Flock cameras

Our Take

KSTP 5 Eyewitness News is reporting that the Columbia Heights City Council is moving to do away with its Flock Safety camera system. We don't have the full transcript of their reasoning, but the fact that a city council is openly reconsidering a contract it already signed is itself a signal worth paying attention to — these systems are usually sold as a done deal, not something up for public debate.

That's exactly why local coverage like this matters. Flock's pitch to small and mid-size cities is always the same: a few cameras, a modest monthly fee, and a promise of solved crimes. What rarely gets mentioned upfront is the scale of data collection, the vague retention policies, and the fact that these networks quietly feed into a nationwide lookup system that other agencies — sometimes outside the state, sometimes outside normal legal process — can tap into. When a council actually stops to ask whether that tradeoff is worth it, residents get a rare chance to weigh in before the infrastructure becomes permanent.

If you live in Columbia Heights or anywhere nearby, this is the moment to show up and make your voice heard — council decisions like this are won or lost based on who actually turns out. Check our camera map to see what's already been deployed near you, and visit our take-action page for tools to push back before your own city locks in a similar contract.