WATCH LIVE: Huntington City Council votes to enter into contract with Flock Safety + more
The short version: WSAZ NewsChannel 3 livestreamed Huntington's city council vote to bring Flock Safety ALPR cameras into town, another local government fast-tracking surveillance with little public debate.
Our Take
Credit to WSAZ NewsChannel 3 for actually pointing a camera at the meeting where Huntington council members decided to point cameras at everyone else. Council votes like this happen constantly across the country, often buried deep in agendas between zoning updates and budget line items, and most residents never know their plates are about to be logged until the cameras are already bolted to poles.
What's missing from these livestreams, almost by design, is the hard conversation: who gets access to the data Flock collects, how long it's retained, whether it's shared with ICE or out-of-state agencies, and what happens when the system misidentifies a car. Huntington's council may have discussed some of this, but a contract vote is rarely the moment where real oversight gets built in — that work, if it happens at all, comes later and usually after a scandal forces it.
If you're in Huntington or anywhere nearby, check our camera map to see what's already tracking your area, and use our take-action guide to push your own council for real transparency before the next contract gets rubber-stamped.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WSAZ NewsChannel 3, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.