Chetek Police Install Flock Cameras Without Town's Knowledge

Our Take

Credit to WEAU 13 News for digging into a story that should alarm anyone who thinks local government is supposed to work with some basic accountability: police in Chetek allegedly installed Flock Safety cameras without even looping in the town's own officials. That's not a minor paperwork slip. It's a pattern we see again and again across the country — departments treating license plate surveillance as a procurement decision for a budget line, not a policy decision that deserves public debate, a vote, or even a heads-up to the elected officials nominally in charge.

This matters because ALPR networks aren't just cameras on poles. They're a rolling log of everywhere you drive, shared across agencies and sometimes with Flock's broader national network, often with retention and access policies that most residents — and apparently some town leaders — never got to weigh in on. When installation happens in the dark, there's no chance for the community to ask the obvious questions: who can access this data, how long is it kept, and what happens when it's misused or breached.

If this kind of quiet rollout is happening in a small Wisconsin town, it's happening elsewhere too. Check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and if you want to push back on secretive installs in your own community, our take-action guide has concrete steps to get started.