Flock Safety is denying that it tried to shut down a California lecture group’s discussion of surveillance after an image of a purported cease-and-desist letter spread across social media.
The dispute started Thursday when The Saturday Salon, a lecture series in Newport Beach, posted a photo on Instagram of what appeared to be a legal demand from Flock Safety. The letter, as shown in the post, told the group to stop hosting conversations about Flock’s surveillance technology.
The post quickly became another flashpoint for critics of Flock, a surveillance technology company that has faced backlash over its products and its work with law enforcement agencies. The Saturday Salon’s Instagram post had more than 3,000 likes, and a separate Bluesky post about the letter had more than 360 reposts.
The Saturday Salon framed the alleged letter as an attempt to intimidate the group. “WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED,” the account wrote in its Instagram post. The group said it had hosted a discussion about surveillance, privacy, and the tension between safety and civil liberties.
Schuyler Lifschultz, writing from The Saturday Salon’s Instagram account, told The Verge in a direct message that the group “found this letter taped to our front door.”
Flock says the letter was not real
Flock rejected the allegation. Rahul Sidhu, the company’s chief strategy officer, said on X that Flock did not send the letter and claimed it was part of a broader effort to mislead people about the company.
“Flock never sent this letter, these people made it up (with a forged signature) to try to manipulate people,” Sidhu wrote. He added: “We are pro-democracy. People SHOULD have discussions and lectures like this.”
That leaves the central factual dispute unresolved in public: The Saturday Salon says it found a letter at its door, while Flock’s strategy chief says the document is fake and bears a forged signature. No independent confirmation of who created or delivered the letter has been reported.
The episode shows how fast a thinly documented claim can turn into a surveillance-policy brawl online. Flock is already a loaded name in debates over police technology, so a photo of a supposed legal threat landed in a receptive feed. The company’s denial is also a claim, and the available record, at least so far, consists of the group’s posted image, its account of how it received the document, and Sidhu’s public rejection of it.
For now, the hard facts are narrower than the outrage cycle: a Newport Beach salon posted a purported cease-and-desist letter; the post spread; Flock says it did not send it.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
