Brendon Trachsel | Flagstaff Petition
The short version: A Flagstaff resident's public plea against expanding Flock Safety's ALPR contract spotlights growing grassroots pushback against unchecked camera surveillance nationwide.
Our Take
Brendon Trachsel's remarks to the Flagstaff City Council, captured in this clip from Jen's Two Cents, are a textbook example of how local fights over ALPR contracts actually unfold. It's rarely a dramatic showdown — it's one resident, a petition, and three minutes at a podium trying to slow down a bureaucratic rubber stamp before an expanded surveillance contract gets buried in a consent agenda. Credit to the channel for documenting it, because these moments almost never make it past the city's own meeting archive otherwise.
What's happening in Flagstaff is the same pattern we've tracked in dozens of towns: a modest pilot program with Flock Safety quietly balloons into a broader network, with little public debate about who can access the data, how long it's retained, or which outside agencies get a backdoor into the system. Petitions like Trachsel's matter because they force elected officials to put their vote on record instead of letting the expansion sail through unnoticed.
If you want to see how many of these cameras are already running in your own city, check our map — and if you'd rather not wait for a petition to show up in your inbox, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back before your council's next vote.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Jen's Two Cents. | Jen & Friends Podcast, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.