Texas just became the biggest state government to cut ties with Flock Safety.
Governor Greg Abbott ordered every state agency to stop funding Flock's license plate readers on Thursday night. The move landed just ahead of a Texas Tribune report detailing how the state funneled at least $30 million in grants to local agencies to buy the cameras, money raised through a higher fee on Texans' car insurance. Abbott's order followed a campaign ad from his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa, that put the number at 10,000 Flock cameras operating in Texas without a warrant. That Texas-specific figure is a fraction of Flock's national footprint: more than 120,000 cameras installed across 49 states.
What makes this notable is who's doing the criticizing. Abbott is a Republican cutting funding for a law-and-order tool days after a Democrat attacked him over it, a rare moment where both parties are converging on the same worry: license plate data collected with no warrant and no clear rules on how police use it. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley opened a federal inquiry into Flock's data practices last week, and similar anti-surveillance arguments are showing up in Michigan and Pennsylvania races, suggesting this isn't just a Texas story.
A company that wired up license plate readers in 49 states is now finding out that ubiquity cuts both ways.