Bastrop City Council to consider Flock Safety contract during Tuesday meeting

Our Take

Credit to KVUE for flagging this one — most cities only make headlines when they're *adding* Flock cameras, not reconsidering them. Bastrop's council putting the contract itself up for a vote is exactly the kind of accountability check every town with these cameras deserves, but almost never gets. Once a police department signs on with Flock, the assumption is usually that the network just grows quietly in the background, racking up scans and building a database of everyone's movements with zero further public debate.

What makes this notable isn't just the possibility of cancellation — it's that the decision is happening in public, in front of elected officials who have to answer to voters. That's the opposite of how most ALPR rollouts happen, where police departments quietly renew multi-year deals and city councils rubber-stamp the line item without ever discussing what the data is used for, who can access it, or how long it's kept. Bastrop residents actually get to weigh in before more of their daily movements get logged.

Whatever the council decides Tuesday, this is a template other towns should be following: treat these contracts as the serious civil-liberties decisions they are, not routine budget renewals. If you want to see whether your own city is running these cameras, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a council meeting to push back, our take-action page has tools to get started now.