In Tolkien’s mythology, the dark lord Sauron extended his influence beyond Mordor because he possessed a Palantír — magical seeing stone that let him communicate with, and eventually corrupt, Saruman.
The real power was the network of stones, each one a sensor node feeding information back to the servant of Morgoth.
This is, functionally, what Flock Safety built.
Flock didn’t need to install its cameras everywhere themselves. They just needed the HOA to opt in to the network. The moment it does, the camera at the end of your cul-de-sac becomes one of the more than 120,000 nodes in a national database accessible to over 6,000 law enforcement agencies.
Flock told Congress that 75% of its law enforcement customers are enrolled in the nationwide lookup tool. The entire incentive structure pushes the customer to opt in.
Over the past year, Flock CEO Garrett Langley has cycled through every available move in the crisis communications PR playbook.
He’s failed.
Spectacularly.
Because this was never a communications problem. It’s a legitimacy problem.
The first move: call your critics terrorists.
- In a 2025 Forbes interview, Langley labeled DeFlock (the volunteer group mapping Flock’s public camera locations) a “terroristic organization.” Flock sent cease-and-desist letters and told law enforcement clients these were fringe radicals who wanted to defund the police.
- But the problem is you don’t negotiate with terrorists — that’s the whole point. Langley was trying to say the conversation was over. The national backlash that followed proved it wasn’t.
The second move: deny the accusation using the accusation’s exact vocabulary.
- By early 2026, the cultural unease was going mainstream. A Ring Super Bowl ad creeped everybody out with AI-powered cameras tracking a lost dog by photo match. This means they can also track a specific car, a specific person. As the pressure built through the spring, Langley sat down with Bloomberg and said these four words: “We’re not Big Brother.”
- That sentence writes every journalist’s headline for them. Richard Nixon did the same thing in November 1973 when, under fire at a press conference, he said: “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.” Nixon handed the opposition the defining quote of his presidency. Langley handed “Big Brother” to every reporter covering Flock.
The third move: apologize for the wrong thing.
- In August 2026, the Washington Post published an investigation documenting 46 cases of law enforcement officers misusing the Flock network, mostly stalking, mostly male officers targeting exes. Langley went on CBS Newsand said it “kills” him that victims went through that. Then, two sentences later: “I don’t think that Flock created police abuse. I think we’re the first company to ever shine a light on it and build the tools to find it.”
- So: Flock built the network. Officers used the network to stalk women. Flock is now catching the officers doing it. They’re solving the problem they created.
- Bold strategy.
The fourth move: offer “compromise.”
- Langley went on Fox News and told the country it needs to “compromise” on privacy. Compromise implies two willing parties giving something up. What Langley means by compromise is tweaking the settings. What Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), and Abdul El-Sayed are collectively building toward — all four of them, which is not a sentence I expected to write — is an outright ban.
- That coalition should not exist. These people agree on almost nothing. And yet here they are, at identical conclusions, because the backlash is that broad. Florida has already announced it’s removing Flock cameras from the state highway system. This is having a real impact on the business.
Garrett Langley keeps looking for the right PR strategy to make the story go his way.
There isn’t one.
The American public knows it is a modern-day Palantír.
MTFBWY,
—Riley
Views are Riley’s own and do not represent the U.S. Air Force or Department of Defense.
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This is republished with permission from the author. The original can be found here. Subscribe to Watchtower Intel here.
Riley Blanton is a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, author, and Star Wars Podcaster (Emeritus). He specializes in cutting through the noise of current conflict & culture.
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