Jonathan Paz used to be the guy Flock Safety sent when things got ugly. A former union organizer and Waltham, Massachusetts city councilor, Paz joined the surveillance company in February 2024 as a government affairs manager. His job: fly into towns where residents were pushing back against Flock’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras — devices that photograph every passing vehicle and log plate data in the cloud — and make sure that opposition “doesn’t become a vote,” as he described it to 404 Media.
Think of it as playing corporate crisis fixer, except instead of burying scandals, you’re reassuring nervous council members that the cameras outside are basically just helpful neighbors. At one hearing in Eureka, California, Paz told officials that “none of your personal data is actually being stored.” Just a vehicle fingerprint. Nothing to worry about.
Paz says he believed the pitch. He carried genuine “techno optimism” and trusted the company line: Flock helped find missing people, respected civil rights, and — critically — did not work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He asked internally. Repeatedly. The answer was always no.
Then the reporting started landing. Multiple outlets uncovered the following:
- 404 Media found local police were running Flock searches on ICE‘s behalf.
- Denver’s 9NEWS uncovered that Customs and Border Protection had direct system access.
- Flock denied it — then confirmed it, acknowledging a CBP pilot program.
- ICE had direct access too, as did the Secret Service and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, according to 404 Media.
“That was what I was sold and lied to about,” Paz told 404 Media.
After the Badge
Equity and severance worth tens of thousands of dollars sat on the table when Paz walked away from Flock in July 2025, pivoting to immigrant defense work and a congressional run.
Paz left the company that summer, turning down that equity and severance package — a decision he frames as principled rather than financial. He founded Fuerza, a volunteer organization covering rent, food, and legal costs for people targeted by ICE enforcement. Now he’s running for Congress in Massachusetts’ 5th District, challenging House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark. That political context is worth keeping in mind when weighing his account; Paz has a platform interest in this story. That doesn’t make his account wrong, but you deserve the full picture.
Flock, for its part, told 404 Media that community conversations are “valuable” and help refine product controls, emphasizing that adoption decisions “rest solely with each community.” The company has pushed back against critics consistently, with its CEO at times responding combatively to civil liberties concerns. Meanwhile, the numbers tell their own story:
- At least 68 cities have canceled Flock contracts, according to advocacy project DeFlock.
- LAPD let its contract expire in 2026 citing “serious concerns over civil liberties and privacy,” per TechCrunch.
- Amazon’s Ring ended its Flock partnership after backlash, according to the BBC.
The EFF frames Flock’s infrastructure plainly: it is “not a neutral public safety tool.” When the company’s own government affairs manager didn’t know the full scope of who had secretly tracking users access to the data, the council members he was reassuring in those hearing rooms certainly didn’t either.
