First Responder (DFR) systems. This transition merges Hemet's aerial operations directly into the city's existing Flock network, expanding their footprint beyond ALPR and human tracking Flock Condor models.

Ultimately, Hemet's pivot toward an automated, interconnected surveillance grid represents a profound shift in local law enforcement capabilities, trade-offs, and public oversight. By combining immediate drone dispatch with a sprawling ground-level surveillance network, the department has created a powerful tool for rapid emergency response, but it is a system that operates with critical visibility gaps and nationwide scrutiny. As the city navigates a high rate of unlogged flight reasons locally and an inevitable transition away from Chinese-manufactured hardware globally, the community's right to digital transparency remains entirely unfulfilled without active enforcement. Moving forward into an era of fully automated policing, the burden rests squarely on city officials to ensure that advanced public safety technology does not outpace democratic accountability, data integrity, neighborhood privacy, or infringe upon our constitutional rights.

https://hemetpd.com/hemet-police-department-launches-drone-as-a-first-responder-program
https://community.hemet.ca.us.aerodome.com

If you browse through the Eyes On Flock website (which pulls data straight from Flock Safety Transparency Portals), the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office stands out at the top of the list for automated data sharing in the U.S. As of now, there are 336 different local law enforcement agencies, towns, and private entities (like HOAs and businesses) across the country that are actively feeding their Flock ALPR data straight to the Riverside County DA. Riverside County is also top of the list across the country for total cameras (1,771), as well as vehicles captured (5,735,517) and active searches (12,367) just in the last 30 days. Riverside County has built one of the most aggressive regional camera networks in the U.S, and they have plans to expand even further over the next few years.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors authorized a framework agreement with Flock, valued at $1.67 million for its first year, with pre-approved options to extend through June 2028 for a total potential cost of $7.8 million (100% taxpayer funded). This specific contract authorized 210 additional cameras to heavily expand the Sheriff's Department's existing footprint of 328 cameras for their agency, specifically prioritizing unincorporated county areas.

Learn more at https://eyesonflock.com

If you browse through the Eyes On Flock website (which pulls data straight from Flock Safety Transparency Portals), the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office stands out at the top of the list for automated data sharing in the U.S. As of now, there are 336 different local law enforcement agencies, towns, and private entities (like HOAs and businesses) across the country that are actively feeding their Flock ALPR data straight to the Riverside County DA. Riverside County is also top of the list across the country for total cameras (1,771), as well as vehicles captured (5,735,517) and active searches (12,367) just in the last 30 days. Riverside County has built one of the most aggressive regional camera networks in the U.S, and they have plans to expand even further over the next few years.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors authorized a framework agreement with Flock, valued at $1.67 million for its first year, with pre-approved options to extend through June 2028 for a total potential cost of $7.8 million (100% taxpayer funded). This specific contract authorized 210 additional cameras to heavily expand the Sheriff's Department's existing footprint of 328 cameras for their agency, specifically prioritizing unincorporated county areas.

Learn more at https://eyesonflock.com