September 17, 2026
The short version: Michael Perna's video shows St. Clair Shores residents showing up at City Hall to tell officials they don't want Flock ALPR cameras in their city.
Our Take
Credit to YouTuber Michael Perna for capturing something we love to see: ordinary residents walking into a city council meeting and pushing back before Flock Safety cameras ever get bolted to a pole. St. Clair Shores isn't some outlier — it's part of a growing pattern of Michigan and Midwest communities waking up to the fact that a surveillance network can get rubber-stamped in a single agenda item unless someone in the room asks hard questions.
What makes these local fights matter so much is that they happen before the infrastructure exists. Once a city signs a Flock contract, the cameras go up fast, the data starts flowing to a company server, and reversing course becomes a political fight instead of a procedural one. Residents showing up on September 8 to say 'we don't want this' is democracy doing exactly what it's supposed to do — forcing elected officials to justify mass license plate tracking before taxpayer dollars lock the city into it.
If you're in a town facing a similar vote, don't wait for the contract to be signed. Check our camera map to see what's already deployed near you, and use our take-action resources to bring the same kind of pressure to your own city hall.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Michael Perna, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.