https://progressiveindiana.net
SUMMARY:
On Pastor Greene’s birthday, he and Rev. Tony Alexander dig into two connected fronts: the fallout from Indy’s Flock camera controversy and a devastating new report on Indiana’s early childhood education system. Following Chief Terry’s new policy requiring an active case number before officers can access Flock (automated license plate reader) data, the hosts scrutinize IMPD’s public FAQ page — which claims Flock cannot detect faces, gender, or race and shares no data with federal agencies — against a New Republic investigation into hacked Flock camera data showing images sorted, filed, and sold to over 2,000 agencies nationwide, netting the company an $8.4 billion valuation. IMPD’s own 301 leased cameras account for less than half of the 627 Flock cameras operating in Indianapolis, raising questions about who owns the rest and how freely data flows between agencies. The second half of the show confronts a new report ranking Indiana 51st in early childhood education, alongside the staggering fact that 518 Indiana child care programs — roughly 10 a week — have closed in the past year, displacing an estimated 25,000 to 26,000 children with no funded path back into structured care. Both hosts place direct responsibility on Rep. Bob Behning, the 20-year chair of the House Education Committee, and callers Imhotep and Reverend Phillips weigh in on Christian hypocrisy in governance and government dysfunction more broadly.
WHAT’S INSIDE
00:00:00 Program open and birthday greeting
- Rev. Alexander previews the two main topics: Indiana’s early childhood education ranking and a Flock camera systems update.
- Happy birthday wishes for Pastor Greene, who leads the opening prayer for flood-impacted families across central and northwest Indiana.
00:02:27 Recap — Chief Terry’s new Flock policy
- Rev. Alexander recaps last week’s Public Safety Committee fallout: Chief Terry has now stated Flock camera data can only be accessed by officers when tied to an active case number, with a fuller written policy still forthcoming.
- Rev. Alexander is skeptical that IMPD’s public claim — that Flock is used only for license plate and vehicle images, nothing more — holds up against what he’s hearing from other sources.
00:04:46 The pattern behind the policy change
- Pastor Greene traces the new policy directly to the officer caught running the same person’s plate roughly a thousand times for personal, non-case-related reasons — a pattern flagged nationally, not just in Indianapolis.
- He notes the relevant oversight body, the General Orders Board, failed to reach quorum this week, stalling formal review of any new policy.
00:09:11 The Fraternal Order of Police’s likely position
- Rev. Alexander and Pastor Greene agree the police union will support keeping Flock cameras but will resist any restrictions on how they’re used — wanting expanded identification features, not tighter limits.
- Pastor Greene stresses residents need to know exactly what’s in the city’s Flock contract, including which optional features Indianapolis is or isn’t using.
00:14:43 The New Republic investigation — hacked data and a 2,000-agency network
- Rev. Alexander details a New Republic article showing hacked Flock data revealing highly specific captured details — down to a patch on a motorcyclist’s bag — that get uploaded, sorted, and sold to police departments nationwide, fueling an $8.4 billion company valuation.
- Example cited: Alpharetta, Georgia (population 67,000) has Flock camera data accessible to more than 2,000 agencies, including colleges, an airport, and a federal Inspector General’s office — directly contradicting IMPD’s claim that federal agencies have no access to its data.
- Pastor Greene argues broad data-sharing across law enforcement, university police (Butler, IU, Ivy Tech), hospital security, and neighboring municipalities (Speedway, Lawrence, Fishers, Greenwood, Southport) is functionally inevitable once a city buys into the Flock network — and that IMPD’s stated confidence federal agencies are excluded doesn’t hold up given how eagerly the federal government has sought other data, like voter rolls.
00:18:12 Who actually owns the cameras
- IMPD’s FAQ states it leases 301 automated license plate readers, but the public Deflock map shows 627 total cameras in Indianapolis — meaning more than half belong to other entities: state police, universities, hospitals, and surrounding municipalities all plugged into the same shared network.
00:21:35 Indiana ranks 51st in early childhood education
- A new report ranks Indiana dead last (51st) in early childhood education.
- Pastor Greene reveals that as of last week, 518 Indiana child care programs have closed in the past year — a number Reverend Alexander calculates, at an average of 50 children per program, to roughly 25,000–26,000 displaced children, comparable to the enrollment of an entire school district the size of IPS.
- Pastor Greene: displaced children aren’t landing in other daycare programs — they’re going to informal, unstructured care with relatives, setting them up to struggle against the same third-grade reading retention standards as everyone else.
- Investments from the United Way, Lilly Endowment, and the state’s own Paths to Quality program funded facility upgrades that are now being abandoned — money spent building an infrastructure the state has since defunded.
- The Paths to Quality pathway technically still exists, but several of the closed facilities were high-tier (Level 3 and 4) providers, raising the question of why anyone would still pursue it without funding certainty.
- Pastor Greene: providers closed largely because voucher payments simply weren’t coming — a slow-moving application process left both providers and families without the money that was supposed to sustain the system.
00:28:01 Caller Imhotep — Christian hypocrisy and misplaced priorities
- Imhotep argues that professed Christian faith among GOP leaders like Gov. Braun and the Lieutenant Governor is measured by works, not words — and their actions in office don’t reflect that standard.
- He contrasts Massachusetts and (improving) Wisconsin against Indiana’s decline, and criticizes how a viral controversy over an individual’s identity and finances consumed public attention while displaced children were forgotten.
- His closing argument: current U.S. war spending, if redirected and divided among the states, could fund enormous investment in children instead.
00:31:41 Ten a week, and nothing stopping it
- Rev. Alexander reframes the 518 closures as roughly 10 a week, with no current mechanism in place to slow the pace.
- Pastor Greene: 2027 is the pivotal legislative session — will lawmakers commit real, sustained voucher funding, or continue treating it as optional? He frames it as a 50-50 proposition.
00:32:07 What real commitment would look like — and the odds
- Pastor Greene lays out what a credible legislative commitment requires: a real budget line, a public statement of intent, and follow-through — not another one-time gesture that has to be renegotiated every session.
- He’s blunt that the current stopgap funding the governor released is temporary and expires by the end of December, with no long-term mechanism behind it.
- Since Republicans hold the legislative majority, any fix requires Republican lawmakers explicitly acknowledging the damage their own prior votes caused — something Rev. Alexander calls a very high bar to clear.
00:38:14 Caller Reverend Phillips — a broader frustration with government dysfunction
- Reverend Phillips voices frustration with state leadership, government shutdown coverage, and legislators he feels aren’t governing with clear thinking or public benefit in mind.
- Rev. Alexander pushes back gently on the framing afterward: it’s not that these legislators are uneducated — they’re well-resourced with legal support and know exactly what they’re doing. The issue is priorities, not ignorance.
00:42:01 Naming names — Rep. Bob Behning and accountability
- Pastor Greene names Rep. Bob Behning, chair of the House Education Committee for over 20 years and on the ballot this cycle, as the figure most responsible for the policy direction that produced a 51st-place ranking.
- His challenge to voters: reelecting a two-decade incumbent overseeing this outcome without demanding accountability only invites other states, like Mississippi, to copy Indiana’s approach.
- Rev. Alexander adds that Indiana’s failures get blamed on Black parents specifically, when the state’s 51st ranking and 518 closures span the entire state, urban and rural alike.
00:44:41 Redistricting fatigue and a possible opening
- Rev. Alexander suggests the massive national spending on redistricting fights over the past year may not pay off as intended, given how many families across the political spectrum have been directly hurt by these closures — a potential opening for real electoral consequences in November.
- Pastor Greene agrees the fallout could “blow up in your face” politically, since child care closures don’t respect income or party lines — everyone eventually needs a workforce, a level playing field, and functioning public systems, whether they’re rich or not.
- His closing ask of legislators: a real budget commitment for 2027-28, not another wait-and-see promise.
00:49:08 Program close — birthday sign-off
- Rev. Alexander warns that without funding, the current third-grade cohort will be the first to feel the full weight of this crisis in standardized testing, and it won’t be limited to Black children — it will hit families statewide.
- Program closes with birthday wishes for Pastor Greene and thanks to listeners and callers.
