Escambia County Commissioner Steve Stroberger on Flock cameras

Our Take

It's not every day a sitting county commissioner uses the language of the Fourth Amendment to push back on his own local surveillance apparatus, but that's exactly what Escambia County's Steve Stroberger does in this clip from the Orwell Day channel. His point is simple and correct: a government with the technical capacity to track every car, every day, everywhere, is a government that can eventually be turned against anyone it decides is inconvenient. That's not paranoia, it's just how power works once the infrastructure exists.

What makes this notable is that it's coming from inside the system rather than from activists or privacy groups. Flock Safety has been remarkably effective at getting these camera networks approved quietly, often framed purely as a tool against car theft or missing persons, with little public debate about retention windows, data sharing, or who else gets access to the feed down the line. When an elected official stands up and says the compromise isn't worth it, it's worth amplifying.

Stroberger's warning about one right making the next easier to erode is the whole ballgame. Mass ALPR coverage doesn't stay narrow, it expands, and the only real check is public pressure before the cameras go up or while contracts are still being renewed. If you want to see what's already deployed near you, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for your own commissioner to notice, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back locally.