Answering the Objections

Objection One

"But It Catches Criminals"

Sometimes it does. The honest question is how often, at what error rate, and at what cost to everyone who is not a criminal.

• Error rates are real. The Los Angeles Police Department's Inspector General audited its Flock program and found a 32.3 percent false-positive rate on stolen-vehicle alerts - roughly one bad alert in three (ABC7). LAPD did not renew.
• Oversight has been absent at scale. The California State Auditor's Report 2019-118 (Feb 2020) found LAPD holding roughly 320 million plate images with no ALPR-specific policy, audited agencies lacking access and monitoring rules, and data shared with entities in 44 of 50 states (official report, PDF; EFF summary).
• Independent efficacy research is thin and mixed. A study of Atlantic City's ALPR expansion found no reduction in violent crime, and the associations it did find (shootings, vehicle theft) were hard to separate from nationwide crime declines (CrimRxiv; CNN overview). We do not claim ALPRs never help solve crimes - that would be its own overclaim. The accurate statement is that independent evidence of crime reduction is thin and mixed.
• The impressive numbers are vendor-funded. The widely repeated claims that Flock "helps solve 10 percent of reported crime" and raises clearance rates come from research Flock itself commissioned, surveying its own customers, without selection-bias controls. They are vendor-funded claims, not independent evidence (Police1 coverage of the vendor study).

Objection Two

"The Data Is Only Used Properly"

The record says otherwise, and the pattern is consistent: the most common documented abuse is officers tracking women they know.

• Kechi, Kansas. A police lieutenant used Flock and Wichita police cameras to track his estranged wife - finding locations she had deliberately hidden from him, including her children's day care. He was arrested in October 2022, pleaded guilty to computer crime and stalking, received 18 months of probation, and had his Kansas police certification revoked (reporting; follow-up).
• Riverside County, California. A former sheriff's deputy was convicted on 10 charges including stalking and unauthorized data access against his former fiancee, and sentenced in February 2026 to six years in prison (Marshall Project roundup).
• The scale. CNN (July 2026) tallied more than 50 officers accused or charged with misusing Flock or ALPR systems to track people, most often romantic partners; the Institute for Justice has documented at least 14 stalking-of-romantic-interest cases (CNN; Institute for Justice).
• Here at home. An Oklahoma City police officer was placed on a year-long disciplinary probation in June 2026 for accessing ALPR and police records for personal use (KGOU).

Every one of these searches was made by a credentialed insider. No hack was required - only a login and a bad motive.

Objection Three

"It Stays Local"

The network is the product. "Local" cameras feed a nationally searchable database, and the documented record shows the data traveling far beyond the town that approved it.

• Federal side-door access, at scale. 404 Media's analysis of Flock audit logs found more than 4,000 nationwide or statewide lookups performed by local and state police for the federal government, as "informal favors," or with a possible immigration focus - warrantless access for ICE, which has no Flock contract of its own (404 Media). Congress opened an investigation in response (404 Media).
• Illinois: illegal access, officially found. The Illinois Secretary of State found Flock had illegally allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois cameras - the finding that triggered the Oak Park and Evanston cancellations (Wednesday Journal).
• Dayton, Ohio. The city suspended its program and physically covered all 37 cameras after roughly 7,100 immigration-related searches violated city policy (Fortune).
• Washington State. After the UW Center for Human Rights documented Border Patrol access to Washington Flock data, Auburn's police department turned off federal-agency access in its system (UWCHR).
• The Texas search. On May 9, 2025, a Johnson County, Texas sheriff's deputy queried Flock's national network - about 83,000 cameras across roughly 6,800 networks, including in states where abortion is legal - with the logged search reason "had an abortion, search for female." The sheriff and Flock later characterized it as a welfare check on a woman whose family feared for her safety, not an attempted prosecution, and no charge against the woman is documented. The verified facts are stark enough: the search happened, it was warrantless, it was nationwide, and that is what the log said (404 Media; EFF; Snopes).

Oklahoma City's August 2026 renewal disabled Flock's automatic national sharing and gave the City case-by-case authority over federal sharing - a veto power won by public pressure, and proof the "it stays local" default was never the default. Details: Oklahoma page.

Objection Four

"The Courts Have Settled This - Nobody's Suing"

People are suing, and the courts have not settled it. We state this one with particular care, because our own side sometimes overclaims it - and we do not.

• Schmidt v. City of Norfolk (federal). Residents challenged Norfolk, Virginia's network of roughly 172-176 Flock cameras; the city's own data showed the plaintiffs' cars logged 526 and 849 times in about four months. On January 27, 2026, the district court granted summary judgment for the city, holding the network does not violate the Fourth Amendment "yet." The plaintiffs have appealed to the Fourth Circuit (No. 26-1227), pending as of August 2026 (WHRO; Courthouse News). Anyone who tells you a court ruled Flock unconstitutional in Norfolk has it backwards - so far.
• Virginia's state courts split, then reversed. A Norfolk Circuit Court judge suppressed warrantless Flock evidence, likening the citywide network to GPS tracking - but the Virginia Court of Appeals reversed in an unpublished opinion, holding plates in public view carry no reasonable expectation of privacy (GovTech; 13NewsNow). We cite both rulings because honesty about losses is the price of being believed about wins.
• The other direction. The Supreme Court's aggregation principle - Carpenter (2018) and Chatrie (2026) - holds that assembling a detailed record of a person's movements implicates the Fourth Amendment. How that principle applies to plate reader networks is exactly what is being litigated now. See Court Cases.

"The courts are still working through it" is not a reason to wait. It is the reason communities decide for themselves at the council table - which is where this campaign works.

Objection Five

"It's Basically Free"

• The subscription. Industry pricing guides put Flock's cameras at roughly $2,500-$3,000 per camera per year, plus one-time install fees - and a 2024 price increase added about $500 per camera per year on new contracts, with renewal rates not guaranteed (pricing guide; ballpark figures from industry sources, so prefer the contract numbers below).
• Actual contract figures. Denver's rejected renewal was $666,000 for two years; the mayor then signed a $498,500 extension anyway (Denverite). Sedona's canceled contract ran about $51,000 for 11 cameras (KNAU). Oklahoma City pays $270,000 per year for 90 cameras (KFOR).
• The "free pilot" hook. Gig Harbor, Washington was offered cameras with a state grant covering installation and the first year - and the council still said no, because the city would be on the hook every year after (Gig Harbor Now).

Recurring six-figure subscriptions, unilateral price hikes, and a database of everyone's movements: that is not free. It is a permanent line item purchased with both dollars and liberty.

The Bottom Line

Our Position Does Not Move

Each objection above fails on the verified record. The remedy is not a better dashboard or a longer policy document. It is removal: take networked mass surveillance out of public spaces, and require constitutional process before government tracks anyone. Read the full ask.

Every claim on this page was verified against the linked sources on August 22, 2026. Our corrections policy - and how to tell us we got something wrong - is on Sources & Corrections.