Bastrop moves to immediately cover city’s Flock cameras as vote to terminate contract looms

Our Take

Credit where it's due: Bastrop didn't just talk about pumping the brakes on ALPR surveillance, they put hoods on the cameras the same night they voted. That's a rare example of a council treating "pause" as something that happens in hours, not months, and it's worth noting when so many cities let these contracts coast on autopilot year after year.

What makes this one sting for Flock Safety is the optics. A unanimous vote to physically cover cameras while a termination decision looms isn't a budget quibble, it's a council signaling it no longer trusts the system it approved. Communities considering their own ALPR deployments should take note of how fast public pressure can flip a council from rubber stamp to repeal mode once residents start asking who's actually watching the watchers.

Bastrop still has to finish the job and kill the contract for good, but covering the lenses is the right first move. If you want to see whether your own town has quietly wired itself into this network, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for your council to catch up, our take-action page has the steps other residents used to force this exact kind of vote.