Flock Cameras Under Fire | Network Meltdown

Our Take

Network Meltdown's roundup is less a single news story than a temperature check: from coast to coast, people are taking matters into their own hands against Flock Safety's automated license-plate readers — cutting the poles, torching the boxes, or just spray-painting the lenses blind. You can disagree with vandalism as a tactic, but the pattern itself is the real headline. These cameras keep showing up on public roads with zero community vote, zero public hearing, and a vendor contract that treats your daily movements as a subscription product for local police.

What's striking is the geographic spread. This isn't a blue-city or red-county phenomenon — it's happening in dozens of states, which tells you the backlash to mass ALPR surveillance isn't partisan, it's about consent. People are realizing that a camera logging every car that passes, timestamped and run against databases, is a profile of their life being built without them ever being asked. When the formal channels for saying no — city council meetings, public records requests — get ignored or stonewalled, some folks decide the informal channel is a bolt cutter.

We don't run this site to cheer property destruction; we run it so you don't have to find out about a camera the hard way. Check our map to see what's been deployed near you, and if you'd rather fight this in city hall instead of in the dark, our take-action guide walks you through it.