City Council votes to remove Flock cameras in Columbia Heights
The short version: Columbia Heights, Minnesota's city council voted to pull its remaining Flock ALPR cameras, following five that were already removed, per KARE 11.
Our Take
Credit to KARE 11 for tracking this one to the finish line: Columbia Heights didn't just quietly let a contract lapse, its city council took an actual vote to rip out the rest of its Flock network after five of twelve cameras had already come down. That's a rare thing — a local government reversing course on surveillance infrastructure instead of just expanding it year after year.
This matters because the entire ALPR business model depends on inertia. Cities get sold on a pilot program, the cameras go up, and then nobody revisits the decision because there's no natural moment to ask "is this actually working, and at what cost to our privacy?" Columbia Heights apparently asked that question out loud, in public, and answered it by pulling the plug. That's the process working the way it's supposed to.
Every removal is a data point for the next city council weighing whether to renew or reject its own Flock deal. If you want to see what's already watching your plates, check our map, and if you'd rather your town follow Columbia Heights' lead than expand its camera count, our take-action page has the tools to make that case locally.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KARE 11, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.