Bend residents pack City Council chambers to oppose FLOCK surveillance cameras
The short version: Bend, Oregon residents showed up in force to tell their City Council they don't want Flock ALPR cameras watching their streets, per KTVZ News.
Our Take
Credit to KTVZ News for covering this one, because packed council chambers are exactly what accountability looks like. When a city quietly signs a contract with Flock Safety, most residents never hear about it until the cameras are already bolted to poles. Bend didn't let that happen — people showed up, on the record, to push back before the rubber-stamping was finished.
This is the pattern we track everywhere: a police department or city manager pitches ALPRs as a simple crime-fighting tool, and the actual conversation about who gets access to that data, how long it's stored, and whether it's shared with ICE or out-of-state agencies gets skipped entirely. Residents pushing back at a council meeting is one of the only points of leverage the public has left before the surveillance net gets normalized as just another utility line item.
If you're in Bend or anywhere else watching your city consider this, don't wait for the vote. Check our camera map to see what's already been deployed near you, and use our take-action guide to figure out how to get in front of your own council before the contract is signed, not after.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KTVZ News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.