Nobody Gives A Flock about Data Centers and Flock Safety Cameras! It shows.

Our Take

Credit to Howard County Observer for sitting through a planning commission meeting most residents will never watch, and for catching what happens when local government treats surveillance infrastructure like just another zoning line item. A bill that bundles data center approvals with ALPR camera rollouts is exactly the kind of quiet bureaucratic move that lets mass surveillance expand without a real public debate — no town hall on privacy, no vote on whether residents want their movements logged, just a committee checking boxes.

This is the pattern we see over and over: Flock Safety cameras get framed as infrastructure, not policy, so they slide through planning commissions and public works budgets instead of city council debates where civil liberties questions would actually get asked. Add data centers to the mix — the facilities that store and process all that plate-read data — and you've got a local government building out a surveillance pipeline without ever calling it that.

If you live in Howard County or anywhere nearby, now's the time to find out if cameras are already watching your commute. Check our map to see what's been documented near you, and visit our take-action page for ways to push back before these systems become permanent fixtures nobody remembers approving.