FIGHTING FLOCK IN SCARSDALE, NEW YORK | JOSH FRANKEL
The short version: Scarsdale residents found out their village quietly signed a Flock Safety contract, and Josh Frankel's pushback shows how local transparency fights start.
Our Take
Credit to Jen's Two Cents for sitting down with Josh Frankel, a Scarsdale, New York resident who did what too few people do: he noticed his village had already inked a Flock Safety deal before anyone outside the trustees' room knew it existed. That's the pattern we see over and over — contracts get signed, cameras go up, and the public is handed a press release instead of a vote. Scarsdale residents showing up to Village Board meetings this spring is exactly the kind of friction that should happen before, not after, a surveillance network gets installed on every road into town.
What makes this story worth your time isn't just the local drama, it's the template. A small, affluent suburb with no history of major crime waves still ends up blanketed in ALPRs because a vendor made it easy to say yes and hard to ask questions. Frankel's experience mirrors what we hear from organizers nationwide: the cameras arrive quietly, the data-sharing agreements are vague, and 'public safety' becomes the all-purpose justification that shuts down debate before it starts.
If you want to see whether your own neighborhood has already been wired up, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back the way Scarsdale residents are doing, our take-action page has the tools to get started.
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.