Bloomington Protesters Demand Removal of Flock Cameras and Surveillance Contracts

Our Take

Credit to The Bloomingtonian for getting boots-on-the-ground footage of a story that keeps repeating itself in city after city: officials announce they're reconsidering or even ending a Flock Safety contract, and the cameras just... keep running. That gap between what a city council says and what's bolted to the utility pole is exactly the kind of accountability failure we track. If Bloomington residents are standing at Kirkwood and Grant demanding removal, it's because paperwork promises don't stop a network of license plate readers from logging every car that passes, regardless of whether anyone's accused of a crime.

This is the pattern across the country — vendors keep hardware active during 'review periods,' data retention and sharing policies stay vague, and the public only finds out cameras are still live because someone bothers to check. That's why local pressure campaigns like this one matter so much more than press releases. Residents showing up in person forces the question city hall would rather avoid: if the contract's in doubt, why is the dragnet still collecting?

If you want to know whether your own neighborhood has Flock cameras watching it, check our map, and if you're ready to push back the way Bloomington is, our take-action guide has the tools to get started.