St. Paul City Council passed RES 26-1421 on Flock contracts. Read the full resolution.
The short version: St. Paul's city council vote on its Flock contract shows why residents need to track these deals before approval, not after.
Our Take
Credit to Flock Clocker for pulling RES 26-1421 straight from the St. Paul City Council record and putting it in front of viewers instead of letting it quietly sit in a meeting packet. That's the unglamorous but essential work of ALPR accountability: reading the actual resolution, not the press release summary, and asking what the contract language really authorizes — how long footage is retained, who can query it, and whether other agencies get backdoor access.
Council votes like this one are where the real decisions about mass surveillance get made, usually with minimal public attention and plenty of vendor talking points. By the time most residents hear about a Flock deployment, the cameras are already bolted to poles and the data-sharing agreements are already signed. Showing up to comment after the vote is nearly useless; the leverage is before approval, when council members are still weighing public pushback against a sales pitch.
If you want to know whether your city is already wired up, check our camera map before the next contract renewal lands on an agenda near you, and use our take-action resources to push for public comment periods and audit requirements before the cameras go in, not after.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Flock Clocker, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.