Auburn California residents remove and destroy Flock cameras

Our Take

Nunya Business is out with footage from Auburn, California showing residents taking matters into their own hands and physically removing Flock Safety cameras from the roadside. We're not in the business of cheering on vandalism, and messing with this hardware can carry real legal risk for the people doing it. But we also can't ignore what this says about the state of consent around these devices: when a city installs a surveillance network without a real public vote or meaningful debate, some residents decide the only leverage they have left is a wrench.

That frustration is the real story here. Flock's pitch is always the same — a few cameras to catch stolen cars, nothing to worry about — but the rollout rarely includes a public accounting of who gets access to the data, how long it's kept, or which agencies outside the county get to query it. When people feel steamrolled, some will escalate past petitions and city council comments. That's not a strategy we endorse, but it's a predictable outcome of opaque procurement.

If you want a legal, lasting way to push back, start by finding out what's actually watching your street on our camera map, then use our take-action guide to organize the paperwork fight — public records requests, council meetings, and local ordinances — before your neighbors decide the hardware store is faster than city hall.