Is AI surveillance actually keeping us safer?
The short version: Grimerica Outlawed digs into a Michigan city council's Flock rejection and the backlash that followed, raising real questions about who ALPR surveillance actually protects.
Our Take
Credit to Grimerica Outlawed for spotlighting a story that rarely gets national attention: a local city council actually said no to Flock Safety. That kind of pushback is rare precisely because these contracts are usually sold to councils as a quiet, no-brainer public-safety upgrade. When a community pumps the brakes and asks "wait, what are we actually buying here," it's worth paying attention to the fallout — including who pushes back and why.
The bigger question the video raises — does this stuff actually make us safer — is the one Flock and its police partners rarely answer with real data. What we do know is that these networks capture and store the movements of every driver, not just suspects, and that "safety" gets used as the all-purpose justification for building out a surveillance grid with almost no public oversight once it's installed. A council rejecting a renewal is a reminder that these contracts aren't inevitable; they can be un-signed.
If you want to see how far this infrastructure has already spread near you, check our camera map, and if your own city council is about to rubber-stamp a Flock deal, our take-action page has tools to help you organize before the vote, not after.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Grimerica Outlawed, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.