Huntington group launches petition seeking to ban FLOCK Cameras
The short version: A Huntington, WV community group is petitioning to ban Flock cameras, showing local organizing can push back on mass surveillance before it becomes permanent infrastructure.
Our Take
Credit to WOWK 13 News for covering this one, because it's exactly the kind of story that deserves more airtime. The Huntington Community Action Group isn't waiting around for city council to quietly renew a Flock contract — they're building a petition to get ahead of it. That's the model. Once these camera networks go in, they tend to stay in, budget line after budget line, with little public debate about who's watching the data or how it's being shared.
What makes this fight matter beyond one West Virginia city is the pattern it's pushing against: departments adopt ALPR systems under a banner of stolen cars and Amber Alerts, then the footprint quietly expands into a searchable log of everyone's daily movements, often pooled with other agencies and even shared out of state. A grassroots petition forces the conversation into the open before that network effect takes hold, rather than after residents discover it during a data breach or a misuse scandal.
If you want to see how dense this coverage already is near you, check our camera map, and if Huntington's organizing has you wanting to do something local, our take-action page has the tools to get a similar effort moving in your own city.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WOWK 13 News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.