Monterey County flock cameras vandalized amid privacy debate

Our Take

KSBW Action News 8's report on the Seaside and Monterey County camera attacks is a good on-the-ground look at what happens when residents feel like the only lever left to pull is a set of bolt cutters. Two cameras cut down near a Home Depot lot, another rammed by a car — this isn't random mischief, it's a pattern, and law enforcement knows it. Framing it as "conspiracy" and a felony computer-access crime tells you a lot about where the state's priorities sit: protecting the hardware, not answering the privacy questions that got people this angry in the first place.

We don't endorse vandalism, and it won't fix the underlying problem — Flock's ALPR network keeps expanding whether or not the public consents to it. But the frustration on display in Monterey County is the same frustration we hear from readers everywhere: no public vote, no meaningful audit, and a corporate vendor holding location data on people who've done nothing wrong. When cutting a camera down starts to feel like the only form of "public comment" available, that's a sign the normal channels have failed, not that residents are the problem.

If you want to know whether Flock or another ALPR vendor is already watching your commute, check our camera map, and if you'd rather push back through your city council instead of a car bumper, our take-action guide walks you through it. Credit to KSBW for covering this story — it's exactly the kind of local reporting that keeps this fight visible.