Knox County Commission votes unanimously to remove all advanced license plate readers
The short version: Knox County Commissioners voted unanimously to rip out Flock's license plate readers, proving even red-state, law-and-order counties can say enough is enough.
Our Take
Credit to WATE 6 On Your Side for catching a story that deserves way more national attention: an entire county commission, not a handful of privacy activists, looked at the automated license plate reader program in their backyard and voted to pull the plug — unanimously. That's not a partisan fluke. It's what happens when elected officials actually read the fine print on Flock's data-sharing agreements, retention policies, and the vague promises about 'solving crime' that rarely come with hard numbers attached.
Knox County joins a growing list of communities that got sold a surveillance dragnet as a crime-fighting tool and then realized they'd signed up for a system that tracks every driver, every day, with almost no judicial oversight and plenty of potential for abuse or data leaks. When a commission votes 100% to remove hardware that's already installed, that's a signal the pitch didn't survive contact with scrutiny — and that's exactly the kind of accountability we want to see spread to every county still rubber-stamping these contracts without asking hard questions.
If you want to see whether ALPR cameras are already watching your commute, check our map, and if your own local government hasn't had this conversation yet, our take-action page has what you need to start it.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WATE 6 On Your Side, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.