On Thursday, the Instagram account for a lecture series in Newport Beach, CA posted a photo of what appeared to be a cease and desist letter from the surveillance technology company Flock Safety. Flock has received significant backlash over its technology and work with law enforcement agencies, and this letter kicked off yet another wave of criticism against the company for allegedly trying to shut down discussions of its work.
No, Flock isn’t threatening people for debating surveillance
Photos of purported cease and desist letters from the company have gone viral, but Flock says it didn’t send them.
Photos of purported cease and desist letters from the company have gone viral, but Flock says it didn’t send them.
“WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED,” the group, The Saturday Salon, wrote in the Instagram post, which has more than 3,000 likes. A separate post about the letter on Bluesky has more than 360 reposts. The text of the letter demands that the group stop hosting conversations about Flock’s surveillance technology. In a DM from The Saturday Salon’s Instagram account, Schuyler Lifschultz tells The Verge that it “found this letter taped to our front door.”
But Flock denies that it sent the letter, with chief strategy officer Rahul Sidhu citing it as an example of a mass disinformation campaign against Flock. “Flock never sent this letter, these people made it up (with a forged signature) to try to manipulate people,” Sidhu says. “We are pro-democracy. People SHOULD have discussions and lectures like this.”
In a statement to The Verge, Flock’s chief legal officer, Dan Haley, says that Flock is aware of “at least two forged” letters and that “these letters did not come from me or from anyone at Flock.” Here is Haley’s full statement:
We’re aware of at least two forged letters circulating on the internet, including this one, that purport to be cease-and-desist letters from our legal department. To be clear: these letters did not come from me or from anyone at Flock.
Flock welcomes and encourages public debate about our technology. We have not and would not seek to discourage, prevent, or prohibit such discussion and debate. In fact, we would be happy to participate in any such discussions the group in question might host in the future.
Looking closely at the photo of the letter in The Saturday Salon’s post reveals some dodgy details. Haley’s title in the letter is “Head of Legal Affairs Division,” but his actual title is chief legal officer. The Verge also emailed Haley’s purported email address on the letter but received a bounceback.
Lifschultz tells The Verge that The Saturday Salon would “love to have somebody from Flock come in and tell their views and give a lecture. We are politically neutral and not a business.”
One of the other apparently forged letters Flock is aware of was shared in an Instagram post from musician Noah Orion. On his website, Orion has a shop listing for “Fuck Flock” stickers, and the cease and desist letter in the photo says that Orion has engaged in conduct “involving the unauthorized dissemination” of visual materials in a way that encourages Orion’s fans to “claim and place stickers that constitute a rude and unusual manner towards our company and association.”
This letter also has some unusual characteristics, such as identifying the company as Flock Cameras and Flock incorporated [sic]. The letter in the photo says that failure to comply with the purported cease and desist “may result in Flock Group inc. [sic] to persecute you”, which is both an awkwardly worded phrase and incorrectly uses “persecute” instead of “prosecute.” Orion didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.