Chesterton votes to discontinue Flock contract
The short version: Chesterton, Indiana's town council voted to pull the plug on its Flock ALPR contract, joining a growing list of communities that decided the surveillance wasn't worth it.
Our Take
Credit to WGN News for covering this one, because these local council votes rarely make it past the police blotter — yet they're exactly where the fight against mass surveillance is actually being won or lost. Chesterton's decision to discontinue its Flock contract didn't happen in a courtroom or a congressional hearing. It happened at a town meeting, with elected officials who answer to neighbors, not shareholders.
This matters because Flock's whole business model depends on momentum: sign one town, point to it as proof of demand, sign the next. When a council votes to walk away after actually living with the cameras, it breaks that narrative and hands ammunition to every other community currently being pitched the same "free trial" and "it's just for stolen cars" pitch. Contracts get discontinued when officials start asking who else can query the data, how long it's kept, and whether a private company's nationwide network was ever something they meant to plug their town into.
If you're in a town still deciding, or one that already has Flock cameras up and running, don't wait for a viral news segment to do something about it. Check our camera map to see what's already deployed near you, and use our take-action resources to push your own council toward the same conversation Chesterton just finished having.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WGN News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.