Troy residents urge removal of Flock cameras at public safety meeting

Our Take

Credit to CBS6 Albany for sticking with this story, because the real news here isn't one meeting — it's the pattern. When ordinary residents have to keep showing up, week after week, to ask a city council to undo a surveillance system it approved with little public input, that tells you something about how these Flock deals get made in the first place: quietly, often without a real cost-benefit debate, and with vendors who aren't exactly rushing to highlight the downsides.

Troy isn't unique. Across the country, local governments are discovering that once a network of license plate cameras goes up, taking it down is a political fight, even when residents raise legitimate concerns about data retention, who can access the footage, and whether these systems actually reduce crime or just generate a permanent record of everyone's comings and goings. The burden of proof keeps falling on citizens to show harm, instead of on cities to show the cameras are worth the tradeoff.

If you want to see whether your own neighborhood has been wired up the same way Troy has, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back like these residents are, our take-action page has concrete steps for making your voice heard at the next council meeting.