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This morning on The Situation Room, CNN broke news on the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling limiting the ability of lower courts to generate nation-wide injunctions. CNN chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid spent her whole segment on how monumental the ruling was, drawing to the conclusion that Republicans and the “conservative super majority” were to be feared.  Reid tried her best to hide her discontent with the ruling, but she couldn’t help constantly harping on the political ideology of the majority opinion: Now I will say, these nationwide injunctions, this is a bipartisan concern, these have plagued every modern president. But, because President Trump does so much through executive action, he has faced the greatest number of these nationwide injunctions, so he and his Republican allies here on Capitol Hill, they have been railing against these. This is a pet issue for them, and now the conservative super majority siding with President Trump and his Republican allies to limit this power from judges. A huge decision.     She said the nationwide injunctions were a bipartisan issue but omitted the fact that in eight years President Obama faced just 12 injunctions, Trump had 79 in four years and three months. Most of these injunctions against Trump stem from political differences by lower court judges, who case shopped to them. Reid loved to make it seem like it’s only the Republicans and the “super majority” who made decisions based on political ideals. Here’s what Justice Amy Coney Barnett said in the court's opinion when discussing Justice Jackson’s decision to go against the majority: “ We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.” Essentially calling her colleague a hypocrite for doing the exact thing she tried to be so hard-pressed in opposition of. While CNN was crying outrage over the “huge win” of the “conservative super majority,” it ironically took a Princeton law professor to be the voice of reason. Deborah Pearlstein tapped the brakes and dared to suggest the sky was not falling, just that the procedure changed: I think that’s actually one of the critical points. This is not an end, this is the beginning. I think it’s premature to declare victory for the administration in this. What this opinion is, is a full employment license for litigators. Now, this — all of these cases go back to the lower courts. The Supreme Court appears to have said you can bring these cases as class actions. You don’t have to proceed individually, but class actions are a complicated question as well. This is going to get litigated over time, now that’s consistent with the long game strategy. Pearlstein showed Reid that this ruling didn't undermine the rule of law and create a dictatorship, it was a constitutionally rash ruling to make national decisions the responsibility of the nation's court. She stopped the fearmongering by stating that it’s not clear yet if the policies from the ruling will succeed or ever actually be implemented. The full transcript is below. Click "expand" to view: CNN: The Situation Room 10:12:32 AM EST June, 27th, 2025 PAULA REID: But right now, the question was really whether a single judge anywhere in the country could block an executive action for the entire nation. And here, in historic opinion, the justices are limiting that power, and again, President Trump’s lawyers have told me this is the case that they are watching. This means everything for the president's ability to govern through executive actions. Now I will say, these nationwide injunctions, this is a bipartisan concern, these have plagued every modern president. But, because President Trump does so much through executive action, he has faced the greatest number of these nationwide injunctions, so he and his Republican allies here on Capitol Hill, they have been railing against these. This is a pet issue for them, and now the conservative super majority siding with President Trump and his Republican allies to limit this power from judges. A huge decision. WOLF BLITZER: So, just to be precise, Paula, this was a 6 to 3 decision. Six conservative justices, three liberal justices, is that right?  REID: And it was authored by Justice Amy Coney Barnett. Now, some of her conservative — her conservative colleagues did also opined concurrences here. We’re still reading through those, we have old school paper copy, it is very long. We're still getting through the whole opinion. So, these are just the top lines, but this is enormous. This is yet another huge win for President Trump from this conservative super majority. Now, we have been reporting since Trump took office in January, that his lawyers were telling me, even though a lot of their policies were getting bogged down in the lower courts, that anything they could get in front of this high court that they would ultimately win. That they were playing a long game, and this decision right here, this is proof that this long game they’ve been playing for the past six or seven months, they’ve won and they’ve won big time.  (...) 10:19:15 AM DEBORAH PEARLSTEIN: I think that’s actually one of the critical points. This is not an end, this is the beginning. I think it’s premature to declare victory for the administration in this. What this opinion is, is a full employment license for litigators. Now, this — all of these cases go back to the lower courts. The Supreme Court appears to have said you can bring these cases as class actions. You don’t have to proceed individually, but class actions are a complicated question as well. This is going to get litigated over time, now that’s consistent with the long game strategy. It was absolutely a strategic decision by the administration to bring it in this posture. They’ve prevailed sort of initially in allowing — getting themselves more time to pursue this, but it’s not at all clear that this policy will succeed or ever actually be implemented. It now depends what lower courts across the country do. This is coming back to the Supreme Court, but first, more litigation over the coming year. BLITZER: And Deborah Pearlstein is a constitutional law professor at Princeton University, so you understand the Constitution and you understand the ramifications of this major decision.

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Two recent statements from the surveillance company—one addressing Illinois privacy violations and another defending the company's national surveillance network—reveal a troubling pattern: when confronted…

Two recent statements from the surveillance company—one addressing Illinois privacy violations and another defending the company's national surveillance network—reveal a troubling pattern: when confronted by evidence of widespread abuse, Flock Safety has blamed users, downplayed harms, and doubled down on the very systems that enabled the violations in the first place. Flock's aggressive public relations campaign to salvage its reputation comes as no surprise. Last month, we described how investigative reporting from 404 Media revealed that a sheriff's office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. (A scenario that may have been avoided, it's worth noting, had Flock taken action when they were first warned about this threat three years ago). Flock calls the reporting on the Texas sheriff's office "purposefully misleading," claiming the woman was searched for as a missing person at her family's request rather than for her abortion. But that ignores the core issue: this officer used a nationwide surveillance dragnet (again: over 83,000 cameras) to track someone down, and used her suspected healthcare decisions as a reason to do so. Framing this as concern for her safety plays directly into anti-abortion narratives that depict abortion as dangerous and traumatic in order to justify increased policing, criminalization, control—and, ultimately, surveillance. Flock Safety has blamed users, downplayed harms, and doubled down on the very systems that enabled the violations in the first place. As if that weren't enough, the company has also come under fire for how its ALPR network data is being actively used to assist in mass deportation. Despite U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) having no formal agreement with Flock Safety, public records revealed "more than 4,000 nation and statewide lookups by local and state police done either at the behest of the federal government or as an 'informal' favor to federal law enforcement, or with a potential immigration focus." The network audit data analyzed by 404 exposed an informal data-sharing environment that creates an end-run around direct oversight and accountability measures: federal agencies can access the surveillance network through local partnerships without the transparency and legal constraints that would apply to direct federal contracts. Flock Safety is adamant this is "not Flock's decision," and by implication, not their fault. Instead, the responsibility lies with each individual local law enforcement agency. In the same breath, they’re adamant that data sharing is essential, loudly claiming credit when the technology is involved in cross-jurisdictional investigations—but failing to show the same attitude when that data-sharing ecosystem is used to terrorize abortion seekers or immigrants.  Flock Safety: The Surveillance Social Network In growing from a 2017 startup to a $7.5 billion company "serving over 5,000 communities, Flock allowed individual agencies wide berth to set and regulate their own policies. In effect, this approach offered cheap surveillance technology with minimal restrictions, leaving major decisions and actions in the hands of law enforcement while the company scaled rapidly. And they have no intention of slowing down. Just this week, Flock launched its Business Network, facilitating unregulated data sharing amongst its private sector security clients. "For years, our law enforcement customers have used the power of a shared network to identify threats, connect cases, and reduce crime. Now, we're extending that same network effect to the private sector," Flock Safety's CEO announced.  Flock Safety wooing law enforcement officers at the 2023 International Chiefs of Police Conference. The company is building out a new mass surveillance network using the exact template that ended with the company having to retrain thousands of officers in Illinois on how not to break state law—the same template that made it easy for officers to do so in the first place. Flock's continued integration of disparate surveillance networks across the public and private spheres—despite the harms that have already occurred—is owed in part to the one thing that it's gotten really good at over the past couple of years: facilitating a surveillance social network.  Employing marketing phrases like "collaboration" and "force multiplier," Flock encourages as much sharing as possible, going as far as to claim that network effects can significantly improve case closure rates. They cultivate a sense of shared community and purpose among users so they opt into good faith sharing relationships with other law enforcement agencies across the country. But it's precisely that social layer that creates uncontrollable risk. The possibility of human workarounds at every level undermines any technical safeguards Flock may claim. Search term blocking relies on officers accurately labeling search intent—a system easily defeated by entering vague reasons like "investigation" or incorrect justifications, made either intentionally or not. And, of course, words like "investigation" or "missing person" can mean virtually anything, offering no value to meaningful oversight of how and for what the system is being used. Moving forward, sheriff's offices looking to avoid negative press can surveil abortion seekers or immigrants with ease, so long as they use vague and unsuspecting reasons.  The same can be said for case number requirements, which depend on manual entry. This can easily be circumvented by reusing legitimate case numbers for unauthorized searches. Audit logs only track inputs, not contextual legitimacy. Flock's proposed AI-driven audit alerts, something that may be able to flag suspicious activity after searches (and harm) have already occurred, relies on local agencies to self-monitor misuse—despite their demonstrated inability to do so. Flock operates as a single point of failure that can compromise—and has compromised—the privacy of millions of Americans simultaneously. And, of course, even the most restrictive department policy may not be enough. Austin, Texas, implemented one of the most restrictive ALPR programs in the country, and the program still failed: the city's own audit revealed systematic compliance failures that rendered its guardrails meaningless. The company's continued appeal to "local policies" means nothing when Flock's data-sharing network does not account for how law enforcement policies, regulations, and accountability vary by jurisdiction. You may have a good relationship with your local police, who solicit your input on what their policy looks like; you don't have that same relationship with hundreds or thousands of other agencies with whom they share their data. So if an officer on the other side of the country violates your privacy, it’d be difficult to hold them accountable.  ALPR surveillance systems are inherently vulnerable to both technical exploitation and human manipulation. These vulnerabilities are not theoretical—they represent real pathways for bad actors to access vast databases containing millions of Americans' location data. When surveillance databases are breached, the consequences extend far beyond typical data theft—this information can be used to harass, stalk, or even extort. The intimate details of people's daily routines, their associations, and their political activities may become available to anyone with malicious intent. Flock operates as a single point of failure that can compromise—and has compromised—the privacy of millions of Americans simultaneously. Don't Stop de-Flocking Rather than addressing legitimate concerns about privacy, security, and constitutional rights, Flock has only promised updates that fall short of meaningful reforms. These software tweaks and feature rollouts cannot assuage the fear engendered by the massive surveillance system it has built and continues to expand. A typical specimen of Flock Safety's automated license plate readers. Flock's insistence that what's happening with abortion criminalization and immigration enforcement has nothing to do with them—that these are just red-state problems or the fault of rogue officers—is concerning. Flock designed the network that is being used, and the public should hold them accountable for failing to build in protections from abuse that cannot be easily circumvented. Thankfully, that's exactly what's happening: cities like Austin, San Marcos,  Denver, Norfolk, and San Diego are pushing back. And it's not nearly as hard a choice as Flock would have you believe: Austinites are weighing the benefits of a surveillance system that generates a hit less than 0.02% of the time against the possibility that scanning 75 million license plates will result in an abortion seeker being tracked down by police, or an immigrant being flagged by ICE in a so-called "sanctuary city." These are not hypotheticals. It is already happening. Given how pervasive, sprawling, and ungovernable ALPR sharing networks have become, the only feature update we can truly rely on to protect people's rights and safety is no network at all. And we applaud the communities taking decisive action to dismantle its surveillance infrastructure. Follow their lead: don't stop de-flocking.