They said the records don’t exist. Then they sent me 116,017 of them.
The short version: A Kalamazoo FOIA fight shows how 'no records' claims can crumble into six-figure data dumps once someone actually pushes — and that's the point.
Our Take
Credit to Magnetic Norse for doing the unglamorous work that makes ALPR accountability possible: filing a public records request, getting stonewalled, and refusing to take 'the records don't exist' as the final answer. According to the video, a Michigan FOIA aimed at Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety's Flock Safety contracts and camera data eventually produced 116,017 records. That gap between the initial brush-off and the eventual haul is the whole story of ALPR oversight in this country — agencies either don't know what they've got, or they'd rather you not find out.
This matters because Flock's pitch to city councils is always 'just a few cameras, just for stolen cars,' while the paper trail behind the scenes tells a different story about scale, retention, and who gets access to your location history. A single department sitting on over a hundred thousand records is a reminder that these systems generate far more data than the marketing copy admits, and that local reporters and citizen researchers are often the only check on how it's used, shared, or sold between agencies.
If you want to see where these cameras are actually planted in your own backyard, check our camera map, and if you're ready to start filing your own requests or pushing back at a council meeting, our take-action page has the starting point.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Magnetic Norse, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.