How did the movement prevail over Flock?
What happens next?
In the lead article in this series, “A Victory—if You Can Keep It,” Berkeley Speaks describes the biggest strength of the Stop Flock campaign: the combined force of the privacy, anti-surveillance movement with the Sanctuary movement in solidarity with immigrant rights.
This Lessons Learned article explains the breadth and power of the campaign, and the lesson that it leaves for the community as it faces the next, critical round of the struggle over mass surveillance.
May 7 was a temporary win. Technically, all the city council did was kick the can down the road. Five council members agreed that the City should hold a competitive bidding or “RFP” (Request for Proposal) process for mass surveillance, instead of an improper sole-source contract for Flock. A strong minority of four wanted to just kill the whole idea.
And yet, it remains a victory for the Privacy and Sanctuary movements. Here’s why.
Back in the fall of 2025, proponents of mass surveillance held the upper hand. On the council, only Cecilia Lunaparra expressed opposition to the expansion of the City’s engagement with the tainted Flock Group. But the mass surveillance proponents made several key mistakes:
- They overreached by asking for every hardware and software system that Flock offers, including drones and Flock Nova, which supplements ALPR data with sources from other companies and across the internet.
- They failed to take into account how committed Berkeley’s people are to the principle of Sanctuary.
- They did not anticipate the breadth and tenacity of their opposition.
The last failure may be the most important. By May 7, opponents on the council grew from Lunaparra’s lone voice to four of the nine members. Several of them, notably Bartlett and Tregub, credited the overwhelming opposition among their district constituents.
This means that the residents of Berkeley gave moral leadership to the elected leaders.
Hundreds of people demanded the council not just talk tough about Trump, but refuse to collaborate even indirectly with his deportation campaign.
The campaign was notable not just for the raw numbers of Flock opponents, but also the range they represented: organizations like the League of Women Voters, Indivisible Berkeley, East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, and Berkeley Copwatch, along with many teachers and students. People with immigrant neighbors who live in fear every day. Activists concerned that they will be targeted by the Justice Department.
Wilhelmenia (Mina) Wilson is the respected Executive Director of Healthy Black Families, located in South Berkeley. Ms. Wilson wrote to Berkeley Speaks about the impact of mass surveillance on the Black community.
She explained that for Berkeley, “the concerns that surveillance technologies raise about civil liberties, racial equity, and community trust are not abstract. They are grounded in recent history, [referring in part to] racist and anti-homeless text messages exchanged among BPD officers….Many in the community experienced the investigation as incomplete, with lingering questions about accountability, transparency, and systemic reform.”
Ms. Wilson went on to state, “Surveillance technologies do not operate in a vacuum. They are layered onto systems already shaped by racial inequity and over-policing. Expanding these tools risks reinforcing patterns of disproportionate impact on Black communities and other marginalized residents—particularly in a city actively working to repair harms rooted in redlining, displacement, and systemic injustice.”
What’s next?
As we explained in our lead article, Flock is not ruled out from applying through the RFP process, and BPD leaders have already stated that Flock is their preferred provider. So while the decision to go to competitive bidding is a good practice, it appears likely that the end result will bring Berkeley back to the same dilemma it faced at the May 7 meeting.
A June 1 Berkeleyside article, “Flock is quietly training Bay Area police to sway city leaders to buy surveillance tech,” quotes Sean Everhart, a former member of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission: “I don’t have a problem with automated license plate readers in general; I have a problem with Flock,” which he called a “very flawed company.”
However, Berkeley Speaks’ original research shows similar problems with the other likely candidates. Motorola’s Vigilant Solutions and Axon have strategic partnerships with DHS and ICE; Vigilant has sent UC’s ALPR data to CBP. Rekor Systems, similar to Flock, has a large ALPR database that ICE and CBP frequently access through a “side-door” (state and local departments).
In this chart, we examine both the actual practice of each provider, including the risk that their current model provides to the federal government gaining access to local data, and also what we know of their connections to DHS or other federal actors. The reader can see that while Flock has very advanced systems that may do more harm to privacy and civil rights, the other companies often have closer collaboration with immigration agencies.
One recent development is important to know about. On May 18 2026, the FBI asked for $36 million to buy access to an existing national ALPR network, probably either Flock or Motorola Vigilant. There would then be no constraints on their ability to access any information in the massive system. The FBI has become the personal police force of the U.S. president.
The speed at which City staff are putting surveillance back on the council agenda, after community members roundly rejected it, may surprise activists. The explanation for this rapid timeline may be explained in one word: elections. If one more surveillance-skeptic is elected to the council in November, it could be all over for Flock and its competitors. Advocates will be dialing up their community organizing to engage this next round in the summer and fall.
| Vendor | Practices | Associations |
| Flock Group Inc. | Their business model depends on building a centralized, nationwide surveillance network, creating a system that can bypass local laws. ICE-supporting agencies have found multiple ways to acquire local data and supply to DHS. Federal agents use local and state police departments that contract with Flock—to track individuals for immigration-related investigations. | Largest shareholder, Marc Andreesen, is close Trump ally. Considers DEI and immigration “two forms of discrimination.” FBI considering buying access to Flock’s entire ALPR database. See https://www.404media.co/the-fbi-wants-to-buy-nationwide-access-to-license-plate-readers/ |
| Vigilant Solutions (owned by Motorola) | ICE holds a multi-million-dollar contract (via data provider Thomson Reuters) to access Vigilant’s massive LEARN database. (see ACLU) In May 2025 ICE spent $5m on a subscription with Thomson Reuters to provide “LPR data to enhance investigations.” See: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/04/nx-s1-5717031/ice-dhs-immigrants-surveillance-confrontation-deportation-mobile-fortify In 2019 ACLU found that 9,000 ICE agents had access to Vigilant’s data. See https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/records-reveal-ice-using-mass-surveillance-database-track-people-aid-local-law | FBI considering buying access to Vigilant’s entire ALPR database. See https://www.404media.co/the-fbi-wants-to-buy-nationwide-access-to-license-plate-readers/ |
| Axon | Ronald D. Vitiello is head of Axon’s DHS program and strategy. “Proud to be part of Axon’s incredible mission-driven team, helping to implement and uphold smart, secure border protection for our country.” | Vitiello is former ICE director. See https://www.axon.com/news/ronald-d-vitiello-as-head-of-dhs-program-and-strategy |
| Rekor Systems | A Rekor database that holds LPR data from around the country is accessed by ICE, CBP, and DHS . See https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/ice-car-trackers-sanctuary-cities |
