GET THE FLOCK OUT OF HERE! Tim Burchett Targets Federal Flock Cameras

Our Take

John Crump's rundown of Rep. Tim Burchett's proposal is worth a watch, and the bill itself is worth cheering—as far as it goes. Choking off federal grant dollars for Flock and barring federal agencies from buying the cameras outright would be a real win against the creeping normalization of automated plate tracking at the federal level. It's also a rare bipartisan opening: nobody in Congress wants to be caught defending a system that photographs every car that passes, no warrant required.

But here's the catch Crump rightly flags: this is federal funding and federal purchasing, not the thousands of local police departments, HOAs, and private networks that have already wired up Flock cameras block by block with zero federal money involved. That's the part of the surveillance web actually watching most of us every day, and it's the part that stays completely legal and completely operational even if this bill passes tomorrow. Congress choking off its own checkbook doesn't do a thing to stop a sheriff's department in your county from signing a new Flock contract next week.

Real accountability starts locally, at city council meetings and county commission votes, not just in Washington press releases. If you want to know how close this dragnet already is to your own driveway, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back where it actually counts, our take-action page has the tools to start.