'Flock No' protesters flood council meeting as Cleveland considers extending safety camera contract
The short version: Cleveland residents packed council chambers to fight a Flock Safety contract renewal, proof that ALPR pushback is spreading well beyond the usual coastal hotspots.
Our Take
Credit to WKYC Channel 3 for capturing what a lot of city councils would rather not have on camera: ordinary residents showing up en masse to say no to more automated surveillance in their neighborhoods. The "Flock No" crowd in Cleveland isn't some fringe group — they're the people who actually live under these cameras and are tired of being told a contract renewal is just routine business.
This is exactly the pattern we track: a city rolls out ALPRs with minimal public input, quietly renews the contract a year or two later, and hopes nobody notices the mission creep. Cleveland's council members now have to answer for a system that hoovers up location data on every driver, law-abiding or not, with little transparency about who gets access to that data or how long it's kept. "Public safety" is doing a lot of heavy lifting to justify a permanent, city-wide tracking network.
If you want to see whether your own city has quietly signed up for the same deal, check our camera map, and if a contract vote is coming up near you, our take-action page has tools to make your council meeting look a lot like Cleveland's did Monday night.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WKYC Channel 3, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.