Asheville mayor calls for city to cancel Flock Safety contract

Our Take

Credit to FOX Carolina News for catching a rare moment in the Flock Safety story: a sitting mayor saying out loud that maybe her city shouldn't be paying for a network of cameras that logs every car that passes by. Most coverage of these contracts comes after a scandal — a stalker cop, an immigration sweep, a data leak. Here it's a mayor getting ahead of it, which matters, because once a city signs a Flock contract, the cameras tend to stay up long after the 'public safety' pitch stops matching reality.

We don't know yet whether Asheville's council will actually pull the plug, and the video is light on specifics about cost, usage, or what triggered the mayor's change of heart. But the fact that cancellation is even on the table is a signal other city councils should notice: these contracts are not permanent fixtures, they're line items that can be voted away, especially when residents and officials start asking who actually gets access to the data and why.

If you want to see whether your own city or county has quietly plugged into this network, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a mayor to have second thoughts, our take-action page has tools for pushing your local council to do the same.