Kalamazoo’s records that “don’t exist”
The short version: A Michigan creator says Kalamazoo claimed its Flock camera logs 'don't exist' — then produced them anyway, raising fresh questions about ALPR transparency.
Our Take
Credit to Magnetic Norse for doing the unglamorous work that actually holds local government accountable: filing the records request, getting stonewalled, and then surfacing the documents anyway. "The records don't exist" is one of the oldest dodges in the public records playbook, and it's especially galling when the records in question are logs of a mass surveillance system that's supposedly justified by its transparency and accountability.
This matters because Flock Safety's entire pitch to city councils rests on the promise of oversight — audit trails, access logs, search justifications. If a city can't or won't produce those logs when asked, the whole accountability pitch collapses. Either Kalamazoo's recordkeeping is genuinely broken, which is its own scandal, or someone decided a FOIA requester didn't need to see what cops were searching for and why. Neither answer is reassuring if you're a resident whose plate gets scanned every time you drive through town.
Every one of these fights, city by city, is how the public actually learns what these networks are doing with their data. If Kalamazoo has cameras near you, check our map to see what's logging your movements, and if you want to push your own city for real answers, our take-action page has the tools to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Magnetic Norse, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.