Isanti County Sheriff on cancelling Flock camera contract

Our Take

Credit to KARE 11 for tracking this story locally, because it's the kind of accountability journalism that rarely makes national headlines but matters enormously. Isanti County's sheriff cancelling the Flock contract isn't an isolated blip — it's the latest domino in Minnesota, following Columbia Heights, Duluth, and West St Paul. When multiple jurisdictions in one state independently reach the same conclusion, that's a pattern worth paying attention to, not a coincidence.

These cancellations usually come down to the same core issues we've seen play out nationwide: cost that doesn't match the promised crime-fighting results, discomfort with a private company harvesting location data on every driver regardless of suspicion, and growing awareness that this data can be shared far beyond the original purpose — including with federal agencies for immigration enforcement or with other departments nobody voted to grant access. Sheriffs and city councils are starting to ask the obvious question: just because we can blanket a county in automated cameras, should we?

If you want to see whether Flock or similar ALPR systems are already watching your own neighborhood, check our camera map. And if your local government hasn't had this conversation yet, there's no better time to push them to — head over to our take-action page for tools to get the ball rolling.