Are Flock cameras watching the Blue Ridge Parkway?

Our Take

Credit to WLOS News 13 for actually picking up the phone when a viewer got curious about three new cameras near the Blue Ridge Parkway entrance on Hendersonville Road. That's the kind of local reporting this fight needs more of — someone notices new hardware on a pole, and a newsroom follows up instead of shrugging it off.

The Parkway's statement that these are vehicle-counting devices with no law enforcement function and no license plate collection is worth taking at face value only until someone independently verifies it. "Not being used for law enforcement" today says nothing about next year, and "vehicle counting" is a vague enough phrase that it could describe almost any camera system. We've seen agencies across the country quietly repurpose or expand traffic infrastructure into ALPR networks once it's already in the ground. The public rarely gets a heads-up when that switch flips.

This is exactly why independent tracking matters — government statements aren't verification, they're a starting point. If you've spotted hardware like this near a park entrance, highway, or neighborhood anywhere in the country, help us document it on the map, and check take-action for ways to push back on surveillance creep before it becomes permanent infrastructure.