Testimony at The Woodlands Township on Flock Cameras (5-28-2026)

Our Take

Jon Bouche's trip to the microphone at The Woodlands Township meeting is exactly the kind of grassroots pushback that keeps local governments honest. Whatever you think of his politics, the core argument he's making is one we hear from civil libertarians across the spectrum: once a township board signs a Flock contract, it isn't just buying cameras, it's building a permanent, networked log of where every driver in the community goes, searchable by police departments far beyond city limits. That's a decision with generational consequences being made in a single agenda item, often with minimal public debate.

The Franklin quote Bouche leans on isn't just a rhetorical flourish, it's the right frame for this fight. Flock and similar ALPR vendors sell these systems as a narrow tool for recovering stolen cars or finding Amber Alert vehicles, but the actual footprint is a mass-surveillance network that retains data on everyone, guilty of nothing, just in case it's useful later. Townships like Woodlands are exactly the kind of jurisdiction where a handful of residents showing up to testify can still change the outcome, before the cameras go up and the retention policies get buried in a vendor's terms of service.

We credit Jon Bouche and the Saving Texas channel for putting this testimony on the record and making it public. If you want to see whether cameras like these are already watching your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a vendor pitch to land on your town's agenda, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back before the contract is signed.