Fight against Flock cameras in Lindsborg, Kansas

Our Take

Credit to 12 News for getting cameras and microphones in front of Lindsborg residents who are pushing back on Flock Safety's ALPR rollout. Small-town pushback like this matters more than people realize — it's easy for city councils to assume nobody's paying attention when the agenda item is buried between a zoning variance and a parks budget update. When residents show up and ask hard questions, it changes the political calculus for every other small town eyeing a Flock contract next.

This is also a reminder that mass surveillance isn't a big-city problem anymore. Flock has been aggressively marketing to small and mid-sized police departments precisely because there's less scrutiny, fewer local reporters, and often no public records culture strong enough to demand answers about who's accessing the data, how long it's retained, or whether it's being shared across state lines. Lindsborg's fight is a microcosm of what's happening in thousands of towns that never get a news segment.

If you want to see whether your own town has quietly joined the network, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back the way Lindsborg residents are, our take-action page has concrete steps for raising this at your next council meeting.