Milwaukee police defends use of Flock cameras despite cases of misuse | FOX6 News Milwaukee

Our Take

FOX6 News Milwaukee put the Milwaukee Police Department on the spot over documented misuse of its Flock camera network, and the department's response was the same one we hear in city after city: yes, there were problems, but we've since "honed our audits" to catch bad actors. Notice what's missing from that sentence — any acknowledgment that a mass-surveillance system this powerful shouldn't require after-the-fact audits to catch cops abusing it in the first place. The misuse already happened. The audit is just the department's way of grading its own homework once the damage is done.

This is the pattern DeFlock USA keeps documenting: agencies sell Flock as a narrow crime-solving tool, then quietly let it become a general-purpose tracking system that any officer with a login can query for personal reasons, curiosity, or worse. "It's solving crimes" is not an answer to "was it misused" — both things can be true at once, and the second one is the civil liberties problem. Internal audits controlled by the same department running the cameras are not independent oversight; they're a PR talking point dressed up as accountability.

Milwaukee residents deserve more than a press-conference reassurance — they deserve public audit logs, real consequences for misuse, and a say in whether this network expands further. Check our camera map to see how much of your city is already wired up, and head to take-action for ways to push back before the next "honed audit" becomes necessary. Credit to FOX6 News Milwaukee for pressing MPD on this instead of just running the department's statement.