Barry Harris
The short version: A Wilmington-area resident warns county commissioners that Flock's ALPR network echoes European mass-surveillance mistakes, urging local accountability before it's too late.
Our Take
Credit to DeFlockILM for capturing Barry Harris's public comment at the New Hanover County Commissioners meeting. Public comment periods like this one are where surveillance policy actually gets made or unmade, and it's worth paying attention when a resident stands up and draws a line from European experience to what's happening in their own backyard. Whatever the specifics of the European comparison, the broader point lands: countries that built out dense camera networks didn't do it all at once, and the normalization happened gradually, one 'public safety' justification at a time.
That's exactly the pattern critics of Flock Safety keep flagging in the U.S. — a patchwork of county-by-county, city-by-city rollouts, each pitched as a narrow tool for solving specific crimes, that quietly adds up to a nationwide tracking grid with almost no federal oversight. New Hanover County is just one more data point. The commissioners in that room are the ones who vote on contracts, renewal terms, and audit requirements, which makes showing up and speaking one of the few levers residents actually have.
If you want to see how far this has already spread near you, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action resources walk through how to request records, attend meetings, and hold your own county accountable before the network grows any larger.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of DeFlockILM, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.