Flock Cameras: Carbondale, IL City Council Meeting (09-09-2025)
The short version: Carbondale's city council debated Flock ALPRs on camera, and the footage—flagged by Midwest Freeks—shows why local meetings are where surveillance fights are actually won or lost.
Our Take
Credit to Midwest Freeks for sitting through a Carbondale, IL city council session and pulling out the Flock Safety discussion so the rest of us don't have to dig through a municipal video portal. This is the unglamorous but essential work of surveillance accountability: showing up, or watching so someone else can, when elected officials decide whether automated license plate readers get bolted onto street signs in your town.
We don't have a transcript to lean on here, and we're not going to pretend we do. What we can say is that every one of these council meetings follows a familiar script — a vendor pitch about solving crime, a police department eager for a new tool, and residents who often only find out after the cameras are already up. Whether Carbondale's council pushed back, asked about data retention, or rubber-stamped the deal is exactly the kind of detail worth watching the full recording for yourself.
This is precisely why local footage like this matters more than national headlines. Flock's network expands one city council vote at a time, and the only real check on it is residents paying attention before the contract is signed. If you want to see whether Carbondale — or a city near you — already has these cameras, check our map, and if you're ready to push back at your own council meeting, our take-action page has a starting point.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Midwest Freeks, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.