Councilman Martin Misjuns discusses Flock Safety cameras in Lynchburg
The short version: A Lynchburg city councilman goes on record questioning Flock Safety's ALPR network, adding local political weight to growing bipartisan unease over mass license plate surveillance.
Our Take
Credit to NewsAdvance for getting a sitting Lynchburg councilman, Martin Misjuns, on camera talking about Flock Safety's ALPR rollout in his city. These cameras usually get installed quietly, sold to councils as a crime-fighting convenience, with little public debate about who else gets to see the data or how long it sits in a database. When an elected official is willing to publicly question that arrangement, it's worth paying attention, because most city councils rubber-stamp these contracts without ever reading the data-sharing agreements.
What makes Flock different from a traditional speed camera or red-light camera is scale and networking. A single intersection camera is one thing; a web of ALPRs feeding a searchable, shareable database of every car's movements is something else entirely. That's the part that tends to get glossed over in city council meetings, and it's exactly why local officials asking hard questions matters, regardless of their politics.
Lynchburg residents who want to see exactly where these cameras are watching their streets can check our camera map, and anyone who wants to push back on their own city council can find concrete steps on our take-action page.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NewsAdvance, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.