Weekly Member Update - September 21, 2026

Written By Indivisible Albany Team

Protestors gathered during a rally in support of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on Sept. 18, 2026. Kent Nishimura, AFP Via Getty Images

We begin with the reminder that, in this era of unparalleled corruption and oligarchy under our Mad Orange King, everything is related. Take the Kennedy Center, the site of a near-spontaneous protest by thousands this past Friday amid fears that Trump’s demolition of the iconic tribute to the life and legacy of JFK was imminent. The Trump-aligned Kennedy Center Board of Trustees — members include Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Trumpian talking head Maria Bartiromo, failed attorney general Pam Bondi, Proud ‘Merican Lee Greenwood and Allison Lutnick, the wife of Commerce Secretary (and Epstein Island visitor) Howard Lutnick — had voted to indefinitely close the facility on Tuesday after a federal judge had reiterated, once again, that Donald can’t put his name on the building or its grounds. Another member of the Kennedy Center Board who voted to close the facility is Dr. Dana Blumberg, the Gen X bride of octogenarian billionaire and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. For you non-sports fans out there, Kraft may be familiar to you for his own affiliations with Epstein, or for his deep and abiding love for happy endings at strip-mall massage parlors. Younger readers, of course, will now recognize Kraft for his role in the Macklemore/Ed Sheeran controversy. It was Kraft, after all, that effectuated the blacklisting of Macklemore as punishment for the rapper’s pro-Palestinian advocacy, leading Sheeran to adopt the always popular role of apolitical intellectual, whereupon all of the opening acts for Sheeran’s tour quit in protest followed quickly by the Irish band Beoga, which had been serving as Sheeran’s touring band. So it would seem that Mr. and Mrs. Bob Kraft are the through line which connects the week’s two biggest stories at the intersection of politics and the arts. Maybe Dr. Blumberg can help get Sheeran a gig at the Kennedy Center if it survives Trump’s petulant impulses?

The Week in Flock

  • The biggest national story concerning Flock surveillance broke late on Friday, with reporting by Wired revealing that the business model for Flock is showing signs of collapsing. Flock has begun offering its employees generous severance packages as the company faces ever-increasing public condemnation over its vast network of AI-powered surveillance cameras. The reporting also suggests that widespread vandalism is impacting Flock’s bottom line and adding to cratering staff morale at the company. Remember, Avelo Airlines held firm against public criticism over its role in ICE deportation flights, until it didn’t. Citizens Bank kept funding ICE’s private prison contractors, despite public outcry, until it didn't. So, as Flock looks to shed payroll and desperately tries to rehabilitate its image, one can start to see the company’s foundation begin to crack and crumble. From our persepective, that’s a signal to turn up the pressure even further.

  • Trump, with his infallible ability to put his finger on the pulse of public opinion, declared that he’s a big fan of Flock.

  • If there was a second biggest bombshell about Flock this week, it was the joint reporting by 404 Media and Wired about hackers who stole a Flock camera and analyzed its software. The biggest takeaways are, first, the revelation that a typical Flock camera can produce dozens of images of each passing vehicle, amounting to millions of images over the course of several weeks for every single camera. The bigger revelation, however, is the confirmation that Flocks can explicitly detect human beings; these are no mere license plate readers.

  • Democratic Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi and Texas Republican Michael Cloud have introduced the bipartisan No FLOCK (No Federal License-Plate Observation and Camera Keeping) Act. The bill would compel the individual states to enact laws to limit ALPRs to specific public safety and toll-enforcement purposes.

  • National public sentiment against the mass surveillance state generally, and Flock in particular, is so high that even Insurrection-supporter and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is jumping on board. In August, Hawley announced an investigation into Flock’s data collection practices and penned a companion op-ed in the right-wing Daily Wire.

  • To that end, at least one cop with decades of experience believes that federal regulation of ALPR usage is desperately needed.

  • The City of Boston broke up with Flock, but Boston Police are now flirting with Axon and Motorola.

  • In Washington DC, the police are questioning the reliability of Flock surveillance and railing against its use, or at least they are demanding guardrails when Flock is used in internal affairs investigations against the officers themselves.

  • Independent Montana US Senate candidate Seth Bodnar has filmed a campaign ad which shows him shooting a Flock camera. He’s not alone.

  • A Georgia college student had her new car flagged twice by cameras for lack of insurance. When she showed proof of insurance to the police, they ticketed her anyway, because Flock said so.

  • The Institute for Justice pokes holes in the narrative that Flocks help reduce crime.

  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a story about how police are routinely searching the Flock database without providing any legitimate justification, openly flouting Flock’s much ballyhooed audit and accountability processes by listing reasons like "LOL" , "LMAO" , "sexy," and "idk" to access ALPR location data.

  • A San Jose, California police officer provided Flock vehicle location data to his cousin so that the cousin could track down his domestic violence accuser.

  • Another group of California cops are using Flock to rigorously spy on a small village. In Wisconsin.

  • Bolts has the story of how rural Jefferson County, Florida built a vast surveillance network and is now tearing it down.

  • Closer to home, the East Greenbush Town Board held a Flock hearing this past Wednesday and public comment was overwhelmingly — but not unanimously — anti-Flock. A Flock rep gave the all-too-familiar Flockaganda Power Point, and Rensselaer County DA Mary Pat Donnelly told some stories about how Flock had been helpful a few times. But, at the end of the day, it seems that East Greenbush is about to Get the Flock Out, with the Times Union reporting that Town Supervisor Jack Conway has concluded that East Greenbush’s five Flocks are just “too much surveillance” and has charged the Town’s lawyers with looking into the consequences of early termination of the Town’s Flock contract. In the meantime, if you live, work, shop or just drive through East Greenbush, take a look at the Town’s transparency portal. There you can see that more than 100 different police departments and crime analysis centers have access to East Greenbush camera data; the vast majority are within New York State, but the Houston (Texas) Police Department can also look for you, as can a number of law enforcement agencies in Connecticut, for some reason.

  • Down River, the anti-Flock resistance continues to grow in Columbia County. The Greenport Perimeter recounts the mystery surrounding the two cameras in that Hudson suburb. The cameras exist on municipal property and DeFlock Columbia County obtained the $16,000 Flock contract with the Greenport PD, but no one in Town government remembers (or wants to admit) authorizing this particular Flockification.

  • Troy, however, seems to have lost the plot a bit. Six months ago, the Collar City was the hotbed of local anti-Flock activity, with Mayor Carmella Mantello at open war with the Democratic City Council and anti-Flock public sentiment at a fever pitch. But just when the City Council seemed to have Mantello on the ropes, they got conciliatory. Council President Sue Steele negotiated a 60-day “working period” with Mantello back in May which effectively dissipated the anti-Flock momentum as the Council shifted to regulation, rather than elimination, of ALPR surveillance in the City. Meanwhile, the Council’s lawsuit to invalidate Mayor Mantello’s ludicrous public emergency declaration — which is being prosecuted by a lawyer with a day State job who happens to be married to likely Troy Mayoral candidate Tiffani Silverman — has crawled to a standstill in the absence of any request for injunctive relief. In the latest development, the Council has now agreed to water-down its proposed ALPR regulatory scheme to give police, in the words of Council Member Noreen McKee, “more flexibility” in the form longer data retention capabilities and expanded permissible uses of the technology. Our question is, once Troy’s Local Law #3 is enacted over Mantello’s likely veto, what happens next? Even if Mantello’s emergency declaration is eventually thrown out by the courts, with ALPR use in Troy about to be “regulated” by Local Law #3, will the City Council still recognize the need to Get the Flock Out? Or, will the City Council feel that the issue is resolved and move on to other matters? We don’t think that’s what the People of Troy were demanding last Spring; if we heard Trojans correctly, they wanted the cameras gone, not just subject to oversight and toothless regulation. Perhaps Troy’s last, best hope of Getting the Flock Out will ultimately be the collapse of the company itself.

Data Center Deliberations

Instead of just signing the Responsible Data Center Development Act into law, Governor Kathy Hochul keeps taking half measures. First, she announced a moratorium in Executive Order No. 62, which would do nothing to stop data centers like the one proposed for the old Kenwood Convent site in Albany’s South End. Now, the Governor has announced a “Host Community Investment Framework for Data Center Development.” In essence, the Governor is giving localities guidance on how to negotiate community benefits when the data center developers come a’calling. Thanks, we guess?

We agree with Barack Obama and would prefer a bolder approach, Governor. Perhaps something like the Stop Tech Overreach Plan announced recently by Michigan Congressional candidate — and cofounder of the Sunrise Movement — Will Lawrence. Lawrence’s STOP proposal would not only pause all data center development, it would also pause advanced AI development and enact a “National AI Compact that ensures that AI development respects our rights and freedoms and that it benefits everybody, rather than making a handful of people even richer.”

Odds & Ends

Indivisible Albany Team
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Weekly Member Update - September 14, 2026