Columbus Activist Kat Testifies Against FLOCK Cameras at City Hall | 614 ICE Watch
The short version: A Columbus activist's city hall testimony against Flock ALPRs highlights growing public pushback over surveillance data sharing with agencies like ICE.
Our Take
Credit to Breaking Info for capturing this moment: a resident named Kat, speaking for 614 ICE Watch, standing up at Columbus City Hall to tell council members exactly what a network of automated license plate readers means for her community. This is how accountability is supposed to work — not a press release from Flock Safety, not a vendor demo, but ordinary people showing up and asking hard questions about who gets access to their movements.
The ICE angle matters here more than city officials want to admit. Flock has repeatedly insisted its cameras are a local policing tool, but the data doesn't stay local — it can be queried by outside agencies, including federal immigration enforcement, often without clear audit trails or public oversight. When a grassroots group has to drag that fact into a council chamber themselves, it's a sign the 'transparency' Flock promises isn't actually built into the system.
Columbus isn't unique — this same fight is playing out in city halls across the country as residents discover these cameras after the contracts are already signed. Check our map to see if Flock has already rolled out near you, and visit our take-action page if you want to push back before your own council meeting becomes the next one worth filming.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Breaking Info, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.