Hawley Launches Investigation Into Flock Surveillance Network

Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, has launched a formal investigation into Flock Safety, the company behind a vast network of AI-powered surveillance cameras, demanding answers about how it collects, stores, and shares data on millions of Americans. The probe, announced on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, marks a significant congressional oversight effort targeting the rapidly expanding technology.

In a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley, Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, argued that the company's network of over 120,000 cameras across 49 states has created an "unprecedented national surveillance network." The system scans more than 20 billion vehicles each month, and Hawley contends that instead of serving discrete local investigations, it pools data into a searchable national database. "The overwhelming majority of the Americans captured in those records did nothing wrong," Hawley wrote, adding that Congress never authorized such a network.

The investigation focuses on several key concerns, including the potential for misuse by law enforcement and the accuracy of the technology. Hawley cited multiple examples of...