Debate over Flock camera usage continues, residents voice concerns
The short version: Fridley residents pushed back on Flock ALPR use at a city council meeting, and officials' modest tweaks don't answer the core surveillance concerns.
Our Take
Credit to FOX 9's Chenue Her for covering this — local council meetings are exactly where the Flock fight gets decided, and too few newsrooms bother showing up. Fridley residents did what more communities should: they showed up, asked pointed questions, and made officials explain themselves on camera instead of letting a police department press release do the talking.
Notice the pattern here, because it repeats in city after city: pushback happens, officials announce some "changes" or tightened policy language, and the underlying system stays exactly the same. A retention tweak or an updated use policy is not oversight — it's PR. The cameras keep scanning every plate that passes, the data keeps flowing into a network any agency can query, and residents still have no real say in whether they want to live under constant location tracking. Policy promises are only as good as the audit that checks them, and most cities never do that audit.
If you want to know whether Fridley — or your own town — has these cameras watching your commute, check our camera map. And if your city council hasn't had this conversation yet, don't wait for a reporter to force it: our take-action page has what you need to get it on the agenda.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.