Police chief furious that people are criticizing his decision to deploy Flock cameras in their town

Our Take

Credit to the channel Orwell Day for catching this one on camera, because it's the kind of quote that usually only comes out in depositions years later. A small-town police chief in Chetek, WI, faced with residents questioning why he wants to blanket their town in automated license plate readers, didn't offer data or oversight promises. He reportedly groused that he "ought to do background checks on half the people that made comments." That's not a public servant answering to the public — that's a man telling you what happens to people who ask questions once the cameras are up.

This is the pattern we track constantly at DeFlock: a chief or sheriff sells Flock Safety hardware as a narrow tool for solving specific crimes, then bristles the moment anyone points out that mass license-plate logging is a surveillance dragnet that captures everyone, guilty of nothing, driving to church, the pharmacy, or a protest. The quiet part — that criticism itself might earn you a look-up in the system — is exactly the chilling effect privacy advocates warn about. If disagreeing with your police chief in a public meeting puts your plate on a watchlist in his head, the technology isn't being used to fight crime, it's being used to manage dissent.

Chetek is a small town, but this fight is happening in thousands of them right now, often with zero public vote. Check our camera map to see what's already been installed near you, and if your town is facing a similar pitch, our take-action page has tools for pushing back before the hardware goes up, not after.