Get the Flock Out of Texas

Our Take

Credit where it's due: Texas Civil Rights Project is doing the unglamorous work of actually reading county contract amendments before they get rubber-stamped. This video lays out exactly how these things go nationwide — a quiet agenda item, a commissioners court meeting at 9am on a weekday, and suddenly a county has expanded its ALPR dragnet with no public debate about retention limits, data sharing, or who gets to query your travel history.

Harris County isn't unique here, which is the point. Flock contracts get renewed and amended constantly with little friction because most people never hear about it until the cameras are already up. The video's call to testify, write in, or call a commissioner is the right instinct — this is the stage where oversight actually gets written into policy, not after the fact when residents discover their pastor's parking lot or their kid's school pickup line has been logged thousands of times. If you want to see how far this has already spread, check our camera map before assuming it's someone else's problem.

If you're in Harris County, the meeting date and agenda item are in the description — use them. If you're anywhere else, treat this as a preview of what's coming to your own county commission, and get familiar with how to push back before it's a done deal.