2026 08 17 30 Public Comment
The short version: A New Hanover County resident took the mic to challenge the county's Flock ALPR rollout, and DeFlockILM caught it on tape for the public record.
Our Take
Local government meetings are where Flock Safety's surveillance expansion either gets rubber-stamped or gets scrutiny, and credit goes to DeFlockILM for showing up with a camera to document this public comment at the New Hanover County Commissioners meeting. These three-minute slots at the podium rarely make headlines, but they're often the only moment where a resident can put elected officials on record about a system that's quietly logging everyone's movements.
We don't have the transcript in front of us, and we're not going to pretend we do, but the pattern across the country is familiar: a county adopts ALPR cameras with little debate, residents find out after the fact, and then they have to fight for basic transparency about data retention, access logs, and who else can query the system. Whether commissioners actually listened is a separate question from whether the comment needed to be made.
If you live in New Hanover County or anywhere else with Flock cameras creeping onto your streets, don't wait for a news story to find out. Check our camera map to see what's already been documented near you, and if you're ready to push back at your own county meeting, our take-action page has the tools to get started.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of DeFlockILM, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.