Mayes Middleton on Texas Flock cameras and the fight over privacy
The short version: CBS Texas covers state Sen. Mayes Middleton weighing in on whether Flock ALPR cameras are a public safety tool or a privacy threat to Texans.
Our Take
When a sitting Republican official is publicly questioning Flock Safety's license plate reader network, that's a sign the surveillance debate has moved well past its early 'just a tool for finding stolen cars' framing. CBS Texas's segment with Mayes Middleton shows this isn't a partisan issue — it's a power issue. Once a statewide network of cameras logs every car's movements, it doesn't matter who's holding the login credentials; the data exists, and history shows it gets used far beyond its original stated purpose.
Texas has quietly become one of the most camera-dense states in the country, with law enforcement agencies and even private HOAs feeding data into Flock's shared network. That means a search run by a small-town police department can potentially touch driving patterns across county and state lines. The public conversation is finally catching up to the scale of that infrastructure, and credit to CBS Texas for putting a lawmaker on record instead of letting this stay a backroom procurement decision.
If you want to see how far this network already reaches near you, check our camera map, and if you think your city council or state rep should be asking the same questions Middleton is raising, our take action page has a starting point.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS TEXAS, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.