August 11, 2026

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Welcome aboard. A Porter Airlines flight to Toronto was canceled last week because a young kid refused to sit down and secure their seatbelt before takeoff. The child and parent were eventually removed from the plane, but the process took so long that the runway closed for the night.

That’s certainly one way to get grounded.

—Molly Liebergall, Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Adam Epstein

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

The growing backlash against Flock cameras
Mark Zuckerberg’s AI manifesto
Ozempic changing workplace etiquette

Markets

Nasdaq

26,605.36

-0.32%

S&P

7,753.11

-0.06%

Dow

53,975.98

-0.11%

10-Year

4.699%

+4.0 bps

Bitcoin

$63,985.03

-1.71%

Archer

$6.25

+11.90%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 4:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks stumbled and oil prices rose yesterday as investors continued to wait to see if a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is on the horizon. Elsewhere, Archer Aviation popped after Boeing announced it was taking a stake in the company and folding its flying taxi business into it.

SMILE! YOU’RE ON CAMERA

Backlash to Flock cameras is now a bipartisan issue

Close-cropped photo of a Flock camera on a chaotic noisy digital background of reds and blues.

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

Hordes of towns and cities are doing the opposite of flocking to a leading surveillance startup. Amid widespread concerns of privacy infringement and dozens of cases of police misuse, many communities have recently canceled their contracts with Flock Safety, a company with 120,000+ license plate readers installed across the US.

What are Flock cameras? AI-equipped devices that can track vehicles from their license plate, make, model, color, and even bumper stickers. The cameras are used by thousands of law enforcement agencies across the US, plus some college campuses and homeowners associations.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police called Flock’s type of technology a “crime-fighting star,” but critics see it as a panopticon ripe for warrantless abuse, based on several recent use cases:

At least 50 police officers have been accused of misusing Flock’s cameras or similar systems, mostly to stalk women, the Washington Post reported last week.
Though Flock says it doesn’t work with ICE, some police departments can grant access to immigration agencies. The Columbus, Ohio Flock system, for example, has fielded 15,000+ potential immigration-related searches since 2024, according to audit data that Flock now allows clients to share publicly.
Cops recently used Flock to arrest a Wisconsin man for marijuana possession after tracking him to and from Michigan, where weed is legal, 404 Media reported.

United in flock skepticism

Vigilantes are reportedly disabling the cameras, and a grassroots group called DeFlock is mapping the devices’ locations.

Apparently heeding concerns of mass surveillance, Amazon-owned Ring canceled its partnership with Flock in February. And more than 70 municipalities—from Los Anglees to small Virginia towns—have stopped working with Flock in recent months amid local outcry, according to the ACLU (though some areas have reportedly just switched to other license plate readers).

It’s a rare moment of bipartisanship. As one Republican commissioner of a North Carolina county told Politico, “We had work boots and Subarus in our parking lot and they were united in their position against the Flock cameras.”—ML

Reader Poll

What are your thoughts on Flock cameras?

I like them. More surveillance, please.
I see the benefits, but I’m worried about misuse.
I am fully against them.
Dunno. Just show me how other Brew readers voted.

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World

Tour de headlines

Collapsed buildings with bystanders in the foreground after an earthquake in Colombia

Giovanny Galvez/Getty Images

🇨🇴 Dozens dead after 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Colombia. At least 111 people have been killed and more are trapped under debris after the powerful quake hit western Colombia yesterday, local officials said. The earthquake struck about 250 miles west of the capital, Bogotá, and could also be felt in Ecuador and Panama. Authorities said there was damage to buildings across more than 20 municipalities. Per Colombia’s Geological Service, it was the most powerful earthquake in the country in a decade. It comes less than two months after more than 6,000 people died in a pair of earthquakes in Venezuela.

🍔 Trump admin proposes new restrictions on food ingredients. The Department of Health and Human Services proposed a new rule yesterday that would require food manufacturers to notify the FDA when they introduce new ingredients to their products. The proposal would close a loophole that food safety advocates have long complained about: For many years, companies could avoid regulatory review for new ingredients by asserting that they were “generally recognised as safe,” or GRAS. Though food policy experts applauded the proposal, some experts have cautioned that it’s unlikely to actually improve the healthiness of the US’ food supply, as companies would still be able to determine the safety of ingredients themselves.

⚽ Soccer confederations accuse FIFA of “deception” over investment scheme. Calls for FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s ouster grew louder yesterday as UEFA, Concacaf, and the Asia Football Conference wrote an open letter alleging that FIFA and Infantino made a “profound failure in judgment” with their failed plan to allow private investors to buy a stake in the World Cup. “When an individual places himself above the collective that entrusted him with authority, that duty has been abandoned,” the letter said. Infantino was forced to scrap the plan after widespread backlash, including a threat by European nations to boycott upcoming World Cups. A number of soccer legends have also called for him to resign.—AE

OPEN AI, NOT OPENAI

Zuck’s manifesto argues for decentralized AI

Picture Alliance/Getty Images

Dating in San Francisco now involves getting an earful about Mark Zuckerberg’s 6,500-word manifesto on AI published yesterday. The Meta boss painted a rosy picture of the tech’s potential to improve lives by turbocharging scientific advances and empowering people. He also expanded on how he thinks AI should develop in a decentralized manner.

AI for all

Zuckerberg argued that AI should align with individuals’ values, rather than those of AI labs, have strong privacy controls, and be widely available for free. He thinks that top AI labs shouldn’t single-handedly control AI development, arguing for open-source models that individual developers can modify:

Zuck says these models broaden access to the best AI capabilities and are key to ensuring Silicon Valley can compete with popular Chinese open-source AI.
He believes US labs should be able to use each other’s AI for model training, a process called distillation that Meta’s rivals and the US government oppose.

Some AI safety advocates say open-source models can be easier to exploit for malicious ends. Addressing widespread safety anxieties, Zuck also called for government oversight of AI models as they are being trained. And he announced Meta earmarked $1 billion to invest in communities near data centers.

Big picture: Zuck’s essay comes as Meta races to keep up with models from OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta announced yesterday that it will develop open models that can run locally on laptops and will release an open version of its most powerful model, Muse Spark 1.2.—SK

Sports trivia

This has got to be one of the best Final Jeopardy clues of all time:

“It’s a 2-minute penalty in the NHL, 15 yards in the NFL & no penalty in MLB if you’re Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter in 1970.”

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Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: proliferation, meaning “a rapid increase in the amount of spread of something.” Thanks to Gretchen from Nashville, TN, for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

✳︎ A Note From BluSky AI

This is a paid advertisement for BluSky AI’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at https://invest.bluskyaidatacenters.com/.

Written by Adam Epstein, Molly Liebergall, Sam Klebanov, and Matty Merritt

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