Gloves - Direct-Contact Electric Shock Weapons

Direct-contact electric shock weapons deliver an electric shock through direct contact between electrodes or conductive strips and the target individual. Types of direct-contact electric shock weapons include:

Stun shields – A regular shield design with one or more conductive strips on the front

Stun batons and stun guns – Straight, telescopic (stun baton), or curved (stun gun) design with two or four electrodes on the tip or conductive strips along the length of the baton.

Stun gloves – Worn by a security official, delivers an electric shock once touched to the target individual.

Due to their design and purpose, direct-contact electric shock weapons are inherently abusive equipment that facilitate torture, including through application of multiple or continuous electric shocks, as well as electric shocks to vulnerable areas of the body such as the head, neck, and genitals. These weapons carry an unacceptable risk of arbitrary force and use fulfils no legitimate law enforcement purpose therefore they should not be manufactured, traded, or used by law enforcement.


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ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks

Equipped with a unique electric shock system (patented), it discharges a current of up to 2.5mA for 2 seconds. It can incapacitate an opponent without causing damage that results in lasting effects or cardiac arrest by inducing muscle contractions.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published a Wednesday notice that outlined plans to provide Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers with gloves that will deliver painful electric shocks.

The agency is planning to spend up to $20 million on the new devices known as a Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter or G.L.O.V.E. that could be used by officers in the field as they are conducting immigration operations.

“ICE is constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field to ensure they have the tools and equipment necessary to safely arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our country. Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to ensure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards,” a DHS spokesperson told NewsNation.

“Our officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training,” the spokesperson added.

Prison and jail staffers have begun to implement the tools behind bars to “de-escalate” chaotic incidents.

The device works similar to a taser but does not jump as high in voltage, according to KFOR.

A spokesperson for Compliant Technology, the company that makes the electric shock gloves, told reporters the device uses positives and negatives on the hand pad to trigger a sensory response on the skin upon contact.

It does not impact pace makers or defibrillators and emits up to 380 volts of a charge upon skin contact, which won’t penetrate clothes.

Still, some question if ICE officers should be given another painful weapon to use in the field after one report found that officers engaged in a misuse of force against individuals at immigration protests 412 times within the span of a year.

“ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do,” Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Associated Press.

“Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public,” Borchetta added.

However, others argue that the device could aid immigration officers at a disadvantage in the field.

“It’s immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee sting. If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool…,” John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, told AP.

“For smaller officers or weaker officers or older officers, I think it has a great advantage,” Peters added, citing officers ability to use the devices to quickly increase an individual’s compliance.

According to the contract published by DHS, the electric shock gloves could be distributed as soon as March of 2027.


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ICE Agents Set To Wear Electric Shock Gloves: Here’s How They Could Be Used

The Trump administration could soon equip federal immigration agents with gloves capable of delivering electric shocks during physical confrontations, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) procurement notice.

The devices—known as the G.L.O.V.E., or Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter—are manufactured by Kentucky-based Compliant Technologies LLC, and are marketed as a tool to help officers gain control of resistant individuals during close-range encounters.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intends to spend up to $20 million on thousands of the devices for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) personnel, with deliveries expected by March 2027.

"ICE is constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field to ensure they have the tools and equipment necessary to safely arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our country," a DHS spokesperson told Newsweek. "Every decision is made with careful consideration and appropriately reviewed to ensure that any technology ICE utilizes is consistent with all applicable law enforcement policies and standards."

"Our officers are highly trained in de-escalation tactics and regularly receive ongoing use of force training."

The plan drew concern Wednesday, amid the agency already having faced scrutiny around its agents' use of force over the past year.

"My biggest concern is transparency," Claire Trickler-McNulty, a former USCIS and ICE official told Newsweek. "Before deploying these, ICE should release its training materials and any data on the risks associated with use, so the public and Congress can actually evaluate what's being adopted and how."

What Is the G.L.O.V. E.?

Compliant Technologies describes the G.L.O.V.E. as a wearable "conductive distraction and de-escalation device," that functions as a standard patrol glove until activated. The company says the device is intended for law enforcement, corrections, security, military and emergency medical personnel.

Officers can activate the device using a switch located on the glove. It can then deliver an electrical stimulus to an individual's skin, which is intended to distract or interrupt muscle movement and gain compliance.

The company says the device typically achieves compliance within seconds and leaves no lasting marks.

It adds that no more than two gloves should be applied at one time, and generally for no longer than 15 seconds unless circumstances require additional force to gain control.

The device must make direct skin contact and is not effective through clothing or hair.

Manufacturer's Warnings

The manufacturer says the gloves should not be used as punishment or in response to verbal noncompliance alone.

It also warns officers against using them on certain higher-risk individuals, including children, pregnant women, the elderly and disabled people.

How Could ICE Use Them?

DHS has not publicly detailed how ICE officers will operationally deploy the gloves. The procurement notice identifies HSI and ERO, two main components of ICE personnel, as the intended users, but it does not specify particular enforcement scenarios.

John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, told The Associated Press (AP) he could envision officers using the gloves during arrests, removals from vehicles, residential operations and inside detention facilities when individuals resist officers' commands.

Trickler-McNulty said she was skeptical about how much sense the gloves would make for ICE field enforcement efforts.

"They're largely duplicative of the drive-stun mode already available on the Tasers ICE carries," she told Newsweek. "And because the glove looks like an ordinary glove, a person won't know it's carrying a current, which means it's more likely to escalate an encounter than de-escalate one, since the individual has no way to anticipate or comply.

"There's also a real tactical downside that officers have mentioned to me, that while wearing the glove, you can't readily use your firearm or another less-lethal option, which can put the officer in a worse position."

Have the Gloves Been Used Before?

Yes. While ICE's proposed purchase appears poised to become the largest acquisition of the technology, the devices have already been used by some law enforcement and correctional agencies. AP reported that the gloves have been deployed in recent years by certain jails and police departments.

Compliant Technologies says that since the CD3 technology used in the gloves was introduced in December 2018, there have been "no documented injuries resulting from the direct use" of the devices. The company states that its products are designed to be non-lethal and noninjurious and that they do not leave burns, marks or scars.

Civil liberties advocates have nevertheless raised concerns about the planned ICE deployment. Jenn Rolnick Borchetta of the American Civil Liberties Union told AP that the public should have little confidence that ICE officers would consistently use the devices appropriately.

Compliant Technologies founder and CEO Jeff Niklaus is a retired U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Four who served a 20-year military career that included deployments supporting operations in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, according to his company biography. After retiring from military service in 2006, he worked as a contractor for the U.S. Department of State's poppy eradication program in Afghanistan and later became an EMS helicopter pilot in Kentucky.

How Does the G.L.O.V.E. Compare to a Taser?

Unlike a Taser, which can be fired from a distance, the G.L.O.V.E. is intended for hands-on encounters. Compliant Technologies markets it as a "conductive distraction and de-escalation device." Its user manual says the device can generate up to 380 volts. Modern TASER devices are commonly described as producing up to 50,000 volts in an open circuit, though the voltage can drop to about 2,000 volts under load.

Questions That Remain

Several key questions remain unanswered, including how many gloves ICE intends to purchase, how officers will be trained to use them, what reporting requirements would accompany deployments and whether the agency plans to issue additional guidance beyond the manufacturer's recommendations.

Fatal Encounters With ICE Agents

The projected procurement of the gloves comes at a time when ICE has faced increased scrutiny, particularly over a series of fatal encounters involving federal immigration agents during the Trump administration's immigration enforcement campaign. Last month, agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican construction worker, during an attempted vehicle stop in Houston, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian man, during an operation in Biddeford, Maine.

In both cases, DHS said agents opened fire after the men used or attempted to use their vehicles as weapons, a characterization disputed by relatives, witnesses and advocates. The shootings followed earlier incidents that have also drawn attention, including the deaths of Minneapolis residents Alex Pretti and Renee Good earlier this year and the March 2025 fatal shooting of 23-year-old U.S. citizen Ruben Ray Martinez by a Homeland Security Investigations agent on South Padre Island, Texas.

"Under President Donald Trump and Secretary Mullin, ICE is targeting the worst of the worst," the ICE spokesperson told Newsweek. "Since Day One, ICE law enforcement has been delivering on President Donald Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists."

"Nearly 70 percent of ICE arrests are of dangerous illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S. While ICE law enforcement works to remove these public safety threats from American communities, they’re also facing a 1,300 percent increase in assaults, a 3,300 percent increase in vehicle attacks, and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats," the spokesperson said.


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ICE plans to give officers gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers may soon be outfitted with gloves that can deliver painful electric shocks intended to gain compliance from combative individuals.

ICE plans to spend up to $20 million to purchase thousands of “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices” for officers and agents by March, according to a notice published Monday by the Department of Homeland Security.

The devices are known as the G.L.O.V.E., which stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, and are manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky. They have been used in recent years by some jails and police departments.

DHS said Tuesday that it was working on a response to an Associated Press inquiry and offered no immediate comment. Jeff Niklaus, the founder and CEO of Compliant Technologies, wrote in an email, “Unfortunately, we are unable to speak on this subject.”

The notice said the solicitation for a no-bid contract could be published as early as Friday.

Civil rights advocates expressed alarm at the plan, saying ICE officers already face criticism for their use of force with little oversight or accountability while enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Compliant Technologies says the devices function as a normal pair of patrol gloves until officers press a switch to activate their electrical mode. The gloves must be applied directly to someone’s skin to deliver a pain stimulus that typically helps an officer gain compliance within seconds, according to the company.

“It’s immediate and sharp, and it will distract you. I call it like a bee sting,” said John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, who is studying how the device has been used. “If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool.”

Peters said he believed ICE’s planned purchase would likely be the largest from the company to date. He said he could envision ICE officers using the gloves to help remove uncooperative subjects from cars and houses and in and out of detention facilities.

“For smaller officers or weaker officers or older officers, I think it has a great advantage” because it can produce faster takedowns and shorten confrontations, he said.

The manufacturer warns the device should not be used as punishment, against people merely exhibiting “verbal defiance or belligerence” or on high-risk populations such as children, pregnant women or elderly or disabled people.

Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the public should have no confidence that ICE officers will use the devices appropriately. She questioned why the devices would be necessary for civil immigration enforcement and noted those getting shocked might have no advance warning.

“ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do,” she said. “Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public.”

Supporters say the devices are generally used in specific jail and transport situations, rather than broadly to patrol on the streets. They have been used to subdue violent suspects who are refusing to get into squad cars and inmates who are harming themselves and threatening officers, according to Compliant Technologies.

Peters said he expected the devices to be misused by a small number of employees, as with other policing technologies, but he said they are unlikely to cause injuries. He said it would be important for ICE to have robust policies and training in place.

To use the device, officers must complete a course and be recertified every two years, the manufacturer says.

Why Are Sores For Those With The Beast's Mark? Is its Contagious?

Scientists Discover the First-Ever Contagious Cancer in Fish

It's only the fourth known contagious cancer found in animals, but others may remain undetected.

A mysterious cluster of blackened skin lesions affecting catfish in New England turned out to have a stranger cause than anyone would have predicted: a contagious form of cancer.

Researchers in Vermont studied melanoma tumors collected from brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) living in Lake Memphremagog. The tumors on different fish were genetically much more similar to each other than their hosts, they found, strongly pointing to the cancer’s infectious origin. It’s only the fourth ever kind of transmissible cancer discovered in animals, and there remain many questions about this cancer and others like it, the researchers say.

“Transmissible cancers are a puzzling biological phenomenon that are not expected to exist,” the researchers wrote in their paper, published Wednesday in Nature, “with the potential to devastate host populations.”

Blackened catfish

Lake Memphremagog is a freshwater lake that stretches from Quebec, Canada, to Vermont. Since 2012, both local biologists and fishers have been spotting an increasing number of brown bullhead catfish with blackened skin in the lake. Surveys have indicated that by 2014, roughly a third of catfish in the area had these lesions.

Though scientists initially suspected the lesions were directly caused by a virus or environmental toxin, it became evident that they were actually melanoma tumors. This only raised more questions since these catfish, like most species, are bottom dwellers unlikely to get much ultraviolet radiation exposure from the Sun (in humans, UV exposure is responsible for the vast majority of cases). The growing and high rates of cancer also indicated that something out of the ordinary was going on.

The researchers decided to genetically analyze tumors from affected fish and compare them to healthy tissue from the fish as well as other unaffected catfish. They expected to find mutations that might explain why these cells were more prone to becoming cancerous. Instead, they found evidence the tumors were very genetically different from their hosts; this then prompted a deeper whole-genome sequencing of the tumors.

Ultimately, they uncovered hundreds of thousands of genetic variants shared between the tumors that weren’t found in the fish hosts or other catfish, well beyond the sort of similarity you might get from a conventional type of cancer.

“When you look at shared variants in non-transmissible cancers, you see many random variants, and as you compare more and more cancers, they share fewer and fewer variants,” co-lead researcher Julie Dragon, an associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Vermont, told Gizmodo. “In the case of transmissible cancers, it is the opposite. The more you sample, the more shared variants you find.”

The researchers did investigate other possibilities, such as the introduction of toxins to the lake from a nearby landfill. But affected fish are widely distributed throughout the lake, and water quality tests haven’t revealed anything unusual. More recently, the researchers have also found this cancer among catfish populations in other ponds and lakes across New England, including places with no major human-made sources of pollutants. So, barring any huge surprises, the only plausible explanation is that this particular lineage of cancer has shifted into a parasite-like entity, one that has long outlived its original catfish host and now spreads to others like an infectious disease.

The mysteries of transmissible cancers

To date, transmissible cancers have been found in dogs, Tasmanian devils, and at least 10 different species of bivalve mollusks, including clams and mussels. This is the first ever documented in any fish and the first ever found in a freshwater animal.

There are plenty of unresolved mysteries about this cancer. Though it doesn’t pose any danger to humans, for instance, it’s still unclear how it might affect the long-term population health of brown bullhead catfish. Outbreaks of some transmissible tumors, like the one found in Tasmanian devils, have a fatality rate of 90%, yet transmissible venereal tumor in dogs is rarely fatal and highly curable.

We also don’t know how it transmits between the animals. Since these cancers have only been found in sexually mature catfish, it may primarily spread when the fish huddle close together during the spawning season. Yet it’s also possible these cells can survive long enough in lake bottoms to be caught by other fish (something similar happens with transmissible cancers in bivalves). And the environment might still play a role in fueling its spread; the researchers note these tumors tend to have high levels of arsenic, a well-known carcinogen. So toxins like arsenic or the hormonal changes of the spawning season might be making these fish more vulnerable to the cancer.

“A big [question] is how the cancer is avoiding the fish’s immune system. We will be exploring that for sure because it can tell us something about how cancers avoid the immune systems in humans as well,” Dragon said.

Another mystery to solve is when this cancer first split off from its original host. The researchers note that the first scientific reports of melanoma in brown bullhead catfish date back to the early 20th century, but naturalist and essayist Henry David Thoreau wrote about similar-looking fish in his home state of Massachusetts even earlier than that in the mid-1800s.

On a broader level, it’s likely there are even more transmissible cancers out there that have yet to be discovered, the researchers argue, and that their impact on the world is greater than we know.

“We think that these may be more widespread, but we are just not noticing them. You often don’t see things you are not looking for intentionally,” Dragon said.

The researchers next plan to continue studying other populations of these fish that seem to have this cancer and to start answering some of the questions above. And while these sorts of parasitic cancers aren’t a problem for humans (as far as we know, hopefully), the lessons we learn from them could still help us down the road, according to Dragon.

“What I hope folks take away is that cancer goes beyond humans, and genomics is a powerful tool for researching cancer and other diseases,” she said. “With this project we have a unique opportunity to research melanoma in a new way that could greatly benefit humans.”


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Revelation 16:2

When the first angel emptied his bowl onto the earth, grievous sores broke out on those who had the mark of the beast on the forehead or right hand (Revelation 13:16–18). These were unbelievers who worshiped the beast. The Greek term here is helkos, which can refer to an ulcer or abscess—this is not a minor rash.

AI Overview

The sores on the kingdom of the beast refer to a specific biblical plague described in the Book of Revelation, targeting those who worship the beast.

Biblical Details of the Plague

The First Bowl: An angel pours out the first bowl of God's wrath onto the earth.

The Affliction: Foul, malignant, and painful sores (or ulcers) break out on people.

The Targets: The judgment specifically strikes individuals who have received the mark of the beast and who worship its image.


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Seven Bowls Of God’s Wrath

A study through the book of Revelation.

Revelation 16:1-21 (NKJV)

16:1 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth." 2 So the first went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. 3 Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died. 4 Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. 5 And I heard the angel of the waters saying: "You are righteous, O Lord, The One who is and who was and who is to be, Because You have judged these things. 6 For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, And You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due." 7 And I heard another from the altar saying, "Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments." 8 Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. 9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory. 10 Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. 11 They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds. 12 Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. 13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. 15 "Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame." 16 And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. 17 Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, "It is done!" 18 And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. 19 Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. 20 Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. 21 And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.

Sermon Transcript

Revelation 16:1 says, “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out the bowls…”—or “vials”—“…of the wrath of God on the earth.’”

The Antichrist is thinking that he is in control, that he has created a one-world government and everyone must bow and worship him. He’s Satan’s man-of-the hour.

Revelation 16. Verse 1 says, “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth.’”

Chapter 16 is perhaps not only the darkest chapter in Revelation, but it is one of the darkest chapters in the entire Bible.

In chapter 16, we move from the parenthetical section of chapters 10-15 to the chronological section of chapter 16. Then chapters 17-18 will be the next parenthetical section. The narrative or chronological section picks up again in chapter 19 with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

In Revelation 15:1, John says, “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels…”—here’s our introduction to them—“…having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete” or “filled up” or “finished.” Revelation 16:1 says, “Then I heard a loud…”—or “great” in the King James—“…voice from the temple.” The word “great” is repeated 11 times in chapter 16. So in chapter 15 we are introduced to the seven angels who have the seven plagues, and in them is the wrath of God.

The book of Revelation started with the seven seals, in chapter 6; then it went to the seven trumpets, in chapters 8-9; then in chapter 16, it moves to the seven bowls.

The King James translations says “vials,” but it was actually a bowl or what we would more often call a “saucer.” It wasn’t a deep bowl, which when poured out would take time for it to empty. It was a shallow saucer, which when poured out would empty immediately. The priests would use a saucer-like utensil. So this chapter is a picture of God’s wrath being poured out on a Christ-rejecting world.

One of the fundamental things to know about the tribulation period is that its source is from God. God will use the devil and evil men to serve His purposes. Martin Luther, the great Protestant reformer, said, “Even the devil is God’s devil.”

The study we will look at today is in three sections. The first section is in verses 2-11, the wrath of God and the first five bowls. It starts with verse 1, “Then I heard a loud voice from the temple…”—notice that the temple is in heaven—“…saying to the seven angels….” We don’t know whose voice it is, but it is “a loud voice.” A good guess is that it is the voice of God the Father saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth.”

The phrase “the wrath of God” will be repeated three or four times in our text. When we look at the attributes of God, which are attribute to His very nature and character, we see that God is love, grace, mercy, righteous, compassionate and kind, but God is also holy. And because of God’s holiness and righteousness, He must judge sin. He can’t turn His back to sin.

Now the seven angels with seven bowls, in verse 1, will pour them out right before the Second Coming of Christ. The pouring out of all these bowls happens in rapid succession. There are no pauses; it’s just one after another. It will happen at the end of the tribulation, culminating in the battle of Armageddon and in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The first bowl is in verse 2. “So the first…”—that’s the first angel—“…went and poured out his bowl upon the earth.” Each one of these bowls that is poured out has a particular target. The first target is the earth and wicked mankind. “And a foul and loathsome…”—or “grievous”—“…sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.” From the word “grievous” in the Greek we get our word “malignant.”

These seven plagues that will be poured out from these seven bowls—there will be seven angels, as there were seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls; seven is the number of completion—in them is filled the wrath of God. We read about it in chapter 15, verse 1. So this is the culmination of God’s wrath, which happens in rapid succession and with great intensity.God’s wrath is going to be poured out by these seven angels from these seven bowls onto the earth.

Notice who He pours them out upon: “upon the men who had the mark of the beast…”—that’s the “Antichrist,” chapter 13—“…and those who worshiped his…”—or “the Antichrist’s”—“…image.” So the recipients of this sore had the mark of the beast, and they worshipped his image. The hearts of these people had become so hardened that we’ll see they are unrepentant to the point that they cannot believe, so God’s wrath is poured out on them. This grievous, vexing, loathsome, malignant sore—what a horrible thing this is!

It’s interesting that the Antichrist, who they worship and whose mark they bear, was unable to heal them, even though he performed miracles during the tribulation. You’d think because they say, “Hey, we worship you! Why don’t you help us in our hour of need!” that he would.

Many of these plagues we’ll read about by these seven angels from the seven bowls correlate with the plagues that came on Egypt before the exodus. The Egyptians had boils break out all over their bodies in the sixth plague, in Exodus 9:9. The same word taken from the Hebrew to the Greek for “boils” would be the word “sores,” in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. So there are many parallels between the judgments in Exodus and the judgments of the seven bowls by the seven angels in our text.

Now we have the second bowl, in verse 3. This one is targeted on the sea. “Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it…”—that’s “the sea”—“…became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died.” It doesn’t say that it became blood; it became “as” blood.

Under the second trumpet judgment, one-third of the sea became blood and one-third of its sea creatures died. Now we see the entire sea turning to blood and all its sea creatures dying. It’s not specified what “sea” this is, but the word translated “sea” could refer to all the oceans of the earth.

Some try to explain these plagues in natural terms. It’s possible that God uses natural ways. Some say it’s the red tide. But the red tide doesn’t cause everything to die in the ocean and doesn’t destroy the ocean. I hardly think that’s the case.

Some say that the “sea,” in verse 3, could be the Mediterranean Sea. That’s possible, but the Scriptures seem to indicate more that it is a universal judgment on the whole world. “Every living creature in the sea died.”

Then in rapid succession we have the third angel, in verses 4-7. This time His judgment is upon the rivers and fresh-water systems of the earth. “Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.” They didn’t become “as blood” but actual blood. This is a divine, supernatural judgment on earth. These plagues are so bad that there is no question in peoples’ minds of their source; they come from God Himself.

In Egypt, the Nile River turned to blood. That was one of the plagues, a judgment upon the Egyptians.

“And I heard the angel of the waters…”—apparently there is an angel that oversees the waters—“…saying: ‘You are righteous, O Lord, the One who is and who was and who is to be…”—that’s the eternal nature of God—“…because You have judged these things. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets.’” “‘And You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due.’” So in heaven they say, “God, you’re right on; your judgments are righteous. They’ve killed the saints and the prophets, and now You’ve given them blood to drink.”

It’s interesting that Pharaoh in Egypt was having the male babies thrown into the Nile River to kill them. But God had Pharaoh’s army go into the Red Sea, and they drowned there. “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”

Then we have the fourth bowl, in verses 8-9. This time the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun; it’s a solar judgment. “Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire.” In an earlier judgment, “the sun became darkened as black sackcloth of hair.” And now the sun has intensified in its heat. “And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.”

So God has the control and power over these plagues. God is sovereign. No one can thwart His purposes. He gives these plagues to sinful men, but they do not repent, and they do not give Him glory. How sad is that.

Again, a lot of people like to hold a natural explanation for this bowl being poured out on the sun. We have “global warming,” which is quite popular today. They find it here in the Scriptures. But this is a supernatural intervention of God during the tribulation. It’s not anything like the earth so called “warming up” today. This is God punishing mankind on the earth.

Malaki 4:1 says, “‘For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,’ says the Lord of hosts.” I believe that is a prophecy of this event in the day of the Lord, when God allows the sun to actually scorch men with intense heat, and people curse God at this time.

Now we move to the fifth bowl, in verses 10-11. This time it’s poured out on the seat, the throne or the kingdom of the Antichrist. “Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast…”—which is “the Antichrist”—“…and his kingdom became full of darkness.” The ninth plague in Egypt, in Exodus 10, was darkness, but there was light in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were. This was oppressive darkness. “And they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores.” This happened in verse 2 during the first bowl plague. And by the time you get to this fifth bowl, they are still having these malignant sores. “And [they] did not repent of their deeds.” This is the second time in this passage that they did not repent. The Greek word is “metanoia.” It means they did not change their minds. I believe it’s because their minds become reprobate, Romans 1. The word “reprobate” means “doesn’t work”; it’s broken. They don’t think correctly. So they curse God and don’t repent. And they gnaw their tongues in pain in this darkness. They also blaspheme God.

The Bible indicates that you can reach a point of no return, where your heart spiritually atrophies. You were made for God. You were made to know God. You were made to be in fellowship with God. If you reject the Light, refuse to repent and harden your heart, then your heart will atrophy. You’ll reach the point where the Bible says, “Therefore they could not believe.” These people who this judgment is coming upon are the people who have crossed that line. They’ve been deceived. They cannot be saved. There comes a time when God’s patience will run out. The wrath of God in the bowls is the last series of plagues poured out on mankind.

Now remember when Jesus died on the Cross? This darkness is interesting. He was on the Cross from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m., six hours. But from high noon until 3:00 p.m., there was darkness. When the darkness came, Jesus cried, “Eli, eli, lama sabachthani,” or “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Think about that. Then God covered the earth with a veil of darkness.

In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Then He drank the cup of God’s wrath. When Jesus died on the Cross, not only did our sins get placed upon the sinless Son of God, but God’s wrath was poured out upon Jesus. We can’t even fathom that. Jesus was forsaken by His Father so that we would never have to be forsaken by God.

But these people in our text did not trust and believe in Christ. They rebelled against Him and worshipped the image of the Antichrist and took his mark. So there is darkness over the whole earth.

Now the sixth bowl is in the second section, the war of Armageddon, in verses 12-16. Verses 1-11 is the wrath of God, and verses 12-16 is the war of Armageddon in this sixth bowl. We’re almost complete in this time of God’s wrath. “Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits…”—these are demons—“…like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast…”—or “the Antichrist”—“…and out of the mouth of the false prophet.”

This false prophet was the beast that came out of the land, in chapter 13. “For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. ‘Behold, I am coming as a thief.’” This is the Lord speaking. “‘Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.’ And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.” Armageddon means “hill of Megiddo.” It’s on the plains of Esdraelon.

Notice that this sixth bowl is expanded; there’s more information about it than the others. First, it is poured out “on the great river Euphrates.” It’s interesting that the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers come together between Iraq and Iran, and they flow into the Persian Gulf. They originate in Turkey at the base of Mount Ararat, where Noah’s ark rested. The Euphrates River flows about 1,800 miles in length. It’s about 1,200 yards in width and 30 feet deep. It’s interesting that God dries it up, so the kings of the east are able to cross it to get into the Middle East.

Israel is a natural land bridge between the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa. This area is the birthplace of humanity, where the Garden of Eden was located; mankind started here.

The battle of Armageddon will be in the Valley of Jezreel. The mountain there is called Megiddo. From it we get our word Armageddon or “hill of Megiddo.” It’s a valley in the middle of Israel where all the armies of the world will gather together at the end of the tribulation just before and during the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This battle will be raging, and mankind will have the ability to kill himself off planet earth when Jesus Christ comes in His Second Coming. So we still have World War III ahead of us, but the church will have already been “caught up” to be with Christ and will come back with Him in His Second Coming.

The Valley of Jezreel or the plains of Esdraelon is in the central valley of Israel. It is inland a little ways from Haifa and from the Dead Sea. It runs for miles and miles and is surrounded by mountains. Napoleon overlooked this valley and said, “What a great place to bring all the armies of the world together in a battle.” It was here that Barak fought his battle. It was here that Gideon fought his battle. It’s where King Saul was killed on Mount Gilboa. So there were many battles here in the past, and there will be a battle here in the future.

So in verse 13, demons come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet. Bible students have called this “the unholy trinity.” Just as there is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit—one God in three Persons—so Satan has his imitation trinity. The dragon is Satan, the beast is the Antichrist and there is the false prophet, which is the counterpart to the Holy Spirit. The Bible doesn’t call it “the unholy trinity,” but it is an interesting parallel to see in the Scriptures. In Joel 3:14, he said, “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!” In Revelation 19, when the Lord comes back, He destroys the Antichrist and the false prophet, puts an end to war and He sets up His kingdom on earth for 1,000 years. So this is the Lord coming back to end man’s war on earth.

And what happened in Egypt? Frogs everywhere. Pharaoh freaked out and told Moses, “Get rid of the frogs!”

Moses asked Pharaoh, “When would you like me to get rid of the frogs?”

Pharaoh said, “Tomorrow.”

So God brings these demons or “unclean spirits,” but they look like frogs.

So this is just a word to those on the earth during the tribulation who still need to repent that He is “coming as a thief” and be ready and watching.

Verse 16, “And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.”

In the last section, in verses 17-21, we have the wasting of the earth. Environmentalists are all worried about what we’re doing to planet earth.

“Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air.” Now remember that Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air.” So this is no doubt directed toward Satan’s kingdom. “And a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’”

“It is complete” or “It is done.” Either you rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross or you drink the cup of God’s wrath upon the earth. Verse 18, “And there were noises and thunderings and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth. Now the great city…” It doesn’t tell us what great city, but it might be Babylon or probably Jerusalem. When Christ comes back He comes to Mount Olivet, and it’s split down the middle with all these topographical changes in the earth. It “…was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell.” All the big cities of the nations fell.

Verse 19, “And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.” We’ll get that in chapters 17 and 18. “Then every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.”

But He’s not done yet. “And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent.” A talent is 100 pounds. Can you imagine hailstones coming out of heaven from God weighing 100 pounds each?! “Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, since that plague was exceedingly great.”

So God pours out His wrath on this Christ-rejecting world. And all the world is shaken until “the things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

Street Level Surveillance

EFF’s Street-Level Surveillance project shines a light on the surveillance technologies that law enforcement agencies routinely deploy in our communities. These resources are designed for advocacy organizations, journalists, defense attorneys, policymakers, and members of the public who often are not getting the straight story from police representatives or the vendors marketing this equipment.

Whether it’s phone-based location tracking, ubiquitous video recording, biometric data collection, or police access to people’s smart devices, law enforcement agencies follow closely behind their counterparts in the military and intelligence services in acquiring privacy-invasive technologies and getting access to consumer data. Just as analog surveillance historically has been used as a tool for oppression, we must understand the threat posed by emerging technologies to successfully defend civil liberties and civil rights in the digital age.

The threats to privacy of these surveillance technologies are enormous, as law enforcement agencies at all levels of government use surveillance technologies to compile vast databases filled with our personal information or gain access to devices that can lay bare the intricacies of our daily lives. Use of these surveillance technologies can infringe on our constitutional rights, including to speak and associate freely under the First Amendment or be free from unlawful search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Law enforcement also tends to deploy surveillance technologies disproportionately against marginalized communities. These technologies are prone to abuse by rogue officers, and can be subject to error or vulnerability, causing damaging repercussions for those who interact with the criminal justice system.

EFF Unveils Its New Street Level Surveillance Hub

The Updated and Expanded Hub Sheds New Light on the Digital Surveillance Dragnet that Law Enforcement Deploys Against Everyone

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today unveiled its new Street Level Surveillance hub, a standalone website featuring expanded and updated content on various technologies that law enforcement agencies commonly use to invade Americans’ privacy.

The hub has new or updated pages on automated license plate readers, biometric surveillance, body-worn cameras, camera networks, cell-site simulators, drones and robots, face recognition, electronic monitoring, gunshot detection, forensic extraction tools, police access to the Internet of Things, predictive policing, community surveillance apps, real-time location tracking, social media monitoring, and police databases.

It also features links to the latest articles by EFF’s Street Level Surveillance working group, consisting of attorneys, policy analysts, technologists, and activists with extensive experience in this field.

“People are surveilled by police at more times and in more ways than ever before, and understanding this panopticon is the first step in protecting our rights,” said EFF Senior Policy Analyst Dr. Matthew Guariglia. “Our new hub is a ‘Field Guide to Police Surveillance;’ providing a reference source on recognizing the most-used police spy technology. But more than that it is a vital, constantly updated news feed offering cutting-edge, detailed analysis of law enforcement’s uses and abuses of these devices.”

The new hub also interfaces with several of EFF’s ongoing projects, including:

The Atlas of Surveillance, EFF’s collaboration with the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno to map more than 12,000 police surveillance technologies in use across America; and Spot the Surveillance, an open-source educational virtual reality tool to help people identify street-level surveillance in their community.

"We hope community groups, advocacy organizations, defense attorneys, and concerned individuals will use the hub to stay abreast of the latest legal cases and technological developments, and share their own stories with us,” Guariglia said.

Visit EFF’s new Street Level Surveillance hub at Street Level Surveillance


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The Cops Are Watching You

New online database details the shocking extent of intrusive surveillance tech used by American police.

Who watches the watchmen? All of us, if we're smart. In the age of surveillance, that means monitoring how and where the snoops put us under scrutiny. Among the people and organizations doing such important work is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which recently updated one of its countersurveillance tools.

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today unveiled its new Street Level Surveillance hub, a standalone website featuring expanded and updated content on various technologies that law enforcement agencies commonly use to invade Americans' privacy," the group announced January 10.

Understanding How We're Being Watched

The hub consolidates information about such evolving and increasingly common technologies as automated license plate readers, biometric surveillance, body-worn cameras, camera networks, cell-site simulators, drones, face recognition, gunshot detection, and social media monitoring. There's also a news section featuring relevant articles about such topics as the huge amount of data modern cars collect about their drivers and the legal status of surveillance efforts in various jurisdictions.

Not all of the technologies and practices covered by the Street Level Surveillance hub are inherently bad; body-worn cameras (BWCs), for instance, have been championed by reformers as a means of recording interactions between police and the public so that there's an objective record of events.

"For nearly two decades, law enforcement agencies have explored and implemented the use of body cameras as a tool to help hold officers accountable and make departments more transparent," PBS News Hour reported in 2020.

But, as EFF points out, "because police often control when BWCs are turned on and how the footage is stored, BWCs often fail to do the one thing they were intended to do: record video of how police interact with the public." The organization says the cameras should be used only with strict safeguards regarding usage, privacy, and storage of recordings.

Other technologies are more obviously intrusive, such as automated license plate readers (ALPRs) which "capture all license plate numbers that come into view, along with the location, date, and time." While the readers have the potential to solve crimes by showing who was at the scene, they do so by following people's movements and can build patterns of life around where people travel and with whom they associate.

"Where you go can reveal many things about you—whether you attend political rallies, which religious institution you attend, if you go to the gun store," the ACLU's Allie Bohn warned the South Bend Tribune in 2014 about the use of automated license plate readers.

That was two years after New York City cops were found to be tracking mosque attendance using ALPRs.

EFF engages in extensive litigation to limit the use of ALPRs and to restrict data-sharing among law-enforcement agencies.

Where Are We Being Watched?

The Street Level Surveillance hub integrates closely with EFF's already established Atlas of Surveillance. Users can search the Atlas for jurisdictions to see what surveillance tools are currently in use in their hometowns or in places they're visiting.

Unsurprisingly, Washington, D.C. is closely monitored by the powers that be. Residents and visitors in the nation's capital are scrutinized by automated license plate readers, face recognition scanning by the FBI of driver's license photos, a registry of private security cameras, gunshot detection microphones (yes, they can overhear conversations), cell-site simulators which pinpoint the locations of phones and their users, and more. The Atlas lists the surveillance tools used in the city and links to more information on them—including the extensive write-ups on the Street Level Surveillance hub.

The Atlas also includes an interactive map of the United States plotting the use of various surveillance technologies, including links to information about local implementations. It's a handy tool if you're planning a trip and want to see just how likely it is that you'll wind up on somebody's radar (or camera, or microphone). In 2022, I used the map to trace a road trip my son and I took to visit a college campus in Kansas.

"According to the Atlas of Surveillance, we passed through jurisdictions that, in addition to bodycams and doorbell cameras, register private surveillance cameras for official use, monitor the public with drones, detect gunshots, use facial recognition, track cellphones, and automatically check passing license plates against databases," I wrote at the time.

That route isn't becoming any more private, but the leg of our journey through northeastern New Mexico and into Kansas remains relatively unmonitored.

For those who truly want to marinate in the Big Brother experience, EFF also offers Spot the Surveillance, a virtual reality tool demonstrating how to identify spying technologies. According to the summary, "the user is placed in a 360-degree scene in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco, where a young resident is in the middle of a police encounter. By looking up, down, and all around, you must identify a variety of surveillance technologies in the environment, including a body-worn camera, automated license plate readers, a drone, a mobile biometric device, and pan-tilt-zoom cameras."

No, thanks. I'm paranoid enough as it is.

We Can All Watch the Watchmen

For anybody concerned about privacy and surveillance, and interested in how the use of such technologies is implemented and regulated, EFF's Street Level Surveillance hub offers a handy resource. Instead of wondering just what biometric surveillance is, you can quickly look it up and be simultaneously informed and creeped out by discovering that it "encompasses a collection of methods for tracking individuals using physical or biological characteristics, ranging from fingerprint and DNA collection to gait recognition and heartbeat tracking."

Biometric surveillance is an evolving field and not yet widely implemented as such, though various technologies under the very broad heading (it includes tattoo recognition) are certainly gaining ground. But it's closely related to face recognition, which is all over the place.

It's all just a little bit spooky. But so long as the snoops are watching us—and they are—it's only fair that we return the favor by keeping an eye on them, too.


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Urban Surveillance Is More Menacing Than Ever

Cameras aren’t just monitoring us in public—now they’re actually yelling at us.

Last week, there were people walking to a used bookstore during their lunch break, a startling voice yelled at them. The voice was not human but, like Siri and many other digital assistants, it approximated a female voice and a “friendly” tone. “Hi!” it called out. “All of you are being recorded!”

The culprit was a large outdoor speaker attached to a security camera, both affixed beneath the cornice of a sleek, freshly opened sushi joint on Milwaukee Avenue, the main drag of Chicago’s trendy Logan Square neighborhood. The voice was scary. It came from above—a place voices on the street don’t usually come from. It (implicitly) threatened them. they did nothing wrong, and yet there they were, walking in public, only to find their mere presence equated with the potential to do harm.

It’s a high-traffic area, so they were far from the device’s only perceived threat. In fact, because it uses an indiscriminate motion sensor, the camera treats everyone who walks by the restaurant as a potential ne’er-do-well and automatically yells the same thing at them—a dog afraid of its shadow. This was not the first time one has experienced this kind of rude intrusion. During this past Christmas season, they went to a large Target to buy wrapping paper. Blaring from speakers across a massive parking lot, a similar message: “For your safety, you are being recorded.” Both this and the restaurant message are passive-aggressive. One delivers the notice with phony, feminized friendliness; the other, in an equally gendered role, uses a male voice to make a false and patronizing claim of safety. Both imply that the act of being in public space is inherently dangerous, and each, in their own way, suggests that we could be—the source of the danger.

The panoptic bugbear known as the home surveillance camera is nothing new. However, for many years, the products were expensive due to the cost of video, and later the cost of digital storage. The advent of cloud computing meant such costs were no longer an issue, and the now-ubiquitous doorbell camera (and its many offshoots) was born. Having the power to surveil one’s property even in absentia is an alluring prospect. It’s also a predictable response to decades of “dangerous crime” rhetoric, the omnipresent American fear of hooliganism and property damage, and the corresponding cultural fantasy of vigilante justice.

Obviously, there are many downsides to surveilling one’s neighbors. Ring security cameras in particular have come under fire in recent years because of their “neighbors” feature—a kind of NextDoor for Ring users that allows them to send videos from their devices directly to law enforcement, which, as Wired notes in its edict “Why We Do Not Recommend Ring Cameras,” incentivizes increased racial profiling. To many in the United States, this may be a feature, not a bug. Regardless, the products remain popular despite the fact that there’s no evidence that using such a device increases public safety outcomes.

Many of the houses one's neighborhood, especially those built in the last five years, have these cameras. But the audio addition is not something most haven't encountered until recently. In a world where everything we do is surveilled—whether that’s through cookies on the Internet, location tracking on our smart devices, or our own self-surveillance and scrutiny of others via social media—it is easy to forget that we are always being watched. The talking camera phenomenon reminds us. Loudly. It is an escalation of an already omnipresent aggression. It intrudes into our consciousness, induces paranoia and anger, makes us feel unwelcome in public life, furthers the idea that one’s private property extends beyond the stoop, and suggests that by owning property one has earned the right to curtail the rights of others. This is a net negative for society. When we shared the screaming camera incident on Twitter, the horror stories poured in: multiple cameras on every block creating a chorus of shrieks, cameras near trailheads “greeting” returning runners, and oversensitive sensors that turn quiet environments into squawking, aggressive ones.

Paradoxically, it is the public nature of the urban environment that incentivizes the use and proliferation of such a device. Urban property owners have fewer avenues than suburbanites do when it comes to turning their parcels into hostile sites of exclusion. Suburbs famously exclude by way of high fences, gated communities, neighborhood watch programs, homeowner associations, private police, and more. On an urban street, there is seldom a gated community, and buildings are rarely further than 50 feet away from the sidewalk. While urban realms do have ways to alienate—invasive highways, transit deserts, increased policing—at the end of the day it is not illegal for us or for anyone else to walk on the streets of Chicago. (Whether one’s right to walk those streets is respected is another, complicated story, but to make changes on that front, first we have to believe in the right itself.)

The talking camera is modeled on the policeman loitering on the street. Both take whatever personal insecurity we might feel as we navigate a neighborhood—that perhaps we are out of place or unwanted, anxieties that compound when adding factors like race and gender—and rub our faces in it. They target our dignity, making our right to be out and about in our city feel unearned.

One of the most beautiful, humanistic things about cities is that on the street one always has the potential to come in contact with both the everyday and the unexpected. By being in public, one joins the great human milieu of people trying to get wherever they’re going. This, of course, entails some vulnerability and requires a basic human trust, something that devices like the Ring camera actively erode. This was true of the silent version but the loud, threatening iteration is far worse. It’s one thing to have a misanthropic, nosy neighbor; it’s another to have one that harasses you for existing. Amid all the fraught discourse around NIMBYism, a device that yells “Not in my backyard!” at you is a little too on the nose.

Whatever you want to call it—suburban creep, techno-feudalism, NIMBYism—the yelling camera has no place in cities. (Neither, of us would argue, does the silent one.) For all of the above reasons, they should be banned. If you remain unconvinced that they undermine civic decency, you can surely oppose a device that shouts at every person on a street where hundreds of people walk each day on a purely sensory basis as being intolerable noise pollution. Cities are public spaces, even if we increasingly behave otherwise.

We seem to have less and less tolerance for other people. The cameras are a symptom of this trend toward misanthropy, this same privatization of everything, this inability to treat the public with good faith. These devices escalate this tendency because they presuppose that everyone is undesirable. Individual building owners are empowered to take matters into their own hands: They’re allowed, under the guise of private property, to intimidate passersby. If that doesn’t say enough about what kind of cities we’re building and living in, one doesn't know what does.

Flock Cameras: Updates And Latest Info

Surveillance Company Flock Now Using AI to Report Us to Police if it Thinks Our Movement Patterns Are “Suspicious”

Flock license plate readers are motion-activated cameras paired with cloud-based software built for public safety and security.

Unlike traditional security cameras that record continuous video, Flock cameras focus on capturing specific vehicle information as vehicles pass through a defined location. This includes: check icon, License plate number, check icon, Vehicle make, model, color, and body type, check icon, Date, time, and general location of detection

The police surveillance company Flock has built an enormous nationwide license plate tracking system, which streams records of Americans’ comings and goings into a private national database that it makes available to police officers around the country. The system allows police to search the nationwide movement records of any vehicle that comes to their attention. That’s bad enough on its own, but the company is also now apparently analyzing our driving patterns to determine if we’re “suspicious.” That means if your police start using Flock, they could target you just because some algorithm has decided your movement patterns suggest criminality.

There has been a lot of reporting lately about Flock but I haven’t seen anyone focus on this feature. It’s a significant expansion in the use of the company’s surveillance infrastructure — from allowing police to find out more about specific vehicles of interest, to using the system to generate suspicion in the first place. The company’s cameras are no longer just recording our comings and goings — now, using AI in ways we have long warned against, the system is actively evaluating each of us to make a decision about whether we should be reported to law enforcement as potential participants in organized crime.

In a February 13 press release touting an “Expansive AI and Data Analysis Toolset for Law Enforcement,” the company announced several new capabilities, including something called “Multi-State Insights”:

Many large-scale criminal activities—such as human and narcotics trafficking and Organized Retail Crime (ORC)—involve movement across state lines. With our new Multi-State Insights feature, law enforcement is alerted when suspect vehicles have been detected in multiple states, helping investigators uncover networks and trends linked to major crime organizations.

Flock appears to offer this capability through a larger “Investigations Manager,” which urges police departments to “Maximize your LPR data to detect patterns of suspicious activity across cities and states.” The company also offers a “Linked Vehicles” or “Convoy Search” allowing police to “uncover vehicles frequently seen together,” putting it squarely in the business of tracking people’s associations, and a “Multiple locations search,” which promises to “Uncover vehicles seen in multiple locations.” All these are variants on the same theme: using the camera network not just to investigate based on suspicion, but to generate suspicion itself.

In a democracy, the government shouldn’t be watching its citizens all the time just in case we do something wrong. It’s one thing if a police officer out on a street sees something suspicious in public and reacts. But this is an entirely different matter.

First, the police should not be collecting and storing data on people’s movements and travel across space and time in the first place, or contracting to use a private company’s technology to accomplish the same thing. Second, they shouldn’t be taking that data and running it through AI algorithms to potentially swing the government’s eye of suspicion toward random, innocent civilians whose travel patterns just happen to fit what that algorithm thinks is worth bringing to the attention of the police.

And of course because Flock is a private company not subject to checks and balances such as open records laws and oversight by elected officials, we know nothing about the nature of the algorithm or algorithms that it uses— what logic it may be based upon, the data upon which it was trained, or the frequency and nature of its error rates. Does anyone actually know whether there are movement patterns characteristic of criminal behavior that won’t sweep in vastly larger numbers of innocent people?

We also don’t know what kind of biases the company’s algorithms might exhibit; it’s very easy to imagine an algorithm trained on past criminal histories in which low-income neighborhoods and communities of color are highly over-represented because of the well-established, top-to-bottom biases in our criminal justice system. That could mean that just living in such a neighborhood could make you inherently suspicious in the eyes of this system in a way that someone living in a wealthier place would never be. Among other problems, that’s just plain unfair.

The bottom line is that Flock, having built its giant surveillance infrastructure, is now expanding its uses — validating all our warnings about how such systems inevitably undergo mission creep, and providing all the more reason why communities should refuse to allow the police departments that serve them to participate in this mass surveillance system.


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What are ALPRs

Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs or LPRs) are AI-powered cameras that capture and analyze images of all passing vehicles, storing details like your car's location, date, and time. They also capture your car's make, model, color, and identifying features such as dents, roof racks, and bumper stickers, often turning these into searchable data points.

These cameras collect data on millions of vehicles regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime. These systems are marketed as indispensable tools to fight crime, but they ignore the powerful tools police already have to track criminals, such as cell phone location data, creating a loophole that doesn't require a warrant.

ALPRs are a serious risk to your privacy and civil liberties. These systems continuously record your movements without a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion. Your driving history is rarely confined to the town or city where the cameras are installed. It's typically shared with thousands of other agencies nationwide (secretly). Once the data is out of your community, you have no control over how it's used or what rules apply, leading to instances of misuse.

What is Flock?

Flock Safety is one of the largest ALPR vendors in the United States. Their cameras are installed for police departments, businesses, and HOAs. Captured vehicle data is uploaded to Flock's cloud system, where participating agencies can search and share information across jurisdictions.

Flock is not the only ALPR vendor, and other vendors still participate in similar practices.


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Police Keep Losing Their Jobs For Using Flock Cameras To Stalk People

Flock cameras—solar-powered, automated license plate readers, weighing less than 3 pounds and designed to be unobtrusive—can be found on 80,000 street corners throughout the country. The company behind the cameras built an $8.3 billion business empowering officers to track people’s movements. Nationwide, Flock cameras log billions of license plates each month. And now dozens of reports are emerging of police using the cameras not to solve crimes, but to stalk their partners and exes.

Over a two-month period in 2025, Milwaukee police officer Josue Ayala searched the license plate number of someone he was dating over 200 times, according to court documents. He also searched for his partner’s ex.

Another Milwaukee officer, Tehrangi Chapman, was assigned to investigate Ayala’s case. Ayala was charged with misconduct, resigned, and was sentenced to one year’s probation. Then, this week, Chapman too was charged with “misuse of GPS information.” While investigating Ayala, he allegedly engaged in the exact same misconduct, using the technology to track people in his own life.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, identified at least 24 similar cases nationwide of officers using automated license-plate reader (ALPR) cameras like Flock to stalk romantic interests over the past two years. Nearly all of those officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs.

A license plate reader camera

A Flock Safety automated license plate recognition camera is mounted along a roadway in Altadena, California.

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Flock cameras—solar-powered, automated license plate readers, weighing less than 3 pounds and designed to be unobtrusive—can be found on 80,000 street corners throughout the country. The company behind the cameras built an $8.3 billion business empowering officers to track people’s movements. Nationwide, Flock cameras log billions of license plates each month. And now dozens of reports are emerging of police using the cameras not to solve crimes, but to stalk their partners and exes.

Over a two-month period in 2025, Milwaukee police officer Josue Ayala searched the license plate number of someone he was dating over 200 times, according to court documents. He also searched for his partner’s ex.

Another Milwaukee officer, Tehrangi Chapman, was assigned to investigate Ayala’s case. Ayala was charged with misconduct, resigned, and was sentenced to one year’s probation. Then, this week, Chapman too was charged with “misuse of GPS information.” While investigating Ayala, he allegedly engaged in the exact same misconduct, using the technology to track people in his own life.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, identified at least 24 similar cases nationwide of officers using automated license-plate reader (ALPR) cameras like Flock to stalk romantic interests over the past two years. Nearly all of those officers were criminally charged and lost their jobs.

This month alone, at least six new cases were reported in local media outlets. Beyond Chapman’s case in Wisconsin, officers in Illinois, South Carolina, Texas, California, and Georgia all lost their jobs due to alleged misuse of Flock cameras.

Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, has been following technology and privacy issues for over a decade. “The tracking of an individual vehicle, as it moves throughout an area, can reveal very deeply personal and private information, not only about the vehicle but the person operating it,” Marlow said. “That is Flock at its most dangerous.” (When reached for comment, a Flock Safety representative sent press releases about its audit assistance tool.)

Six years ago, Mother Jones’ Daniel Moattar detailed how some of California’s most populous counties were collecting information using ALPRs—mostly tracking people who weren’t even under suspicion of any crime. And in 2013, the ACLU said that just 47 of every million plates scanned by Maryland ALPRs that year “were even tentatively associated with actual serious crimes.”

But in the years since then, police use of ALPRs has increased across the country. The cameras have been used to go after immigrants without warrants, and to track people seeking abortions as they travel across state lines for the procedure. Though there are several companies that make ALPRs, Flock is by far the largest, with more than 80,000 cameras spread throughout the United States. Flock Safety’s CEO, Garrett Langley, has said he wants his cameras “on every corner.”

But the backlash against Flock and other ALPRs is growing. The technology, activists say, holds potential for misuse. And even when it’s used as intended, some researchers say the company’s data sharing practices lead to privacy rights violations. Throughout 2025, at least 30 municipalities canceled their Flock contracts. Grassroots groups such as DeFlock have built maps showing the public where these license-plate readers are located. (Langley called DeFlock and other activists “terroristic” last year, and apologized this week.)

And Marlow of the ACLU expects the pushback to keep getting louder. “In these incredibly divisive political times, we’re actually seeing the rare issue that unites Americans: opposition to government surveillance,” Marlow said. “And I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think this movement is only going to grow.”


Also:


How Cops Use Flock to Track People, Not Cars

Cops have used Flock's FreeForm search feature to look for people with tattoos and wearing specific sport shirts, and searches sometimes include the target's race, according to data reviewed by 404 Media.

Police departments around the country have used Flock cameras at least hundreds of times to search for specific people, not cars, using searches such as “heavy-set male with a black and white hat,” “person on skateboard,” and “person wearing orange vest and construction hat,” according to data reviewed by 404 Media. Sometimes searches reference a target’s race or signs of their political affiliation.

The searches highlight that while most people associate Flock cameras with scanning license plates and tracking vehicles, some of the cameras are also capable of following the movements of particular people or groups of people. Flock’s nationwide network of cameras lets police officers in one state search for a vehicle across many other states at once; the people searches do a similar thing, typically on a smaller scale, sometimes querying many hundreds of cameras at once. These are called “FreeForm” searches, and allow cops to use Flock’s system as though they would use a search engine, with Flock’s AI and image recognition interpreting what footage and which people are relevant to a police officer’s search.

“Much of the world hasn’t quite caught up yet to how much more powerful a surveillance camera is today compared to a few years ago. AI video analytics means that giant oceans of video data can now be searched the same way big text files can be, including for sensitive content such as t-shirts, tattoos, and bumper stickers. Even without face recognition, that’s a significant increase in surveillance capability,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404 Media in an email.

“This is a classic bait-and-switch. Your town was pitched a tool to catch stolen cars and find missing kids,” Tom Bowman, policy counsel, security … surveillance, at the Center for Democracy … Technology, told 404 Media in a statement. Instead, cops now have the capability to search for a specific person or description of a person across a wealth of camera networks at once. “It's like being sold a smoke detector and only later finding out it's been recording every conversation in your house.”

The searches sometimes stretch across dozens or even nearly a hundred networks of Flock cameras at once. Sometimes the searches are so vague that they can pull up images of innocent or unrelated people. Other examples in the data reviewed by 404 Media include:

Dunwoody GA PD looking for someone wearing a “backpack,” and later “person walking” and “black sweatshirt.” The latter two searches were across nine networks of cameras each

Pocatello ID PD searching for “a male on foot” across 38 cameras. Another search was “atlanta falcons,” referencing the NFL team

Corona CA PD searching for “american flag shirt” and “dodger shirt.”

Milford CT PD looking for “male with tattoos,” “male with brown hair,” and “woman blue shirt,” across more than a hundred cameras

The California Highway Patrol looking for someone wearing a “gray shirt” across 274 cameras

The Texas Department of Public Safety searching 96 networks of cameras for “man weasring [sic] a black t-shirt and shorts.”

Florence SC PD looking for “person with gun” across 61 cameras

Chamblee GA PD searching 85 camera networks for “white woman wearing grey shirt, blonde hair, black shorts with blue and white shoes.” The agency also searched for “female with ugg boots.”

Brookhaven GA PD looking for “tall man.”

Some searches referenced the race of the person authorities were looking for. The California Highway Patrol was “Looking for a white male about 6ft 1in tall, longer brown hair almost to his shoulders, slender build, will have been wearing blue jeans, boots with white paint stains on the toes and possibly carrying a black helmet.” Atlanta GA PD searched for “non caucasion [sic] male wearing blue shirt blue pants white hat.”

Some searches are part of an “investigation,” according to the “reason” field in the data. Others are part of a missing persons case. In some it is not clear what the reason for the search was because it is redacted.

“Unfortunately, this ability to search cameras as though doing a search engine inquiry is increasingly common for surveillance cameras,” Beryl Lipton, senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told 404 Media. “AI-enabled video analysis across reams of footage exacerbates the risk that law-abiding people minding their own business end up with police observing them without their knowledge and opens them to possibly being implicated in a crime or being treated as a criminal. Imagine how many people at any given moment may be walking on foot, wearing a backpack, or existing with brown hair. It wasn’t that long ago that Trayvon Martin was murdered by someone who could argue that wearing a hoodie justified suspicion and a claim of self-defense.”

404 Media reviewed data collected by HaveIBeenFlocked.com, a website that collates Flock search-related data obtained through public records requests. Since 404 Media revealed local police were performing Flock searches on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), journalists, activists, and residents across the country have requested “Network Audits” from their local police departments. These spreadsheets show in granular detail when an officer searched Flock cameras, how many cameras they queried, and the stated reason why.

A sometimes overlooked part of those audits is a field called “text_prompt.” This relates to a feature in Flock called FreeForm search, which lets officers search cameras not by typing in a license plate but with a natural language phrase. Sometimes these FreeForm searches are descriptions of vehicles, but they often include descriptions of people.

Flock primarily advertises its FreeForm as a feature for its Condor video cameras, which are separate from its automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras. These video cameras have “people detection alerts,” and “Guardian Mode” automatically zooms in on people and vehicles. “Deploy AI-powered video where it matters most—no blind spots, no hassle, and fully integrated into Flock,” the company’s website reads. But the AI-analyzed feeds are not entirely divorced from ALPR; Flock has designed the systems to work in tandem. Kevin Cox, a Flock consultant who previously worked for the Grand Prairie Police Department in Texas, previously said, “video combined with the LPR evidence of placing a vehicle at the scene or nearby is an incredibly game changing experience into the prosecutorial chain of events.”

Flock launched FreeForm in February 2025, although the company’s announcement at the time focused on searches related to vehicles. Some FreeForm searches 404 Media reviewed indicate a target’s potential political affiliation, such as the Anne Arundel County MD PD searching 198 networks for “white jeep with trump flag.”

One example search Flock gives on its website is for “camo hat orange vest.”

Flock told 404 Media in a statement “FreeForm is designed to help investigators quickly search through large amounts of footage when they are working with limited information, such as a witness description of a person or vehicle.”

“FreeForm is not facial recognition. Flock’s products do not have facial recognition, and we have no facial recognition technology in development. FreeForm cannot identify a person by name, verify someone’s identity, or search for a specific face,” the company added. Flock said authorities used FreeForm searches in a September 2025 AMBER alert case and in Emporia, Kansas, when an elderly man left an assisted living facility.

Flock said FreeForm searches have “guardrails,” including users not able to search attributes such as “race, ethnicity, religion, nationality.” When they do, an alert is generated and sent to the agency’s administrators, Flock said. Some of the searches 404 Media found did discuss someone’s race.

Stanley from the ACLU added, “Imagine that your police department stationed officers on corners around your community writing down notes on where you are at what time, but also what you’re wearing every day, what objects you might be carrying — and writing down those details on everybody, 24/7. You would ask, why are they keeping notes on everybody? That’s pretty intrusive. But that’s basically what these systems do.”

“All this goes to show that Flock is eager not just to expand its surveillance of drivers across America through license plate readers, but to expand into every new kind of surveillance that technology makes possible. And then to link these data streams together to capture even more information about how everybody is living their lives. I don’t think most Americans want to live under that kind of constant automated surveillance,” he wrote.

In May 2025, 404 Media revealed Flock planned to use hacked data as part of a massive people lookup tool. The idea was to use information from data brokers and data breaches to “jump from LPR [license plate reader] to person,” according to internal Flock meeting audio 404 Media previously obtained. Flock scrapped the plan to use hacked data after 404 Media’s coverage and internal pressure.

In December 2025, 404 Media reported Flock left at least 60 of its people-tracking cameras exposed to the wider internet, letting anyone watch their feeds in real time. Those were Flock Condor cameras, and not its more widespread license plate reading cameras.


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What are Flock cameras and where are they in Miami-Dade and Broward?

Those black, oval shaped devices you see popping up on poles in Miami-Dade and Broward counties aren’t regular traffic cameras, they’re AI-powered Flock cameras. And residents aren’t too keen on their arrival.

The cameras, also known as ALPR cameras, are powered by Flock Safety and use artificial intelligence to scan license plates. Other Flock technology uses audio-detecting technology to identify sounds like gunfire or car crashes.

DeFlock, an open-source project that maps where the cameras are in the U.S., shows almost 400 Flock cameras installed in Miami-Dade County. The site shows Broward County has twice that many at over 800 cameras, with a big concentration in the Fort Lauderdale area, including Pembroke Pines and Hollywood.

While the Flock Safety website states it partners with businesses and local communities to implement the technology, the company is most known for its partnerships with law-enforcement agencies, which are said to use the technology to solve crimes like missing persons or stolen vehicles.

It is unclear if any Miami-Dade or Broward agencies have partnerships with the company. Neither county’s sheriff’s office immediately responded to a Miami Herald inquiry about a contract or partnership with Flock, nor did police departments from Miami, Miami Gardens, Miami Beach, Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale.

A YouTube video might depict a relationship with Flock Safety and MDSO, though.

In the video, posted by Flock Safety in March, Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Major George Perera speaks with a Flock representative concerning a tip that the agency received about the security of the technology.

Perera said MDSO’s Electronic Crimes Task Force analyzed the technology and found it to be secure.

“We feel confident in the product to be able to continue to have a relationship,” Perera said in the video.

Controversy about the cameras

Flock cameras have become so widespread, residents are taking to social media to air their grievances.

Tiffany Hudson, 38, of Plantation, created a Facebook group called “Get the Flock Out of Florida” after learning her city would implement close to 100 cameras. She said in a city of about 100,000 residents, that’s a lot of cameras.

“People are like, ‘So what? Big deal, it snaps a picture of your car,’” she told a Miami Herald reporter. “But what happens is they put a camera on this street, then the next street, then the next street. … They have them all over the place, so you’re under surveillance all the time.”

The Flock Safety website says the license plate-reading cameras don’t detect faces, people, gender or race and its audio-detecting equipment doesn’t record conversations, but Floridians like Hudson are concerned about their data being tracked.

Unless stated otherwise by an individual contract — whether that be with a law-enforcement agency or business — the Flock website says all data gathered from the cameras are only stored for 30 days. But that’s not to say data isn’t being sold, Hudson said.

“We don’t know what’s happening to our data,” she said. “Our data is being taken and given to [people or agencies] we don’t even know.”

On its website, Flock repeatedly states it does not sell data to third parties nor can any outside agencies access it without permission.

ICE and immigration worries

While Flock’s website says it doesn’t work directly with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or share data with the agency, it says individual agencies like police departments that partner with Flock can share the data if they choose.

Budget data from Florida’s State Board of Immigration Enforcement states several law-enforcement agencies have requested funds for Flock cameras and similar ALPR technology.

“Flock Safety ALPR scans plates in real-time, cross-referencing against immigration databases for warrants, deportees, or smuggling vehicles. Under 287(g) and ICE partnerships, it flags suspicious patterns on routes like US-19, aiding arrests and data sharing,” one of the budget requests said.

Law-enforcement agencies outside of Florida have reevaluated their partnerships with the company based on similar concerns. In Dayton, Ohio, the police department suspended its partnership with Flock and placed trash bags over its cameras after finding more than 7,000 cases of immigration enforcement-related searches. The Los Angeles Police Department ended its partnership with the company last week and is in the process of renegotiating it over concerns of how Flock Safety stored the data.

In Miami Beach

Along the Venetian Causeway — one of the main links between Miami Beach and the mainland — DeFlock shows nine Flock cameras installed. In Miami Beach alone, the website shows four ALPR cameras — two of which are Flock Safety cameras — near the intersection of Alton Road and 14th Street.

Despite the low number of Flock cameras installed in the city, Miami Beach resident Alex Giassa, 56, said he thinks the company is a data-sharing scheme.

“It’s not just an invasion of privacy, it’s really a violation of everything that we stand for as Americans,” he said. “Yes, we have the Fourth Amendment, but isn’t it our choice also when we want somebody to know something?”

With Flock cameras, he said privacy takes on a new meaning — with people needing to recognize their actions are constantly monitored.

“It just infuriates me. … Regardless of where you go and who you meet with, you’re being tracked,” he said.

Flock Map   90,000+ ALPR cameras. 20 billion scans per month. Your movements are being recorded. Enter your zip code. See how many cameras are watching your community.