Anti-Surveillance Activists Destroy Flock Camera in Michigan, Call for Wider Sabotage Campaign
Executive Summary
An anonymous anarchist group has claimed responsibility for destroying a Flock Safety surveillance camera in Washtenaw County, Michigan, through a communiqué posted on the anarchist media site Unsalted Counter Info. The post not only justifies the act as a stand against “state surveillance” but openly urges others to replicate similar attacks across southeastern Michigan. The incident mirrors recent anti-surveillance sabotage in Minneapolis and Philadelphia, suggesting the spread of a coordinated, decentralized campaign targeting AI-powered policing infrastructure across North America.
Key Judgments
1. The Washtenaw County camera destruction reflects a growing anti-surveillance sabotage network spreading across the U.S. under shared ideological and operational frameworks.
Evidence: The Unsalted Counter Info post uses language and framing nearly identical to communiqués from the “Camover 2025” and “Capture the Flock” movements, which have claimed responsibility for disabling cameras in Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Montreal. The group directly references zines such as Birds of a Feather, known to circulate within anti-surveillance circles as a tactical guide to targeting Flock devices.
2. The public call for others to “take down cameras” signals a deliberate effort to incite coordinated copycat actions in Michigan and beyond.
Evidence: The communiqué explicitly challenges others in “South East so-called Michigan” to destroy additional surveillance infrastructure, framing it as a collective defense against “settler colonial” policing. This rhetorical appeal parallels prior anarchist calls to action that catalyzed waves of property destruction and arson under shared ideological branding.
3. The incident demonstrates the operational confidence and low-barrier tactics driving the resurgence of anarchist infrastructure sabotage campaigns.
Evidence: The post emphasizes the simplicity of the attack—“a few friends, a plan, and a little bit of bravery”—while offering moral encouragement for replication. The casual tone, coupled with references to secure communication tools and educational zines, reflects the same instructional style used in other anarchist “how-to” communiqués that merge activism with propaganda.
Analysis
The Washtenaw County Flock camera destruction marks the arrival of a broader anti-surveillance campaign in the Midwest, connecting local acts of vandalism to a national trend of anarchist sabotage targeting automated policing technologies. Groups aligned with this movement frame Flock Safety’s AI-driven license plate readers as extensions of carceral and colonial systems, positioning direct action as both resistance and community defense.
The Unsalted Counter Info communiqué follows a familiar operational and rhetorical pattern: anonymity through encrypted submission portals, justification grounded in anti-colonial and abolitionist ideology, and explicit encouragement for others to act. Such statements function as both incident reports and propaganda, normalizing criminal damage as legitimate political participation. The use of accessible language and emphasis on ease of execution lowers the threshold for participation, enabling a diffusion of tactics among ideologically aligned but decentralized actors.
Recent cases in Minneapolis and Philadelphia suggest that these incidents are not isolated vandalism but coordinated expressions of a broader anarchist project opposing “smart city” surveillance. The recurring references to Flock Safety—one of the fastest-growing surveillance vendors in the U.S.—indicate a strategic targeting of visible, symbolically charged infrastructure. The convergence of environmental, abolitionist, and anti-tech movements under campaigns like “Camover 2025” and “Capture the Flock” provides a shared ideological and tactical base for continued operations.
For municipal security and corporate partners, these developments present escalating risks. Flock Safety’s distributed camera networks are physically vulnerable and difficult to defend at scale. Copycat attacks could spread rapidly, producing financial losses, data disruption, and reputational challenges for local governments and private clients relying on the systems. Law enforcement should anticipate a potential cluster of similar incidents in Michigan and neighboring states as anti-surveillance activists mobilize online.
