U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday issued a sharp warning about the rapid expansion of an artificial-intelligence-powered camera network operated by the company Flock, declaring that the firm has installed nearly 100,000 cameras across the United States capable of tracking the movements of ordinary Americans.
In a post on X, the independent senator from Vermont wrote:
“The AI surveillance company Flock has installed nearly 100,000 cameras across America to track your every movement. Going to the doctor? Flock knows. Dropping your kid off at school? Flock is tracking you. Flock is always watching. STOP AI MASS SURVEILLANCE. STOP FLOCK.”
The statement, posted at 9:12 a.m. on August 18, 2026, framed the technology as an always-on system that records routine daily activities, from medical visits to school drop-offs, and called for an immediate end to what Sanders described as AI mass surveillance.
Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company, operates automated license-plate readers that photograph vehicles, capture license-plate numbers, vehicle characteristics, location and time stamps, and feed the data into searchable databases accessible to law-enforcement agencies. The company has stated that its network exceeds 120,000 cameras across 49 states and serves thousands of agencies, while independent mapping efforts have documented roughly 95,000 to more than 109,000 Flock devices. The systems conduct billions of vehicle scans each month.
Critics, including civil-liberties groups, have argued that the nationwide network enables continuous, warrantless tracking of drivers’ movements and associations. Dozens of cities and agencies have canceled, suspended or rejected contracts with Flock in 2026, citing privacy concerns, unauthorized data sharing with federal agencies and documented cases of officer misuse.
Reports have detailed instances in which officers used the system for personal purposes, including tracking romantic partners or family members. In response, Flock CEO Garrett Langley announced new policies in mid-August 2026, including a recommended data-retention period of seven days instead of 30, requirements that searches be tied to case numbers, tools to restrict inter-agency sharing by offense type, and automated flagging of abnormal search activity.
Langley responded directly to Sanders’ post, stating that Flock is one of many license-plate-reading vendors using technology available since the 1990s that photographs vehicles in public intersections. He said the cameras help law enforcement identify vehicles linked to AMBER Alerts, homicide investigations or stolen-vehicle reports and do not track people’s every movement. Langley added that the company supports robust privacy guardrails and strong regulation and offered to meet with the senator.
Sanders has a long record of opposing expansive government and corporate surveillance. He voted against the USA PATRIOT Act when it was first enacted in 2001 and against subsequent reauthorizations, arguing that the law granted the government excessive power to spy on innocent citizens with insufficient oversight.
In 2013, following disclosures about National Security Agency bulk collection of phone records, Sanders criticized the programs and introduced legislation to require reasonable suspicion based on specific information before authorities could obtain certain business records. He has repeatedly described bulk data collection as moving the country toward an “Orwellian society.”
In 2020, Sanders co-sponsored the National Biometric Information Privacy Act with Sen. Jeff Merkley, legislation that would require private companies to obtain consent before collecting biometric data and limit its commercial use. He has also supported measures seeking to restrict government use of facial-recognition and other biometric technologies.
More recently, Sanders has focused on the privacy implications of artificial intelligence. In an April 2026 op-ed, he warned that AI enables companies to analyze personal information at unprecedented scale and cited predictions of an AI-powered surveillance state in which citizens are constantly recorded. He has criticized large technology firms for collecting detailed location, financial and behavioral data and has introduced legislation seeking a moratorium on new AI data centers until stronger national safeguards are in place.
Sanders’ Tuesday post fits within that pattern of statements opposing both government bulk collection and private-sector systems that compile detailed records of Americans’ movements and activities. The senator’s office and website have previously published releases and op-eds outlining these positions on surveillance, biometric data and AI.
Flock has maintained that its technology is used only on public roadways, does not perform facial recognition on individuals, and helps solve crimes and recover missing persons. Independent reporting and local audits, however, have continued to document both the scale of the network and instances of data access that exceeded local policies, including queries related to immigration enforcement in some jurisdictions.
As of mid-August 2026, the debate over automated license-plate readers remains active in city councils, state legislatures and federal discussions, with privacy advocates, law-enforcement agencies and technology companies offering sharply different assessments of the balance between public safety and continuous location tracking. Sanders’ latest statement places the issue of AI-enabled mass surveillance squarely in the national conversation.