IN FOCUS: How Flock cameras are being used in East Texas

Our Take

Credit to KETK anchor Nolan Hoffman for putting Flock Safety cameras on East Texans' radar at all — most communities get these networks installed with zero local news coverage, let alone a dedicated segment. But "growing" is doing a lot of work in that description, and that's the part we wish got more scrutiny. Every one of these local news pieces tends to follow the same script: a police spokesperson talks about solved crimes, a camera blinks reassuringly in b-roll, and the conversation ends before anyone asks who else can query that data, how long it's retained, or whether the cameras are logging every single car that drives through town regardless of suspicion.

That's the real story in East Texas and everywhere else Flock expands: these aren't crime-specific tools, they're dragnets that photograph and timestamp every plate, building a searchable travel history on anyone who drives down a covered road. Local agencies routinely share that data across jurisdictions and sometimes with federal partners, and residents rarely get a public vote on whether that tradeoff was worth it. A segment like this is a good prompt for East Texans to find out exactly where their own cameras are and start asking city council the questions the news package skipped.

Check our camera map to see what's already deployed near you, and if you want to push back on unchecked ALPR expansion in your city, our take-action page has concrete next steps.