New police license plate readers, and how data center projects are avoiding public input
The short version: Schenectady is expanding ALPR surveillance just as CBS6 Albany reports on data center deals dodging public input — a pattern of decisions made without communities in the room.
Our Take
CBS6 Albany's Morning Minute segment ties together two threads that should worry anyone paying attention to how power operates in New York's Capital Region: Schenectady is adding more license plate readers to its policing toolkit right as reporters are digging into how data center projects are sidestepping the kind of public input that's supposed to be baked into local government. Credit to the CBS6 team for connecting those dots, because they usually get covered as separate stories when they're really the same story — infrastructure that watches you, greenlit with minimal community pushback.
Flock Safety and similar ALPR systems keep getting sold to city councils as a quiet line item, not a policy decision that deserves a real public hearing. Once the cameras go up, they're logging every plate that passes, building a searchable history of where residents go, and quietly handing that data to whichever agencies can get access — often with far less oversight than the surveillance warrants. Schenectady "doubling down," as the segment puts it, means more of that data flowing before residents fully understand what's being collected or who can see it.
If you want to know whether this kind of tech has already landed near you, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a done deal before your city council hears from you, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back before the cameras go up, not after.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS6 Albany, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.