I Asked Questions About Flock Cameras. Milton, GA Councilwoman Called Me a Liar.

Our Take

Credit to Lindsay DeFranco for doing exactly what every resident should be able to do: show up to a city council meeting and ask straightforward questions about the license plate readers watching their town. Instead of a substantive answer about data access, retention, or oversight, she says a Milton councilwoman responded by calling her a liar. That reaction tells you everything about how comfortable some local officials have gotten with never having to defend these systems in public.

This is the pattern we see over and over in DeFlock's reporting: Flock cameras get installed with little debate, and when someone finally asks who can query the data, how long it's kept, or what audit trail exists, the response is defensiveness rather than transparency. A five-minute public comment slot shouldn't be treated as an attack, especially when the underlying questions — privacy, government access, oversight — are ones every city council in America ought to be able to answer without flinching.

If Milton has Flock cameras near you, you can check our camera map to see what's already been deployed, and use our take-action resources to bring the same questions to your own council meeting before you get told you're lying for asking.