Nick Collins Addresses Surveillance Issues to Onslow County Board of Commissioners
The short version: A Jacksonville, NC resident told county commissioners that Flock ALPR cameras risk becoming a 'government spy network' instead of a public-safety tool.
Our Take
Credit to DeFlockILM for capturing Nick Collins taking the mic at an Onslow County Board of Commissioners meeting to push back on plate-reader creep in Jacksonville, NC. His line — "we don't [need] a government spy network, we just need a few good men" — cuts right to the core tension in this fight: the gap between what Flock Safety sells local governments (a narrow investigative tool) and what the technology actually becomes once it's networked, logged, and shared beyond the jurisdiction that approved it.
This is exactly the pattern we track nationwide: a county or city quietly approves a handful of cameras for 'stolen vehicles' or 'wanted persons,' and residents only find out later how much data is being vacuumed up, how long it's retained, and who else can query it. Public comment at commission and council meetings is one of the only levers citizens have before contracts get renewed or expanded, and it's worth showing up for.
If you want to see whether Flock or other ALPR cameras are already deployed near you, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back the way Collins did, our take-action page has tools to help you make the case to your own local officials.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of DeFlockILM, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.