Controversial Flock cameras covered up by trash bags in Waltham
The short version: Waltham officials bagged unauthorized Flock ALPR cameras after discovering they'd been installed without city council approval, exposing a broader accountability gap.
Our Take
Trash bags over surveillance cameras might be the most honest visual metaphor we've seen all year. CBS Boston's Mike Sullivan reports that Waltham's city council didn't approve these Flock installations in the first place — which means a private company and/or police department deployed license plate readers on public streets without the basic democratic step of asking the people's elected representatives first. That's not a technicality. That's the whole ballgame.
This is the pattern we track constantly: Flock Safety's sales pitch to police departments skips the part where city councils, the actual people accountable to voters, get a real vote before cameras go up. By the time anyone asks questions, the hardware is already bolted to poles and vacuuming up plate data. Waltham deserves credit for pushing back hard enough that someone literally bagged the cameras, but the fact that it took public outcry to pause an already-operating surveillance network shows how backwards the approval process is everywhere Flock operates.
If you want to know whether cameras like these are watching your commute, check our camera map, and if your town hasn't had this fight yet, get ahead of it with our take-action resources before the bags come out.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS Boston, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.