WECT INVESTIGATES: New Hanover County commissioners raise concerns about Flock cameras
The short version: New Hanover County's commission chair publicly questions Flock camera oversight, showing even local officials who approved these systems are losing confidence in them.
Our Take
When the chair of a county commission starts publicly posting that she's "concerned" about a surveillance system her own government deployed, that's not a partisan talking point — that's a credibility problem. WECT's reporting on LeAnn Pierce's Facebook statement suggests New Hanover County leadership either wasn't fully briefed on how Flock's ALPR network operates, who can access the data, or how it's being audited after the fact. That's precisely the pattern we track nationwide: cameras go up fast, oversight gets backfilled later, if at all.
Credit to WECT News 6 for digging into local officials' reactions instead of just repeating a vendor's talking points. The real story isn't one commissioner's unease — it's that Flock's business model relies on counties buying first and asking governance questions second. By the time elected officials start demanding answers, millions of plate scans are already sitting in a searchable database, often shared across jurisdictions with little public input on retention or access policy.
If you live in New Hanover County or anywhere else wondering what's watching your commute, check our camera map to see what's already been documented nearby, and use our take-action guide if you want to push your own commissioners toward the kind of transparency New Hanover's chair is now asking for after the fact.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WECT News 6, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.