Blog Archives

Send Governor Message to Protect Citizen Privacy

3/31/2026

ICE is using our DMV data to track protestors. And we need state governors to put a stop to it. They need to hear from you.

Very easy action item -- takes 30 seconds.

Go to this link: https://democracyactioncenter.org/noicedata
Copy/paste the message from the page.
Select your state. It'll take you to your governor's contact page where you can select the category (it can be "other" if you can't find the right one.
Paste the message. Edit it however you see fit. Click send.

And you're done. Takes 30 seconds. Please do it.

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Transcript from Corona City Council Meetings re: Flock Cameras and Palantir

3/31/2026

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This is the transcript of a resident of Corona, who spoke to his City Council about Flock cameras. I will be creating a more generic template that we can apply to any city, but wanted to share the transcript now in case people want to get started.

The original video is here.

Transcript:

My name is Brett, and I've been a Corona resident in District 4 for 15 years.

I'm here to introduce Deflock Corona, a community coalition asking this council to cancel the city's contract with Flock Safety and remove the cameras that have been deployed throughout our city. Our website is deflock-corona.org.

I'm here because new Flock cameras were recently installed between my home and my daughter's school. So now every time I make that drive, my family is being photographed and logged into a giant corporate database.

I want to be clear what these cameras actually are, and I say that as somebody with 20 years of experience in IT. I've served as the chief network architect for Fortune 500 companies. I've designed data centers, and today I work on cloud infrastructure for one of the largest loan origination companies in the country. I'm not speculating on how this technology works. I've read their patents, and I know how it works.

Flock advertises these cameras as simple license plate readers. Their own patents tell a different story.

They're AI-powered surveillance machines that capture every passing vehicle and person and transmit that data to a private corporate cloud, making it queriable by a multitude of state and federal agencies.
The city of Corona does not control that database, and Corona residents have no public record rights against the private company's servers.
Our daily movements are being harvested by a $7.5 billion corporation that only answers to venture capital investors, not to us.
Flock did not reach that valuation on their per-camera subscription fees. That math doesn't add up.

The city council should also understand who they're doing business with.
Flock's CEO was asked whether the company had any federal contracts. He said no. That was a lie. Public records reveal that Flock had been secretly running a pilot program giving the U.S. Border Patrol access to local police camera data without the knowledge of the cities that paid for the cameras.

Now consider who's behind the company and where your data flows.
Flock integrates directly with Palantir, a data fusion platform with a $30 million contract with ICE. Peter Thiel, the founder of Palantir, is also one of Flock's primary investors. These are not separate companies with separate agendas. They are connected actors that are building a connected infrastructure.

Palantir's own CEO stated publicly just this month that his technology is being used as a political instrument designed to reduce the political power of certain voters. And that's the ecosystem that our Corona cameras are feeding into.

We're not anti-police at all. We're against mass surveillance of innocent residents by a company with a documented record of deception built by investors with a stated political agenda.

We're asking the city council:

to start auditing the queries made against Flock's database to disclose any data sharing agreements and
to take a vote to cancel the Flock safety contract.

The Deflock Corona org will be at future meetings and we'll be filing public records requests.

And I'll close by saying Benjamin Franklin warned us that "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Video of live speech

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Script to Bring to City Council Meetings RE: Cybersecurity contracts and CISA De-Funding

3/24/2026

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Over the past two decades, cyber security attacks have been increasing across the United States. In March 2026, Foster City, California was hit by a ransomware attack, which crippled the city's police and emergency services briefly and shut other services down for several consecutive days. (San Fransisco Chronicle).

What's particularly concerning is that in 2025, the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) — the agency designed to help cities defend against such attacks — had its budget cut by almost $500 million. (Axios) (Update: According to a Techcrunch article from April 7, 2026, the proposed 2027 budget includes an additional $700 million in cuts.)

As federal funding for cybersecurity declines, cities become more vulnerable to cyber threats, which drains financial resources from local communities. At the same time, private technology corporations can exploit these crises to sell costly “solutions,” a tactic describe in detail in Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine.

We must encourage our cities to become pro-active about cybersecurity in the face of federal funding cuts, to conduct thorough due diligence for private contractors and to absolutely refuse contracts with Palantir or any Thiel-backed company.

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Below is a template you can send by email or speak in person at your local city council meeting. Adapt as needed.

You can search for your reps from Federal to local level: here

Template:

Good [morning/evening]. My name is [Name] and I'm a resident of [City].

I'm here to talk about something that may not have hit the radar recently — but it’s important we get out in front of it.

In March, Foster City (in the Bay area of California) declared a state of emergency after a ransomware attack paralyzed nearly all city services for several consecutive days. And this is not an isolated incident. Municipal cyberattacks have increased across California and the country.

Meanwhile federal funding for cyber security has been cut at the time we need it most.

Last year, the federal govt cut funding and fired leadership of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — CISA, which was specifically designed to help cities like ours defend against these kind of cyber attacks.

So what does this mean and what can we do?

What happens when the federal government defunds programs is that cities become vulnerable. And vulnerable cities become the easy prey of predatory private contractors who profit over people--something incredibly dangerous for such an essential public service

In particular, there is a private surveillance and data company, which you have likely heard of, called Palantir, that holds billions in federal contracts including for AI military infrastructure, and is actively expanding into municipal services.

Its founder, Peter Thiel has publicly stated he does not believe in democracy. This is the same man has been going around the country, and now the world, giving speeches about the antichrist, who said might be Greta Thunberg the climate activist, at one point. The Vatican has intentionally distanced itself from him. This man has also been quoted in reputable news outlets saying that "date rape is belated regret," and that "women getting the right to vote was the worst thing to happen to our country."

I don’t have time to go into the specific implications of what contracts with Palantir or Peter Thiel means to community members… but suffice it to say:

But suffice it to say, if our city is ever approached by Palantir (or affiliated company, or any company backed by Peter Theil) to provide cybersecurity or any other municipal service, I am asking you to reject that contract. (This includes Flock cameras)

The solution to weakened federal cybersecurity funding is NOT handing our city's data and infrastructure to a private corporation with authoritarian ambitions.

The solution is demanding restored funding, at the federal and state level, investing in our own IT infrastructure, partnering with accountable public institutions and engaging in thorough due diligence of any private sector vendors.

Our city's data belongs to our residents. Not to shareholders. Not to surveillance companies.

Thank you.

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No Kings III: Defund the Broligarchy

3/22/2026

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Harnessing the momentum from No Kings III towards sustained economic action.

You are welcome to share the graphics online, and/or download, print and handout the PDF below at any in person gathering.