'Flock No' protestors rally before last Cleveland City Council meeting this session
The short version: Cleveland residents packed city council chambers to demand Flock camera removal, showing grassroots pushback can force local surveillance fights into the public record.
Our Take
Credit to WKYC Channel 3 for capturing something that rarely makes local news: ordinary residents showing up in person to tell their council they don't want automated license plate readers logging their movements. "Flock No" isn't just a clever chant — it's a sign that Cleveland's surveillance rollout happened with less public buy-in than city hall probably assumed.
This is the pattern we keep seeing nationwide: a city quietly signs a contract with Flock Safety, cameras go up on streets and in neighborhoods, and only later do residents realize just how much data is being collected, shared, and retained — often with vague policies on who else gets access, including federal agencies. By the time people organize, the system's already live. Cleveland's rally before what's apparently the last council meeting of the session is a reminder that public pressure has to be loud and sustained to have any shot at rolling back a system once it's installed.
If you're in Cleveland or anywhere else wondering whether these cameras are already watching your street, check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and if you want to push back the way these residents did, our take-action page has concrete steps for making your voice heard before your city council too.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WKYC Channel 3, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.