📸 A growing debate is unfolding in Tiverton and Little Compton.

Our Take

Credit to Stacy Corrigan for pointing a camera (the non-surveillance kind) at a debate that's unfolding in dozens of small towns across the country: should local police departments bolt a network of license plate readers onto every intersection because a vendor sales rep made it sound easy? In Tiverton and Little Compton, it sounds like residents are asking the right questions before the contracts get signed, which is exactly the window where these fights are actually winnable. Once the poles go up, the data-sharing agreements get signed, and the monthly subscription fee becomes a budget line item, it's much harder to claw back.

What usually gets lost in these local debates is the scale of what's actually being proposed. A handful of Flock cameras isn't a 'tool for solving car break-ins' — it's a permanent log of everywhere every car in town goes, shared with a national database that other agencies, and sometimes federal immigration enforcement, can query without a warrant. Small, quiet coastal towns like these are exactly the kind of places where nobody expects to be tracked, which is precisely why vendors target them: low resistance, low scrutiny, easy renewal.

If you're in Rhode Island or anywhere else watching a similar proposal move through your town council, don't wait for the vote. Check our camera map to see what's already been deployed near you, and use our take-action resources to show up at the next meeting with facts instead of just a bad feeling.