National week of action against ALPRS kicks off with a rally in Santa Cruz #surveillancestate

Our Take

Credit to Santa Cruz Local News for getting boots-on-the-ground coverage of this rally, because organizing wins like this don't happen by accident — they happen when social workers, unions, and immigrant rights advocates show up in the same room and say enough is enough. Santa Cruz didn't just complain about Flock Safety's network of license plate cameras; they actually killed the contract. That's the first domino in California, and the coalition behind Get the Flock Out clearly understands that momentum needs to be shared, not hoarded.

What makes this rally notable isn't just the ALPR angle — it's the explicit link organizers drew between plate-reader surveillance and the safety of migrant communities. That connection is not hypothetical. ALPR data has a well-documented history of ending up in the hands of federal immigration enforcement, regardless of what a local police department promises. When a city council votes to install these cameras, they're not just tracking stolen cars — they're building a searchable record of everyone's movements that can be repurposed by agencies with very different priorities than the local PD.

A national week of action is exactly the kind of pressure that gets contracts reconsidered before they're signed, or canceled after the fact once residents realize what they agreed to. If you want to see whether your own town has quietly wired itself into this network, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back the way Santa Cruz did, our take-action page has the tools to start.