Bland County to Remove Flock Cameras

Our Take

Credit to WDBJ7 for covering a story that doesn't get enough airtime: a local government actually reversing course on Flock Safety surveillance. Details in these local news hits are often thin on the "why," but the headline alone matters — Bland County had these cameras, and now it won't. That's a rare data point in a landscape where ALPR contracts usually only expand.

Every removal, whether driven by cost, community pressure, or a council finally asking what all this license-plate data collection is actually for, is worth amplifying. It proves these systems aren't some permanent fixture of modern policing — they're a policy choice, and policy choices can be unmade. Small, rural counties like Bland are exactly where grassroots scrutiny can still outpace a national vendor's sales pitch.

If you want to see whether your own town has signed up for this kind of tracking, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back the way Bland County apparently did, our take-action page has the tools to start that conversation locally.