Episode 52 of the Infrastructure Technology Podcast takes a deep dive into the growing debate surrounding flock cameras and automated license plate readers, asking whether they are a valuable public-safety tool or an expansion of surveillance infrastructure. Gavin Jenkins, Brandon Lewis, Jessica Parks and Noah Kolenda discuss how the technology can help law enforcement investigate hit-and-runs, locate stolen vehicles and support safety around transportation facilities, while also examining concerns surrounding privacy, continuous data collection, data ownership, retention and access.

The conversation also explores the role of private technology companies in managing public infrastructure and the potential consequences of inaccurate license-plate information or false identification. 

Listen time

39:48

Here is a transcript from the episode:

GJ: And welcome to today's episode of the Infrastructure Technology Podcast. I'm Gavin Jenkins, head of content for Roads and Bridges. And with me, we have a full staff on board today. We have Noah Kolenda. He is an associate editor at Mass Transit magazine. We have Brandon Lewis. He is an associate editor at Mass Transit magazine. And we have Jessica Parks, staff writer at Roads and Bridges. And we got a special episode for you today. We are going to be discussing flock cameras. Flock cameras, are they a public safety tool or a surveillance infrastructure? So if you're not familiar with flock cameras, they are license plate recognition technology that captures information about vehicles as they pass a camera. Law enforcement agencies have been using them to get information to investigate crimes, locate stolen vehicles and in some cases, help find missing people, and they’re some compelling arguments in favor of the technology, but there are also some very serious questions about privacy, data retention and who has access to that information, whether we're gradually building a system that can track where people travel. Those questions are particularly interesting to our audience at Mass Transit and Roads and Bridges because these technologies are increasingly becoming part of the infrastructure itself on streets, highways, bridges, parking facilities and transit properties. So today we're going to take a look at both sides of the issue, how effective flock cameras are at making communities and transportation systems safer, what are the legitimate privacy concerns and perhaps most importantly, where should we draw the line between using technology to protect the public and using infrastructure to monitor the public? So that's where we begin, and I am going to start off with this general question to my co-hosts, Flock cameras. What is your general feeling? When you think of a flock camera, what is your general feeling? We'll start with you, Jess.

JP: I think that they are an invasion of our privacy due to the fact that it's recording everybody at all times. Any person that drives by it. I mean, with license plate readers, traffic cameras, more red light cameras, those are only recording you if it sensors that you broke a law by running a red light by going a certain level over the speed limit, going a certain mileage over the speed limit, so I think that I do take an issue. I think that the surveillance technology should be used if you are not law abiding, but if you are law abiding, I don't think you should just be tracked wherever you go.

GJ: All right. So when you hear the words flock camera, you think surveillance. All right, Brandon, same question. When you hear flock cameras, what do you think?

BL: Yeah, when I hear the word flock camera, I just think of another camera, to be honest with you.

GJ: Another camera.

BL: Yeah, because I mean we have so many different technologies and cameras. I mean, Jess, you alluded to it a little bit. Pretty much on every street, every corner, every stoplight, every transportation, there's just cameras recording, and I think that sometimes we don't even think of it that way. I think the issue as Jess said would be when it comes in with the flock cameras is that surveillance of privacy because as I talked about a couple weeks ago when we had a little bit of a discussion on this, the fact is that we all just assume that in our own personal space we want privacy and that's not always the case.

GJ: Noah, what about you? So Brandon, if I gather Brandon correctly, he's just saying, ‘Hey, there's cameras everywhere. It's just another camera. You step outside, you're probably being filmed.’ You live in New York City where I think that is 100% true. If you're in New York City, you are probably on camera every second from the moment you step outside to wherever it is that you're going. So do you agree with Brandon? Is that what you think when you see flock cameras? Are you more towards Jess, or you're just like, ‘Oh great, surveillance state’?

NK: Yeah, I kind of personally fall a little bit towards Jess's side of things. Well, I don't really, or I guess I should say, while I understand that I don't really have an expectation to privacy as soon as I step out into the public area, I kind of feel there's a bit of a difference between a regular security camera and a flock camera because a security camera isn't necessarily using AI or logging my specific license plate number or something. There's not really an identifier on my body when I'm just walking down the street as there is a license plate on a car and so I don't feel that they're necessarily in the same echelon of technology per se. And so yeah, I kind of fall more towards Jess's, and I don't love the implications either because like Jess noted, a red light cam is only firing in that two-minute span when the light is red or these bus stop automated enforcement cameras are only looking for vehicles in very specific pre-programmed blocks of a street curb and so these flock cameras are pretty different in the fact that they're just always rolling, always pointed at very large, very broad areas and a lot of what happens after the point of recording kind of feels very black box-like as a consumer.

GJ: Okay. All right. Fair enough. All right, so let's talk about the public safety aspect. If a flock camera helps police find a missing child or bringing it closer to our industries, what if a driver cuts off a bus and causes an accident or does a hit and run in a school zone and a flock camera catches it, and we're able to find that driver and bring them to justice? Does that change how you feel about the privacy argument with flock cameras? We're going to start with you, Brandon.

BL: Yeah, I mean for me, it personally does. We see this all the time, obviously, and as I talked about before, for whatever reason, citizens have a hard time in this country abiding all laws, and we see it all the time. I mean, you watch the news now, it's one of the reasons why I think young people don't watch the news necessarily because there's all these sad stories of hit-and-runs and all that and so if we can just clean that up and get bad people off the street by any means necessary to me.

GJ: So you're pro-cop is what you're saying? No, I'm just joking. I don't know why I said that. Jess, what do you think? Is it worth it to catch the hit-and-run person?

JP: Of course. I mean, my answer's going to come off heartless, but I think that all citizens deserve a level of privacy and just the fact that it's rolling all the time, I think that, no, I don't support it still. I think that there is enough out there to still locate them without having a camera rolling constantly. I don't think that the negatives of what can happen with that footage. I think it outweighs the positives. I really do. Do you want to be recorded all the time for the slim percentage instance where you're going to find something? I would say no. You have people passing by looking at the license plates. I mean, there's just enough around already. That's my thought.

GJ: Well, let's take a couple of seconds here, and let's take a look at what are some of the cases for flock cameras. All right, so if I were to argue for a flock camera, I would say, well, look, they are saying that they do not use facial recognition. They're mainly after license plates. They're mainly after being able to describe cars, so they're not taking your face supposedly, allegedly. They can provide evidence after the fact rather than requiring an officer to witness a crime. They can potentially reduce the amount of manpower needed to review the video. And then if you think about it, that's just in general crime, but let's take flock cameras for the Mass Transit audience, so let's take a look. Flock cameras could potentially give transit police another way to investigate incidents involving vehicles around those facilities. They could be protecting transit facilities, connecting incidents across jurisdictions and then there's park n rides are an especially obvious application. A transit agency may have a large parking facility that's difficult to monitor, and ALPR could provide another layer of security there. And then there's keeping transit employees safe. And so those are just things that are proflock for Mass Transit.

JP: Can I say one thing, too though? Okay, if it's a parking lot or a park n ride facility, what are you worried about in those situations? Probably break-ins to the vehicles, right? I mean, how many people are driving their vehicle into a locked transit parking lot and then breaking into vehicles? So how would they identify the person with the flock camera? They'd have to look at their face.

GJ: Well, that's a good point. I know people here in Pittsburgh that they drive to a parking lot, drop, park their car and then get on a Metro or get on a bus and then take a bus to their job.

JP: Your friends do that?

GJ: Yeah.

BL: We do that now.

GJ: My mom used too. Oh, I thought you were saying drive their car and park. You’re saying they're going to drive their car into a transit parking lot and then break into vehicles. 

JP: I think if that's what the concern is, I think those people are walking onto the property is what I'm saying. If they're going to be able to catch those people, then they have to look at their faces, right?

GJ: Well, not necessarily. If I'm understanding what the flock cameras are arguing for is Is they're saying, ‘We don't have facial recognition, but we could give you, oh look, it's a male car thief. He's roughly 6’4. He's white, and he stole a car with the license plate KLS1234’. And so they're able to track the car. They have a rough description of his height and weight and that sort of thing. But yeah, I mean, people drive to parking lots. I thought you were arguing no one drives and gets on mass transit.

BL: That's what I thought, too.

NK: No, but to that point is a lot of these arguments so far that you've just made, Gavin, start with, but they don't have facial recognition, and what I'd like to say is they don't have facial recognition today. They 100% already do. With all of these technologies, it's always an issue of scope creep and what's going to happen tomorrow. And also too, thinking back on this, a lot of the deeper AI features that I personally worry about like the facial recognition and describing the event that you just did, the stringing together of movements and everything like that, that doesn't need to be done on the camera itself. That can be done on the back office hardware that's doing the processing and so we're not necessarily going to see a camera upgrade that's going to introduce a new generation of features that can all just happen in the server room that we're not privy to, and that part also concerns me a little bit, is just the advancements in this technology that will be made that won't be widely publicized and will just kind of be happening, like I said, behind those closed doors in server rooms.

GJ: Yeah. So no, you're saying if we open pandora's box, what's coming tomorrow will be easily accepted, and it'll be worse?

NK: I think so. And especially too, because a point I meant to make earlier was I think a lot of the issue comes down to the regulatory framework in which these operate and that it's far too willy-nilly in a way. I feel like if there were a deeper request process that functioned similar to a warrant in pretty much any other evidentiary process, it would be a lot less weighing on me. I wouldn't feel so strongly if it had to be the access to this information had to be approved by a judge and there were multiple points of confirmation that proved, okay, this action is being taken legally is being taken in the pursuit of solving a case and isn't just being done willy-nilly because somebody wants to see where a random license plate has gone.

GJ: You're allowed to say willy-nilly. Hold on. You're allowed to say willy-nilly one more time and then - yeah, that's it. This is a three willy-nilly podcast. You've almost hit your capacity of willy-nillies. Okay, Jess, jump in.

JP: Well, so when I was doing my research a little bit more on flock cameras, I saw that Florida is banning pretty much all automated license plate readers, and that has led Flock, the safety, the company that puts out flock cameras to make some changes to their systems. Because I mean, apparently in Florida, all over the country, it's been widespread misuse of flock cameras. They're following their ex-wives and girlfriends and all that stuff.

GJ: I had a place for that, Jess, but we'll jump to it now. I was going to mention that later, but it really hits onto what Noah was insinuating there too, is who has access to this and why are they stalking their ex-girlfriends?

JP: Yeah, exactly.

GJ: It's just so bad. So we're talking about this in September. This has been one of the biggest stories of 2026, and we're already at the point where there is the backlash and the backlash has been hard. It's been swift. People are just cutting down flock cameras. People are getting arrested for cutting down fake flock cameras that police are putting up to catch people, and the company has seen this, and they're trying to make adjustments, and DOTs have seen this, and they're trying to make adjustments. For the Roads and Bridges side, let me just get a couple of points off. If I were to argue for flock cameras as a roads and bridges industry advocate, construction work zones, that equipment or the equipment that sits there overnight, they're targets and a flock camera can catch people stealing, breaking in to grab material, that sort of thing. Now granted, they're not taking facial recognition allegedly, but it could get their getaway vehicle or it could get rougher descriptions of their size and shape. Also, instead of thinking of a roadside camera solely as a police camera, transportation agencies could use strategically placed technology as part of a broader intelligent transportation ecosystem. It could also be used in work zone safety. If we have cameras at work zones, we could keep those workers in the work zones safer, and that is a huge aspect of our industry that we cover. All right, let me get to a question before you guys jump in. Let me ask you the next question, and this is the technology side. Is the fact that Flock doesn't use facial recognition or says it doesn't actually meaningful from a privacy standpoint or does vehicle tracking ultimately accomplish something similar? So facial recognition, I think we need to dig in. Do you guys believe it and what does that mean to you when they say that they aren't using facial recognition?

NK: I do technically, from a legal standpoint, believe that that is currently the present case. I don't think that they're actively using facial recognition. That I do believe. However, like I said, I think it is a scope creep, and to the point you just made, I think a license plate is really close. I mean, granted, yeah, you can unscrew it and stick it on another car, but one quick search to the DMV database will tell you that's not the car it belongs on and then that opens up a whole other can of worms and can. I don't know. I just see it spinning out of control very quickly in that regard, and I feel like it's already enough. A license plate is already enough, and this isn't Flock specifically, but other companies are also developing technologies that can create a digital fingerprint of you based off of the radio waves coming off of all the technology you're carrying, and once you couple some of these technologies and make it pretty indisputable who a person is, it's a slippery slope.

GJ: Brandon, jump in there. What do you think?

BL: Yeah, I agree with Noah because if they're saying, I guess legally that technically that we are not taking facial recognition, then by law they have to be telling some of that truth. I'll be honest with you though, it really doesn't change my opinion because as Noah's been saying, I think we're going to get there, and I don't know. I think as we get into this digital age, I sort of feel like, again, for me personally, I just feel like it's a normal thing where if I step outside or whatever, if I'm being recorded or not, I don't care. I'm just going to live my life and just whatever happened. I'm not even thinking of, for instance, your cell phone recording you. We all just know it's a similar concept for me. We all know what's happening. It's crazy technology, but it's nothing that I'm going to personally get upset about.

GJ: So Brandon, I want to push back on that a little bit. I think that that laissez-faire attitude to this can get us into a lot of trouble. Just because you think that way doesn't mean that what's good for the goose doesn't necessarily mean it's good for the gander, sir, and I might want my privacy. When I'm walking down the street, I don't want it following me, and once again, I got to go to my Fugitive reference. If I'm wrongfully accused of murder, I want a fighting chance to prove that the one-armed man killed my wife and not me, Dr. Richard Kimpel, and these cameras are going to stop Dr. Richard Campbell in his tracks.

JP: I think that they have the capability, of course, to do facial recognition. I think that they are not releasing faces to law enforcement. However, I think that if there was a Luigi Mangione situation or whoever is asking.

GJ: Thank you for saying that. Yeah, it's coming up. They absolutely. They may be not using it, but they're taking what they're not using.

JP: Exactly. And if the US Department of Justice needs a face for some reason who says that they're not going to give it to them, I just think they're not releasing that to their clients right now, but if there was a situation of extreme need, or not need, but if there was the right person asking, I think that they would release it. 

GJ: Absolutely. I personally think that they do have the facial recognition software. I mean, that software's on. The facial recognition's on our phones, so if it's on our phones, why isn't it on Flock? Ridiculous for them to say that it's not.

BL: It's true, because I mean, even it's crazy, the technology that's even on video game development now, you can facial recognition and scan yourself in the games, and it gets yourself pretty close, so if they have that, why can't this technology have it?

GJ: Have you done that, Brandon?

BL: I have not done it. I know people that have though.

JP: What games?

BL: All the sports games now they all have it.

GJ: So you can be quarterback of the Browns?

BL: Yeah, I can't believe you guys did not know that. You can scan your face into the game.

GJ: Wow. All right. Let's not go down a rabbit hole before Maz kills us. Let's move on to transportation. Look, should a DOT or a transit agency play any role in deploying ALPR technology or should this remain exclusively a law enforcement tool?

JP: I understand why it's being permitted by DOT because they're going into roadways, right of ways, highways, DOT's domain. However, I don't see it benefiting DOT or transportation agencies. In the very rare case it might, but overall, it is not being used for transportation purposes, in my opinion. It's being used for law enforcement purposes, so I guess maybe I would see that they could be involved in the way of placement, making sure that these cameras are being put in a safe area. I know that some of them are being thrown on utility poles one foot from the street and someone crashes into it and the camera falls on them or something. But yeah, overall, I don't see it being DOT's domain for the use, however the placement.

GJ: I agree. Noah, do you agree with Jess?

NK: See, this is where I kind of split off because I do see the benefit in some technologies like the ABLE technology, like automated bus lane enforcement, but that comes with the massive caveat of I think that those systems need to be robustly programmed, so they're only looking in those very specific zones of bus lanes or bus stops. They're not being used as multipurpose cameras that are also aiding law enforcement or are drifting in scope, kind of hearkening back to my main message here.

GJ: Yeah, absolutely. I think tolling is another thing. I drove into the great state of Ohio over Labor Day weekend for a Fantasy Football draft in Garrettsville, Ohio, and the state of Pennsylvania sent me a bill in the mail earlier this week, and I didn't stop at any of the toll booths. I just went, drove through, and they clocked me, and they sent me the bill, and that's all from this software that we're using right here. And so I think that when it comes to tolling, it does have a place and a use. Ohio doesn't have that. So I stopped at toll booths in Ohio, gave people tickets, talked to people and that sort of thing. And then in a parking garage here in Pittsburgh over this past weekend, the gate took a picture of my license plate and then when I came back out, I didn't hand in a ticket. I pulled up to the gate and it said, ‘your license plate’, and it read my license plate and said, ‘You've been here two hours and 15 minutes" and then the gate flew up.

BL: Oh, wow.

NK: That’s cool.

JP: So I know that the tolling cameras are recording constantly because people are driving through them constantly, and I understand that it's trying to track you. On the mass pike, you hit multiple tolling locations, so it's tracking you essentially which one you get off at or which one do you not show. You know what I'm saying. But are those flock cameras?

GJ: No, they're not Flock. Flock is a company, but they're using ALPR technology, and they've been around since the pandemic. I think that the pandemic had a lot to do with this because they wanted to get people the ability to travel and be mobile and not have toll workers getting sick, and so then they instituted them then. Let's move on and let's talk about data. Who should own the data? The municipality, the police department, or Flock? Noah, you're ready to go. Noah, jump in.

NK: Yeah, I don't think that this data should be property of Flock personally or the police department for that matter, especially if it's not. I think that the data could transition into ownership of the police once they have made a justified case for needing that evidence, but I think that it really should be owned by the city. A lot of these cameras or municipality. A lot of these cameras are going to be on that property, and I feel like that's going to be the most trustworthy and unbiased player to house the data out of the presented options and so that's my personal feeling.

GJ: And So if you have cameras, and they're Flock cameras, and they're given to a municipality and they're set up, and so you want the municipality to be able to own that data, but the truth is that equipment is Flock equipment. They'll be able to get it if they want it, and the FBI will be able to get it if they want it.

NK: I disagree with you. I'm just saying this is my perfect world. 

GJ: Yeah, no, I agree with you too. Brandon, what do you think?

BL: Yeah, listen, you guys both make great points because I was swaying back and forth because I agree with almost everything you guys both said. But when it comes down to it, Flock is technically the owner of the cameras, right? It's hard because it's similar to a city where, again, it's similar to a traffic light. If you go through that intersection or whatever and they have that data, it's for the city. It's not through police records. I know I'm being very in the middle today. I'm not really taking much of a stance because it's truly how I feel. I could see it going either way.

GJ: You're both sizing us.

BL: I am. I am being the politician of today's show.

GJ: Take a stand. You have to have a take. Would Colin Cowherd both sides it, Brandon?

BL: Oh, he does it all the time.

GJ: All right. So how long should retention be? Pennsylvania has my license plate, and honestly, every time I get a bill from the Turnpike, the PI Turnpike, they have it on track. They have it. They've kept it. So how long should they keep it?

JP: I think it was historically 30 days, and they're switching it to seven days now. That what they're doing. Honestly, this is a little different than what I've said on there. I think seven days makes it almost useless. I know a week is a decent amount of time, but I don't know. I think seven days almost defeats the purpose of it, of recording. I just don't think enough gets done in seven days. I think you're just going to now get recorded for no reason a little bit. I think it's too short of time. I don't know.

GJ: All right. I got a question. So this is for Noah and Jess, since they've taken stands. What evidence could Flock provide that would convince you of their usefulness to the greater good? If they showed you arrests or safety figures, what number, what statistic, Noah, what number, what data could they provide to you where you would be like, ‘Okay, maybe I'm wrong’

NK: So personally for me, I don't think it's necessarily a metric they would have to provide. I think it would have to be Flock being a nonprofit company. I agree. I think that the issue here is not necessarily a specific number or metric. It's that this is being done in the pursuit of profit, and I think when you mix profit with safety, security and this type of surveillance technology, I don't personally think there is a number that you could present to me without it being a nonprofit company.

GJ: Okay. So you're very much in the camp of If the municipality, if the local town has the camera, they own the camera, and the camera company shouldn't be profiting.

NK: Yeah. Personally, that would be my ideal setup. And I think too, if Flock wants to be a for-profit company in this current structure, that they should solely just hand out the software, hand out the cameras for a fee and then go away.

JP: I agree with that. I don't think that they should be further involved in the relationship.

GJ: All right. I'm glad you clarified that because I was about to be like, ‘Wow, that's some Brooklyn level politics right there. A company makes money bad’.

JP: I agree with Noah on that, that I think that once the product is released and in the municipality set up, that Flock should be away. Because right now, my biggest fear is that Flock just has access to cameras all across the country just recording us. A municipality only has it within their municipality. What is Flock doing with constantly running national network of cameras? That freaks me out.

GJ: I'm glad you mentioned the national network. It is insane how quickly they spread and how vast their network is. It is outrageous. All right, let's wrap this up. Let's put a bow on this. Is this ultimately a question about Flock or is Flock just the current example of a much bigger question about surveillance and how much surveillance we're comfortable with in the infrastructure around us? So are we talking about one company or are we just talking about the whole enchilada?

JP: The whole enchilada, I think Flock is a stand-in right now for surveillance as a whole because that's what we know about. It's been given national attention. I mean, I think we have so much to worry about. I think that there are good uses of surveillance, but I think that they have to be in the situation of if you are not law-abiding, that triggers something that then you're being recorded and that does have a beneficial effect on our community. I think surveillance is going to continue to grow. Who do you trust? I don't think you can really trust anybody in that area. I don't think we're ever going to get the full picture. So I would say it's the whole enchilada. Flock is definitely not the only one doing this.

GJ: Yeah, absolutely. Noah, what do you think?

NK: I very much think I agree, and I think it's not necessarily just a flock problem. I think it's a society versus big tech problem. It's not just flock either. If you zoom out a little bit further and see the general societal questions around AI and how much that's advancing and how quickly that's advancing, I feel like it's a lot of unknowns relating to big tech and how it's going to change the futures of our lives, and I think that's really my major takeaway here is we just as a society have a lot to deal with.

JP: I think I'm going to wear a Brandon mask around when I'm out on the streets because he doesn't mind being recorded.

GJ: They have them. The mask technology is so advanced. I don't want to get us off a tangent, but during the George H.W. Administration, a member of the CIA went into the Oval Office wearing a mask and George H.W. Bush did not know who it was and then they took off the mask. That was in 1990, 91. Now they have those masks that you can buy on the internet, and I mean, yeah, I'd like a Brandon mask, too.

BL: So this is one stance though that I will actually take on because this is, in my opinion, all about surveillance, and one of the things that I wanted to bring up was that in our industry, in public transit, you have so many people that use public transit because they don't have cars, and these agencies are talking about, ‘Oh, we have cameras on buses, we have cameras on rails, we have security, these park n rides, we have security on the bus, we have security on the trains to make you all safe." So from that perspective, a lot of the civilians are saying, "Okay, well, why do we need even more cameras?"

GJ: So that has been our discussion on flock cameras. I think we should leave it there. We've got some really good points that we've raised. Brandon is a cop. Noah is a far left Brooklyn extremist, and Jessica is afraid of the surveillance state. And I, of course, have perfect opinions. So that's where we are right now. But I think what we've outlined here is that this is a huge issue that is not going away. It's something that transportation agencies, and DOTs are going to be wrestling with where they have contracts with private companies, and they're going to be working with law enforcement, and it's all in an attempt to keep the roads and the transportation systems safer. So any final thoughts before we do our goodbyes, Brandon?

BL: This is the most authentic flock camera discussion you will get on any podcast anywhere.

NK: True.

GJ: All right. Noah?

NK: Not really for me. I think we had a great discussion about where this technology's at and where it could possibly go, and I think it's just something we'll have to continue to keep an eye on.

GJ: And Jess, any final thoughts?

JP: Yeah, I don't really believe in a surveillance state, so that's where I will leave off.

GJ: Yeah. One thing that we didn't hit that I think we briefly mentioned is just there's also false positives and false IDs. This technology is not perfect and just because they catch what they think is. License plates can be blurred, they can be incorrect, faces can be, even with facial recognition software is not perfect. So yeah, I mean, people can get arrested wrongfully accused. It's one of my greatest fears. All right, so let's thank some people. Brandon, who do we have to thank?

BL: We got to thank, first of all, Endeavor B2B for giving us this podcasting platform. Thank you very much. I also want to thank the lovely Karina Mazhukhina for making us sound wonderful and look wonderful on camera every single week.

GJ: Got some editing to do on this one, Maz. All right, and we also want to thank you, the listener. Please share us your thoughts at [email protected]. For Roads and Bridges, I'm Gavin Jenkins.

BL: I'm Brandon Lewis.

JP: And I'm Jessica Parks.

NK: And I'm Noah Kolenda.

GJ: All right. Stay tuned. We'll be back next Tuesday with a new episode, but until then, goodbye.