Maroney Calls for a Flock Pause. His PAC Took Money From the Industry He’s Now Questioning.

Sen. James Maroney is now calling on our communities to pause new installations on Flock cameras. This comes on the heels of recent and well deserved community concerns over data privacy and surveillance.

Over the past 8 years, Sen. Maroney has presented himself as an independent voice and someone who is fighting big tech to protect our privacy. Yet a political action committee, A New Day PAC, he opened up after being elected has accepted substantial contributions from lobbyists, including a firm that represents Flock Safety. 

Since 2019, the New Day PAC has taken in more than $60,000. A significant portion came from Connecticut’s lobbying and government-relations community. The same PAC reimbursed Maroney for conference and travel expenses to conferences related to AI. And it gets worse, one of those donor firms represents Flock in Connecticut, the company whose technology is now at the center of the privacy debate. 

Taking this kind of money is not the act of an independent voice. It is the opposite. When a senator who regulates privacy and technology issues draws sustained support from the lobbying community, including interests tied to the very surveillance company he is publicly questioning, his claim to stand apart from special interests collapses.Independence means answering to the people who elect you, not to the professional network that funds your PAC and conferences. 

The people of Milford, Orange, West Haven, and Woodbridge deserve a senator whose first loyalty is to them—not to the lobbyists who write checks. Every dollar that flows from lobbyists in Hartford into Senator Maroney’ PAC raises the same question: Whose voice is being amplified, and whose is being diluted? The pattern visible in the filings does not reassure anyone who wants genuine representation rather than business-as-usual in Hartford.