The Noah Orion Flock campaign on Instagram has turned a fake legal threat into engagement bait, according to 404 Media and Flock’s chief legal officer. Orion, a country musician, influencer and former American Idol contestant, has repeatedly posted an image of a supposed cease-and-desist letter from Flock after pivoting into anti-surveillance content about the company’s camera network.
Flock sells automated license plate reader cameras used by police and municipalities. The system is controversial because it can turn routine road travel into searchable location data, which is why journalists, researchers and local activists have been digging into how police and agencies use it.
Orion began posting about Flock a little over a month ago, 404 Media reported. One early Instagram reel promoted “Fuck Flock” stickers and suggested their size matched the lens area of an average Flock camera. The sticker mockup shown in the post used an AI-generated image of a surveillance camera that was not a Flock camera, according to 404 Media.
Did Flock send Noah Orion a cease-and-desist letter?
Flock says no. Dan Haley, Flock’s chief legal officer, told 404 Media by LinkedIn message that the letters were fake, adding through a company spokesperson that at least two forged letters claiming to come from Flock’s legal department were circulating online.
“These letters did not come from me or from anyone at Flock,” Haley said through the spokesperson, according to 404 Media. He also said Flock welcomes public debate about its technology and would participate in such discussions.
The purported letter posted by Orion claimed to be from Haley and accused him of encouraging fans to place stickers in a “rude and unusual manner” toward Flock. It also warned that Flock could “persecute” him and his organization, language that reads less like a lawyer and more like a content calendar that got into the glue.
Orion’s July 8 post showing the document drew 73,000 likes and millions of views, 404 Media reported. Since then, he has reposted the same letter 16 times on Instagram and has posted heavily about Flock, including a Tuesday reel saying he “could go to jail soon” and was starting a bail fund in case of arrest. 404 Media reported that Orion did not respond to its Instagram message about the letter.
NotJustAnalytics, an Instagram tracking site cited by 404 Media, showed Orion gained more than 30,000 followers over the last month, during a stretch when his posts focused largely on Flock, stickers and the claimed legal threat.
Real Flock threats have targeted researchers
The fake letter lands in a messier reality: Flock has made real legal threats against people building tools that scrutinize its camera network, according to 404 Media.
- Flock threatened Will Freeman, creator of DeFlock, an open-source project that maps Flock cameras, through a third-party law firm, 404 Media reported. Freeman got help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- Flock also tried to get hosting pulled for HaveIBeenFlocked, a database of police Flock searches created by Cris van Pelt, by alleging intellectual property violations and public safety risks, according to 404 Media.
- Flock CEO Garrett Langley called DeFlock a “terroristic organization” in an on-camera Forbes interview, then apologized in a later Forbes interview this month, 404 Media reported.
Those projects, along with reporting by 404 Media and local journalists, have fed local campaigns pressuring city councils over Flock contracts. 404 Media reported that work using HaveIBeenFlocked has surfaced police abuse and ICE surveillance cases that led to firings, arrests, policy changes and canceled contracts.
Benn Jordan, a researcher and YouTuber who has reported Flock security flaws, criticized Orion’s fake letters in an Instagram video. Jordan argued that forged legal threats give Flock an easy way to blur actual research and reporting with clout-chasing misinformation.
This story draws on original reporting from 404 Media.
