Former Miami police chief speaks on the state ordinance to remove Flock cameras

Our Take

CBS Miami gives airtime to Jorge Colina, Miami's former police chief, to make the case that Flock Safety cameras are a "valuable tool" now that a state ordinance is forcing some agencies to pull them. That's the pitch we hear in city after city: officers like having the data, so the data collection must be good policy. It conveniently skips the part where mass, always-on plate scanning was built and expanded with almost no public debate, no independent audits, and no real limit on who gets access to the logs of everywhere your car has been.

Law enforcement usefulness isn't in dispute — of course a network of cameras logging every passing plate is convenient for cops. The question a former chief isn't going to raise on the evening news is what happens when that convenience is handed to ICE, bounty hunters, out-of-state prosecutors, or whoever Flock's ever-expanding data-sharing agreements let in next. Florida lawmakers pushing back on unchecked local deployments are responding to exactly that gap — a recognition that "it helps us catch bad guys" has never been sufficient justification for a surveillance system with this little oversight.

Credit to CBS Miami for putting the debate on camera, but a single police-friendly voice shouldn't be the last word on whether your neighborhood should be logged. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and head to take action if you want a say before the next ordinance fight comes to your city.