# 113,000 Cameras: How Flock Built a National Surveillance Net County by County │ BardsFM

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/bardsfm-428602/113-000-cameras-how-flock-built-a-national-surveillance-net-county-by-county-bardsfm
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/bardsfm-428602/113-000-cameras-how-flock-built-a-national-surveillance-net-county-by-county-bardsfm.md
Podcast: [BardsFM](https://stenobird.com/podcast/bardsfm-428602)
Published: 2026-08-11T03:08:36+00:00
Episode link: https://www.bards.fm/e/113000-cameras-how-flock-built-a-national-surveillance-net-county-by-county-%e2%94%82-bardsfm/
Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/k55yted5pebph34i/BFM_20260810.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/bardsfm-428602/episodes/113-000-cameras-how-flock-built-a-national-surveillance-net-county-by-county-bardsfm
Duration seconds: 3596

## Resource

Episode 4202 │ August 10, 2026 Congress never approved a national camera network. Corporations built one anyway — county commission by county commission, one at a time. WHAT THIS EPISODE COVERS Scott Kesterson maps the rapid expansion of Flock Safety's automatic license plate reader network — now over 113,000 cameras nationwide despite Congress never approving a national surveillance program — and exposes the mechanism that made it possible: companies offer counties the first year free, bypassing public hearings because sheriffs can approve donations without commission votes, then leverage near-zero churn once the poles are in the ground and the data lock-in is established, a $7.5 billion company built on the same renewal model as municipal fluoride contracts. Scott confirms that FBI preliminary 2025 data shows violent crime down 9.3%, murder down 18.1%, and property crime down 12.4%, even as 69% of survey respondents believe crime is rising nationally — a fear-driven perception gap that political incentive structures exploit, since a sheriff's career survives a privacy violation but rarely survives a preventable crime, and the episode traces the documented pattern of FBI entrapment cases like the Newburgh Four and a Portland bombing plot to warn what AI-scanned camera networks will do once they begin flagging repeated drive-bys as suspicious behavior with no discernment. The episode closes with a practical action plan: a free downloadable Citizens Field Guide under Bards FM's downloads section that walks any resident through auditing their county's ALPR data-sharing agreements, building the specific evidence needed to bring a real argument to a county commission for non-renewal. KEY QUESTIONS ADDRESSED How did a national surveillance network of over 113,000 automatic…

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## Transcript

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