Ohio AG asks lawmakers to criminalize the misuse of Flock cameras
The short version: Ohio's AG wants penalties for Flock misuse, but WBNS 10TV's report shows the fix ignores the mass-surveillance network itself.
Our Take
WBNS 10TV in Columbus reports that Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is pushing lawmakers to make misuse of Flock Safety cameras a crime, while still defending the network as a crime-fighting tool. That's a telling admission: if misuse is common enough to need its own criminal statute, the technology's guardrails were never adequate to begin with.
Passing a penalty for bad actors sounds like accountability, but it does nothing to change the underlying architecture — thousands of always-on cameras logging every plate that passes, feeding databases shared across agencies and states, often with little transparency about who's pulling records or why. A law punishing the worst abuses lets officials say they've "addressed" the problem while the dragnet keeps growing untouched.
Real accountability starts with knowing where these cameras are and pushing back on how the data is used. Check our map to see what's watching in your area, and visit take action for ways to push your own city council or state legislature toward real limits — not just paperwork.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WBNS 10TV, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.