‘The Five’: DeSantis BANS Flock cameras from Florida highways

Our Take

Credit to Fox News Clips for surfacing this one: a Republican governor pulling the plug on Flock Safety cameras along Florida's state highways isn't the kind of story you see every day, and it's worth paying attention to. When pushback against ALPR networks starts coming from state houses rather than just civil liberties groups, that's a sign the surveillance-sprawl problem has stopped being a niche issue.

We don't have the full text of DeSantis's order or the specifics of what triggered it, so we're not going to pretend we know every detail. But the broad shape of the concern tracks with what we've been saying for a while: these camera networks collect, store, and sometimes share location data on every driver who passes, regardless of suspicion, and the rules governing who can access that data are often an afterthought. A governor yanking highway permits suggests someone in Tallahassee finally asked the obvious question — who's actually watching the watchers?

This is exactly the kind of accountability moment that should spread to every state, red or blue, where Flock has quietly wired up intersections and highways. If you want to see how dense this network already is near you, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action page has concrete steps for raising this with your own city council or state lawmakers before the next contract renewal goes through on autopilot.