Nearly all of Covington's Flock cameras have been destroyed

Our Take

Credit to KING 5 Seattle for documenting what's happening in Covington: a small city's entire Flock Safety network, all eight cameras, getting knocked out one by one. Whatever you think of vigilante wire-cutting, the underlying signal is hard to miss. People did not sign up for a city-wide license plate dragnet, and when they feel like there's no official channel to push back, some of them start reaching for pliers instead of public comment forms.

This is the predictable result of rolling out always-on surveillance infrastructure without real debate. Flock cameras get installed quietly, often through police department purchasing decisions or quick council votes, with little explanation of how the data is stored, who can access it, or how long retention runs. When a community only finds out the scope of the system after it's already watching every car that passes, resentment builds fast. Covington isn't an isolated case; it's a preview of what happens when trust runs out faster than the install schedule.

We'd rather see that frustration channeled into something that actually changes policy instead of just replacing broken hardware with new hardware. Check our camera map to see what's tracking you in your own town, and head to take action for ways to push back through council meetings, public records requests, and organizing, the stuff that actually gets these programs reconsidered or repealed.