Who Is Watching You? Georgia’s Flock Camera Backlash | Politically Georgia

Our Take

Politically Georgia's rundown of Atlanta's Flock audit is the kind of local accountability journalism this fight needs more of. When "dozens" of officers out of roughly 1,800 are flagged for allegedly running plates on exes, spouses, or friends, that's not a hypothetical privacy risk — it's the predictable outcome of handing a department-wide surveillance network to individuals with zero real-time oversight. Flock's own audit logs are the only reason we know about this, which says a lot about how little proactive auditing happens absent a scandal.

The episode's pivot to Georgia's data-center gold rush, including OpenAI's massive Savannah-area project, is a smart connection even if it's framed mainly as an energy and water story. Every camera network, every plate scan, every audit log has to live somewhere, and the same political appetite that's fast-tracking data infrastructure without asking who pays the utility bill is the same appetite that's blanketed Georgia roads with ALPRs without asking who watches the watchers. Both stories are about infrastructure built first, guardrails debated later, if ever.

Credit to Politically Georgia for pressing on the human misuse angle instead of just repeating Flock's crime-solving talking points. If you want to see how dense this camera network already is in your part of Georgia, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action page has concrete next steps.