Why 23 towns voted their licence plate cameras off
The short version: Brink's short breaks down how roughly 23 towns have canceled or declined to renew Flock ALPR contracts since January 2026, proving these systems are optional, not permanent.
Our Take
Credit to Brink for cutting through the marketing fog on this one. Flock Safety pitches its license plate readers as essential infrastructure, the kind of thing a town can't live without once installed. But as this video lays out, the reality is much less permanent: these are subscription contracts, and subscriptions can be canceled. Harrisonburg's Fourth Amendment-grounded vote and Narragansett's unanimous rejection are exactly the kind of local pushback that gets buried under Flock's sales pitch to city councils.
What makes this trend matter isn't just the number of towns — it's the mechanism. Mass ALPR surveillance in this country has been sold in board rooms, not debated at ballot boxes, and most residents never get a chance to weigh in until the cameras are already up and running. The towns in this video show that public meetings, public records requests, and organized residents can still reverse that momentum. A council that voted yes can vote no. A renewal date is a chance to say enough.
If you want to know whether your town is already wired into this network, check our camera map to see what's been deployed near you, then head to our take-action page for tools to raise the cancellation question at your next council meeting before the next contract renews itself into permanence.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Brink, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.