Lynchburg Councilman Martin Misjuns speaks about his Flock Safety resolution
The short version: A Lynchburg councilman's push for a resolution on Flock Safety cameras shows local leaders are finally asking the hard questions about ALPR surveillance in their own backyard.
Our Take
Credit to NewsAdvance for getting Lynchburg Councilman Martin Misjuns on record about his Flock Safety resolution. Whatever side of the vote he lands on, the fact that a local lawmaker is putting this issue on the public agenda matters — most city councils adopt these camera networks quietly through a staff recommendation and a line-item budget vote, with almost no public debate about who gets access to the data, how long it's kept, or whether it's shared with other agencies, including federal immigration enforcement.
Resolutions like this are exactly the kind of local accountability check that mass license plate surveillance needs. Flock's pitch to city councils is always about solving crime, but the actual deployment details — audit logs, retention windows, out-of-state data sharing — rarely get the same airtime as the sales pitch. A councilman forcing that conversation into open session, on camera, is a small but real win for transparency, regardless of the outcome.
If you're in Lynchburg or anywhere else wondering whether your city already has these cameras watching your commute, check our camera map, and if you want to push your own council toward a real public debate instead of a rubber stamp, our take-action page has a starting point.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NewsAdvance, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.