Burnet County Removes Flock Cameras
The short version: Burnet County pulled its Flock ALPR cameras after vandals took matters into their own hands, and Texas Scorecard caught the fallout on video.
Our Take
Credit to Texas Scorecard for documenting what happens when a community's patience with unaccountable surveillance infrastructure runs out. Burnet County didn't yank these cameras because of a courageous vote or a transparent public hearing — it happened after someone decided to settle the matter with their own hands, not once but twice. That's not a strategy we endorse, but it's a symptom worth paying attention to: when officials install always-on tracking networks without real debate, don't be shocked when residents stop waiting for permission to push back.
Flock's pitch to small counties is always the same — a few cameras, a modest contract, nothing to worry about. What rarely gets mentioned is that every plate scanned becomes a permanent record of where you drove, shared across a national network of law enforcement agencies with little independent oversight. Burnet County's experience is a reminder that these systems don't have broad public buy-in; they get installed quietly and only face scrutiny after the fact, or in this case, after someone takes a bat to them.
If you want to know whether your own neighborhood has been wired up without your knowledge, check our camera map. And if you'd rather raise hell at a county commissioners meeting than wait for vigilante action, our take-action page has the tools to make your case the legal way.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Texas Scorecard, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.