Video: Auburn Mayor Jimmy Giannettino on Flock license plate readers
The short version: Auburn's mayor defends the city's Flock Safety contract, but a public defense isn't the same as public accountability for how the cameras are used.
Our Take
Credit to The Citizen Newspaper for getting Auburn Mayor Jimmy Giannettino on record at a city council meeting talking about the town's Flock Safety contract. That's exactly the kind of local accountability journalism this issue needs — most ALPR deals get approved in a five-minute consent-agenda vote with zero public debate, so a mayor actually fielding questions on camera is worth watching.
But we'd caution readers not to mistake a mayor's comfort with a program for evidence that the program is well-governed. "We have a contract with Flock" isn't an answer to the harder questions: who can query the network, how long is plate data retained, is it shared with other agencies or federal databases, and what happens when the system flags an innocent driver. Those are the details that separate a genuine public-safety tool from a rubber-stamped surveillance expansion, and they rarely come up unless residents force the issue at the mic.
If you're in Auburn or anywhere near it, check our camera map to see how many Flock readers are already logging your neighbors' movements, and use our take-action guide to push your own council for the retention policies, audit logs, and data-sharing limits that keep a license plate reader from becoming a permanent tracking net.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of The Citizen Newspaper, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.