Flock cameras are uniting Democrats and Republicans in Maine

Our Take

When was the last time you saw lawmakers from opposite ends of the political spectrum agree on anything? Mass surveillance apparently does the trick. NEWS CENTER Maine's report on the bipartisan backlash to Flock Safety cameras is a reminder that the right to drive down the street without your movements logged, timestamped, and stored in a corporate database isn't a partisan issue — it's an American one. Privacy-minded conservatives worried about government overreach and civil-liberties Democrats worried about surveillance creep are landing in the same place: these cameras need to go.

This pattern isn't unique to Maine. We've seen it play out in city council chambers and state legislatures across the country — once people learn how Flock's automated license plate readers actually work, who has access to the data, and how little oversight exists, the partisan talking points fall away pretty fast. Nobody wants to live in a town where every trip to church, the pharmacy, or a protest gets quietly cataloged and shared with agencies they've never heard of.

Credit to NEWS CENTER Maine for putting this coalition on camera. If you want to see whether Flock has already set up shop near you, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back like folks in Maine are doing, our take-action page has the tools to get started.