Newport City Council votes to approve purchase of Flock drones
The short version: Newport, RI greenlit Flock drones, pushing automated surveillance from license plates into the sky with little public debate shown in NBC 10's report.
Our Take
NBC 10 WJAR's report on the Newport City Council vote is a reminder that Flock's ambitions have moved well past static plate readers bolted to poles. Drones add an eye-in-the-sky layer to the same surveillance business model: normalize the tech with a narrow pitch (stolen cars, missing persons, 'officer safety'), get a council vote, and expand the program's reach once it's operational. Councils rarely get a say in how footage is stored, shared, or cross-referenced with federal databases, and that's exactly the conversation residents deserve before contracts get signed, not after.
Credit to NBC 10 for covering the vote at all — most of these approvals happen in half-empty council chambers with zero follow-up reporting on how the drones actually get used once deployed. Newport joins a growing list of towns trading privacy for a vendor's promise of public safety ROI, usually without independent data showing the tech reduces crime or just relocates it.
If you're in Newport or anywhere else watching this creep happen, check our camera map to see what's already tracking plates near you, and use our take-action guide to push your own council for transparency before the drones are airborne.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NBC 10 WJAR, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.