Video: Auburn City Councilor Craig Diego on Flock license plate readers
The short version: An Auburn city councilor is publicly weighing in on the fate of the city's Flock ALPR cameras, and that debate is exactly where these fights get won or lost.
Our Take
Credit to The Citizen Newspaper for putting a local official on record about Flock Safety cameras in Auburn. This is precisely the kind of local accountability moment that matters most in the fight against mass surveillance — not a national headline, but a city councilor forced to say out loud what he thinks the city should do with the ALPR network it's already paying for and already running.
We don't know yet whether Councilor Diego is pushing to expand, restrict, or scrap the system, and we're not going to guess. What we do know is that every Flock deployment in America started with exactly this kind of local conversation — a council member, a vendor pitch, a budget line — and most residents never hear about it until the cameras are already bolted to poles. Whatever position Diego lands on, the fact that it's happening in public, on the record, is a win for transparency that too many towns skip entirely.
If you live in or near Auburn, this is the moment to show up, not scroll past. Check our camera map to see what's already been documented near you, and use our take-action resources to figure out how to get in front of your own council before the decision's already made for you.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of The Citizen Newspaper, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.