This piece by journalist and author Brian Merchant originally appeared in Blood in the Machine as the introduction to his podcast episode, “How to kick Flock out of your town.” In the episode, Merchant talks with Ed, a volunteer organizer with DeFlock, about how communities can organize to remove Flock surveillance cameras from their towns. The introduction was co-written with Ryan Hodes. Listen to the full conversation here.

In a year rife with backlash to big tech, data centers, and AI, one company still manages to stand out: Flock Safety. Over the past decade, Flock has been building out a massive network of surveillance cameras across the nation. The images those cameras record are uploaded to a central database, and can be accessed by law enforcement and federal authorities.

Abuse of the system has been rampant. Police have used Flock’s Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) to stalk exes and to track women seeking abortions across state lines. ICE has accessed Flock data to assist in crackdown on immigrants. Innocent people have been wrongfully imprisoned after being flagged by the system.

So, ordinary citizens are fighting back. They’re packing city council meetings, organizing protests, and putting pressure on local officials to cancel Flock contracts. Flock’s foes are getting creative, going viral [roll clips Darth Vader & Dr Doom], and winning hearts and minds.

Some are taking matters into their own hands: In city after city, Flock cameras are turning up smashed. Social media tutorials purport to show how to destroy the cameras while avoiding detection. Other social media posts have declared Halloween “DeFlock America,” encouraging people to pursue extralegal methods of Flock destruction.

As a result of all the public backlash, local governments have been cancelling Flock contracts left and right. The vast majority of the movement is peaceful, civil, and above board. At its heart is DeFlock, a volunteer-run advocacy group that provides resources and information about the surveillance company and its camera network. It hosts a map of the 140,000 ALPRs installed across the United States and recently held a National Week of Action.

With the anti-Flock movement growing, and more people looking into how to get Flock out of their communities, I sat down with Ed, an organizer with DeFlock, to explain, step by step, how you can start a movement to get the surveillance tech out of your town, too. It was a fascinating and illuminating conversation, full of practical information and advice for anyone looking to get informed about—or involved in—the burgeoning movement to defang the surveillance state. I was left with even more respect for the DeFlock organizers, who are doing their work entirely as volunteers, with no outside funding sources. I hope you enjoy the chat as much as I did.