Post Falls Mayor Randy Westlund On Flock Cameras. What the hell is he talking about?

Our Take

Credit to The Idaho Sheriff for launching this new segment and putting a local mayor's grasp of Flock Safety technology on the record. Too often these ALPR contracts get approved by city councils and mayors who can recite the vendor's talking points — "it solves crime," "it's just for stolen cars" — without being able to explain what the system actually logs, who can access that data, or how long it's retained. If the video is right that Mayor Westlund is fuzzy on the details, that's not a gotcha, it's the whole problem in miniature: elected officials signing off on mass license plate tracking networks without doing the homework.

This matters because Flock's pitch to small and mid-sized cities like Post Falls almost always skips the hard questions — interagency data sharing, out-of-state law enforcement pulling local plate reads, and what happens when a camera network built for "stolen vehicles" gets used to track people who've done nothing wrong. A mayor who can't articulate those tradeoffs isn't equipped to negotiate guardrails, let alone say no.

If you want to see whether cameras like these are already watching your commute, check our map, and if Post Falls or your own town is considering a Flock contract, our take-actionpage has tools to push your council for real answers before they vote.