Here is a podcast about it. https://internationalflavor.podbean.com/e/the-surveillance-s...
Sorry if this is answered in the pod, don't have time for it immediately.
In this case, the county voted for an ordinance banning them. Ike was threatened saying your going to be charged this is potentially state property, he did a sunshine request to see that they were privately owned by flock. Then he requested flock take them down but they didn't. After a few months he decided he will enforce the ordinance as the sheriff refused too.
He took them down brought them to his office. Then later 5 state officers (4 in plain clothing, one in uniform) were looking for him at his house. He brought them to the cameras and said here have them back.
Still got charged with theft somehow...
Moral of the story, that doesn't really sound like democracy to me. That sounds like kinda the opposite of democracy.
Anyway it's worth a listen if you have time. This isn't how these things should go and shows there is a little more than meets the eye here. Even if citizens perfectly execute democracy, these things may not budge. And there is a larger net of protection keeping these in place.
If nothing else, the Sunshine Request site is a good place to get form emails for these requests from.
yeah that's basically theft then. The cameras are probably a lot of money and so the dollar number put it in felony territory.
More equal animal acting in his official capacity gets treated like less equal animal.... basically.
IANAL but based on the facts available to me, they can't. It's a sham held up by intimidating local officials. The cameras were installed on public property, that's that.
If they somehow keep this nonsense running for very long, I'd anticipate a Meigs Field-esque incident at some point.
Imagine if a power company got cleared to bury a bunch of power lines, but they left all the unused poles in the ground, on land they no longer have rights to. That's closer to the situation we're dealing with here.
Wireless and solar make some of the more visceral approaches to this problem ineffective. In the past, the city could have strongarmed Flock by severing power or data service somewhere on the public side.
I'd bet there are still tons of tricks LA can pull, though. These 1000 9-square foot patches of land have been rezoned as green space, we're clearing it for native plant life.
Or, like I said, just pull a Daley and remove them. The city owns the land. Flock can complain, they can sue, and they might even win. But once the city removes the cameras, Flock can't put them back. The city owns the land, and Flock has no rights to it.
Another option might be right of way or easement permitting, similar to how utility poles and such are regulated as private property with an allowance to be in a public space. If the provider got a permit to use the right of way separate from the contract, then the provider would retain the same right to be there as any other infrastructure.
On the other hand, it wouldn't be surprising if a single county commissioner got in trouble for just deciding by fiat to take civic infrastructure down himself. That's not a power county commissioners have. Was there a county board vote authorizing that action?
So what else are you suppose to do? I think it's reasonable to decide that if no one is enforcing the new local law, that it may be the commissioners purview and authority to enforce after exhausting all his options.
Charging the commissioner with felony theft is clearly just bullying at that point.
File a civil suit and get a court order for their removal.
Someone has to physically take it down and I'm guessing flock didn't put that in the budget.
(1) Work with other members of the legislative body to hold the executive accountable for failures, via hearings, sanctions (often, if at the same level, including removal), etc., or
(2) Work with the same body to file a lawsuit as a body to compel compliance, which has additional enforcement provisions (including contempt orders by the court for noncompliance) not available with the bare law and no court case,
(3) Taking any avenue open to the public at large (including individual lawsuits, public advocacy including including electoral advocacy against any elected executive officers involved, etc.).
What is not generally an option is unilaterally assuming the role legally assigned to the executive in inplementing the law, or simply assuming whatever other powers you imagine are best to realize the intent of the law even if they are outside of its letter.
The executive can enforce judicial orders. This is civics 101.
> The local law banning it was already equally as valid as a court order
The ban is an ex post facto law. Rights holders to property have a legitimate reason to defend those rights across policy changes.
This is much simpler in a municipality: the board simply fires the village manager and the chief. A sheriff is usually an elected though.
Before you reach the point of suing, you cancel contracts, payments, IT infrastructure, and have public works remove the cameras from any county-owned infrastructure.
I mean, all this is pretty silly, though, because what you really do is just turn the cameras off.
The problem is that the First Law Of Message Board dictates that the most interesting narrative wins, and the narrative where Flock has deviously come up with a surveillance "forever chemical" to attach to every municipal road is much more interesting than "this is a service and if you stop paying for it it goes away".
That's simply not true: there are numerous instances of municipalities having to fight flock to get cameras removed or shut off, and instances where local governments pass ordinances that local law enforcement refuses to enforce because the cameras, which have been banned, are not off, as you allege is what happens, and law enforcement continues to use the data the cameras provide despite the contract being terminated.
Just google e.g. "flock trash bag" to see how cities are having to deal with Flock.
There are links elsewhere in this thread to a few of the many instances where this happens but I'll link to something that hasn't been mentioned yet, where flock cameras are turned back on and used by law enforcement in Springfield after contracts are cancelled, and cameras are left up that flock pinky swears are off that turn out to be on and accessible by law enforcement:
https://www.kezi.com/news/local/stolen-car-found-in-springfi...
And again, that is just talking about the instances where the municipality actually wants the flock cameras turned off or removed, there are many instances, like TFA, where the local government wants them on or doesn't care, and they remain on and used by other agencies, despite the termination of the contract with one of the client agencies.
I'm deeply involved in municipal politics and was for many years involved in national politics (and, more to the point, discussions of national politics online) and I see this all the time: people crossing the streams between the two, as if the levels of responsibility and accountability were comparable. A municipal sworn law enforcement official that ignores a duly passed ordinance that has gone into effect is breaking the law and their contract and can trivially be fired, not after a long drawn-out procedure but immediately.
I watched us shut our cameras down. As I said: there was no drama, at least procedurally. If our chief had tried to prevent the cameras from coming down, she'd have been out on her ass the next day. I'm sure there are places where there was drama, but I'd need to see the full story before drawing the conclusion that you're drawing. What I see here is the more interesting narrative ("the cameras are impossible to take down, they're a virus!") asserting itself in its natural habitat, the online message board.
I don't know what this story about a misconfigured camera (it strobed an "outage" alert after being deactivated) being reactivated by a technician is supposed to tell me. The theory here is that Flock is running a scam where they're rolling trucks to surreptitiously enable individual cameras?
https://www.klcc.org/crime-law-justice/2025-12-09/eugene-pol...
And here is flock getting caught installing cameras in Cambridge after contract termination:
https://www.cambridgema.gov/news/2025/12/statementontheflock...
Here is flock getting caught installing cameras in Evanston after contract termination:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/09/29/after-evanston-fir...
And obviously these are only the cases where they were caught making convenient mistakes, there is very little incentive for the likeliest parties to know (Flock, law enforcement) to bring to light the fact that flock cameras are still on, being serviced, and the data is still accessible despite local ordinance.
There are tens of thousands of Flock cameras all over the country. It would be weird if there weren't misconfigurations. The Evanston story is a great example: the reinstallation of cameras happened the week the contract was expired, and Flock notified the city of Evanston (which, for what it's worth, is our twin sibling city in Chicagoland), at which point Evanston said "you've made a mistake" and Flock said "ok we'll take them down".
And you are representing the situation in Evanston disingenuously here's the timeline AFAICT:
- Aug 26, 2025 Evanston issues a termination notice to Flock, effective Sep. 26 2025 after it learns that Federal law enforcement and immigration enforcement are able to access license plate data from the Flock cameras in Evanston, something the city claims Flock lied about. (https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/08/26/evanston-shuts-dow...)
- Notably at this point EPD believes the cameras are off: An EPD officer: "The last read on an Evanston Flock camera was logged shortly before 1:00 p.m. on August 26th, which is consistent with the City’s request for de-activation,",
- Sep. 8, 2025 Flock has removed 15 of 18 cameras.
- Sep. 18, 2025 Flock reinstalls the uninstalled cameras. Evanston sends Flock a letter asserting that they are in violation of the contract and Illinois law. (https://evanstonroundtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/25...)
- Flock did not inform Evanston, a technician unintentionally informed the city: "[City spokesperson] Vargas said the city learned that Flock reinstalled new cameras after a Flock technician called the Evanston Police Department to ask questions on where to find a camera’s power source." (this is from the tribune article I linked above)
- Sep. 24, 2025 The city issues a cease-and-desist to flock. (https://evanstonroundtable.com/2025/09/24/flock-safety-reins...)
- Despite the city's belief that the cameras have been off since the termination letter on Aug. 26th, RoundTable journalists show that the cameras are still on and logging locations.
- Mar 3, 2026 Journalists notice that two of flock's cameras are still up in Evanston and contact Flock asking for comment, Flock does not reply but removes the cameras.
County commissioners are generally legislative officers. While the legislative body is smaller, this really no different than a member of Congress deciding that the they don’t like the way DOJ is enforcing federal law and deciding that gives them arbitrary power to take whatever action they feel is appropriate to manifest the intent of the law.
> In January of 2024, the Camden County Commission passed a county ordinance banning the use of all automated license plate readers in the county (a 2023 ordinance had banned all static license plate readers, but the 2024 ordinance expanded that to include all automated license plate readers). In that ordinance, commissioners cited "numerous complaints" about the cameras "and the potential of unwarranted/inappropriate monitoring of its citizens [sic] freedom of movement and travel in violation of their right of privacy, unreasonable search and seizure and other constitutionally protected rights[.]"
> The ordinance also stated, "Any Automated License Plate Readers currently in violation of this Ordinance shall be immediately removed. If identification of ownership is listed on any such device, the listed owner shall be notified to remove said device. Any device not removed within 30 days of notification to remove said device may be removed by Order of the Camden County Commission."
My understanding of this case was that the commissioner was charged with theft because even though the county had an ordinance requiring flock to take the cameras down, and they had failed to do so, it was not lawful for him to remove them himself and then take possession of them because they were the property of Flock.
https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-droppe...
Re: zero drama taking down cameras, there has been quite a bit of drama:
https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flo...
https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surv...
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-c...
https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-...
And final re: in many if not most of these cases the jurisdictions don't actually want to take the cameras down, they just want public pressure to let up a bit, and agencies are known to share flock data between each other, so law enforcement, the public, and lobbyists are all made happy by terminating the contract without removing the cameras, it is the smart thing to do politically.
(More precisely: there was drama, but it was all public drama from residents who didn't want the cameras taken down.)
The police should show that a crime has likely been committed, and get access to just the data that probably has evidence.
There are many other contexts where we trust properly supervised people who lack an immediate and obvious incentive to abuse the system. Combined with good overall software design, auditing and transparency almost all of the harms could be mitigated. And the tech does have some pretty major benefits.
The cameras apprehend criminals. I can show with evidence that the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and in fact that the cameras had the effect of tasking our police force with doing municipal debt collection for Melrose Park and Maywood, at the cost of 5-7 hours of sworn officer time per "failure to appear warrant" arrest. But supporters of the cameras will point to multiple stolen car interdictions and recovered firearms.
If you go into these kinds of things assuming that the median resident of a municipality is anti-policing, you're already way, way off. And I find when I talk to anti-Flock advocates (that is: people who have "anti-Flock" as part of their personal identity, not just a person chosen at random who would happen to answer "no" to "should we ALPR") that many of them are operating from anti-policing premises, and so these kinds of responses are very surprising to them.
(Totally reasonable for your reaction to this to be "whoah, that was a lot more than I asked for", I just feel like I've been in these kinds of conversations a lot. It's not personal.)
A commissioner can easily mess things up and get sued trying do work on their own. Say they try to “repair a playground” by replacing a missing bolt. Well, were they qualified to do that? Do they have insurance? Was the action approved by a properly filed motion? Etc etc etc
I learned this is why it costs my town egregious sums to do simple maintenance work; the only companies willing to put up with all the red tape of working with the government have to charge a premium.
The part about him being a commissioner smells like a simple publicity stunt.
Publicity for what?
The publicity comes from a elected government official getting charged with felonys for stealing when he didn't steal anything.
The playground analogy doesn't really hold up here I don't see the connection between the two.
But if it's not tied to that, does that mean that anyone can install cameras anywhere? What grounds would they have to give permits to Flock while refusing them to other interested parties, like StalkingMyEx LLC. and CopTrack Corp.?
On the other side, I've read they operate a considerable number of private installations, too. Even that is suspect, too, in that there is existing case law affirming that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in "the whole of their public movements."
"With the contract set to expire on May 31st, the Sheriff’s Office informed Flock Safety that all 26 cameras must be removed by that date. When removal did not occur, the Sheriff’s Office took steps to ensure the cameras were not in use and placed covers over them."
I submitted a CCPA request to them to give me and delete everything they had on me.
Their response is that they own no data, and I have to make the request to their customer, whomever that may be.
If they're retaining any identifying data about me and then selling it to new customers, they are explicitly violating CCPA.
This allows them to promise that they don't keep any data and have strict retention policies etc. to jurisdictions that are on the fence or where the contract-purchasers are constrained by law in some way, but they can transfer identifying information at any point in the future to any customer, by mixing raw data and a model.
How could this seriously hold legal weight? The data is identifiable. Just because it’s gated by some transformation doesn’t mean they are magically not holding my identifiable information.
1798.140 (v)
> “Personal information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. Personal information includes, but is not limited to, the following if it identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could be reasonably linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household."
The phrase "reasonably capable of being associated with" seems like it would apply against this transformation argument, but later:
> (2) (A) “Personal information” does not include publicly available information or lawfully obtained, truthful information that is a matter of public concern.
> (B) (i) For purposes of this paragraph, “publicly available” means any of the following:
> (II) Information that a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public by the consumer or from widely distributed media.
So I think the above comment was wrong, this might be the actual way around it, AIUI courts have long established that individuals don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy from being photographed or recorded when in public, so it seems like public surveillance footage is actually exempt from CCPA even if it can be reasonably linked with personally identifying information.
Almost.
Especially if the propellant tank is pressurized using a solar powered compressor.
(Theoretically, of course. I wouldn’t advocate destroying private property.)
Would you take the knife out of your robber? Or is that stealing private property?
Surveillance endangers society/democracy and it's a threat too
Flock cameras are public property?
SCOTUS could hand down another surprise decision:
https://www.lakeexpo.com/news/politics/felony-charges-droppe...
https://www.wmtv15news.com/2026/06/05/dane-county-covers-flo...
https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/cities-covering-flock-surv...
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2025/09/28/top-stories/flock-c...
https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/verona-has-waited-...
And these are just the cases where the municipality wants the cameras taken down, GP also talks about the cases where they just want to sate the public while keeping law enforcement and lobbyists happy. LA is a great example, the inaction of letting the contract expire in no way means that the cameras will be taken down, if no further action is taken, those cameras stay up, and law enforcement will continue to have access to all flock's alpr data.
And further it's unclear if the "data" governed in these contracts applies to the CCTV footage or the data produced for the customer by transforming the footage with models into identifying information. Given that flock has a profit incentive, it's reasonable to assume these contracts are written adversarially to maximize Flock's ability to persuade jurisdictions to sign the contracts and Flock's ability to use all of the data they harvest to maximize profit, we have enough examples of this in the 21st century to know this isn't paranoid, this is the basic playbook of all surveillancetech/adtech companies and they have all used language in contracts that is confusing to nonexperts that affords them maximum leverage to store all the data they harvest permanently and use it however they want.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
People with electric saws love pulling them down.
They're only as permanent as their protection.
I think the general idea is that if you could (legally) go stand in that public space (sidewalks, roads, parks) and watch something happen then you're allowed to record what you see.
This is probably good - I think it's the basis of being able to record misbehavior (by private citizens and/or the police), for example.
In contrast you're generally not allowed to record stuff happening in a private space unless everyone's been informed that this will happen.
This is why you'll see signs saying "Warning - this place is under surveillance" signs on every single door going into a corporation that wants to use security cameras.
For example, you could photograph or record the dance floor in nightclub since dance floor is very public. However, the bathroom would not be allowed. Of course, the venue could make up rules and eject you for doing so.
Most of "Warning signs" are deterrence, maybe someone will behave better if they know cameras are watching. Also, it's cheap insurance dictate by the lawyers who think "Signs are 100 bucks total but someone filing privacy lawsuit is thousands, put up the signs."
The part about "depending on the situation and state you are in." is doing _a_lot_ of work there. Here in WA state, for example, if you go into a private meeting and record the thing without getting folks consent first then you're guilty of a misdemeanor.
Another example: in my old neighbor we had a nuisance neighbor who we all thought was engaged in Crimes, Plural. The immediate neighbor wanted to put up a video camera to catch them in the act but was told that they can't film the neighbor's yard directly. Filming their own yard and the field of view happens to catch something in the adjacent yard might get by a judge, maybe. So even if you can stand on the sidewalk and see past the trees into someone's backyard that doesn't mean you can film it.
(To be clear - I think this probably a good rule. I don't want folks filming me in my backyard :) )
Clearly, the tl;dr is that if this really matters to someone then they should check with a lawyer first.
People shouldn't expect privacy in public, sure. They should expect they may be overheard or witnessed. But that's not really equivalent to mass surveillance and long-term recording
"You should not expect privacy in public" does not imply "you should expect no privacy and you should expect everything you do is recorded and stored forever"
I think everyone’s threat model is severely miscalibrated if they are threatened by being recorded driving somewhere via Flock, yet use a phone or social media account. There’s way more meaningful threats to actual private matters than Flock.
You are seriously clueless if you think otherwise
Furthermore, if you’re worried about that, have you considered that “they” could get even more comprehensive tracking data just by requesting it from a data-broker? There’s no divide between the online and real world if you have a phone or an online presence.
Yeah, but a national license plate surveillance system that lets a single police officer observe all of the movements you and your family members make every day for the past few years is not a single police officer making a plainview observation of you driving down the road.
And it's clearly a power that threatens liberties, you cannot have a free society when a government has that power.
"Palantir, what are the names and home addresses of all of the people that were at the pro-Mamdani rally, show me places that many of them go to in common, I want to find where these criminals are having their secret meetings."
Probably not in voice-to-text form, but this power is already in the hands of some US agencies, in part thanks to the national ALPR system.
Flock may own the camera and the physical pole, but I find it hard to believe that they own the ground the poles are installed in. Almost definitely owned by the Department of Transportation.
Can they? Does anyone know the terms of these contracts? Does flock just look the other way if a licensee just gives away the data to some other entity without getting a fee for it? I can see arguments on both sides from flock's perspective, i.e., revenue vs lock-in.
https://www.kut.org/crime-justice/2026-02-12/austin-tx-apd-f...
The network effect value far outweighs the lost revenue from a single local contract.
No problem paying taxes - my entire gripe is with what what the moneys spent on
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
especially note figure 1.
Really curious to hear more about this
Unless all of congress is included in that 100k, I’d love to hear a plausible scenario where this is actually achievable and not merely some clever edge case you found
if the cameras continue recording, LA can subpoena those recordings on an as needed basis.