New Bern says it has no Flock cameras

Our Take

"We don't have any Flock cameras" is a sentence we've heard from city halls before, and it rarely tells the whole story. Sometimes it means the cameras belong to a neighboring sheriff's office, a private HOA, or a regional task force that just happens to blanket city streets. Sometimes it means the city genuinely hasn't signed a contract yet, but a vendor demo unit is already capturing plates. Credit to WITN-TV for pressing New Bern on this, because "no cameras here" is exactly the kind of answer that deserves a follow-up question, not a headline.

This is the core problem with ALPR expansion: it moves faster than public disclosure, and jurisdictional lines get blurry on purpose. A city can technically be telling the truth while residents are still being tracked by a camera network they never approved and can't see a budget line for. That gap between "we don't own it" and "it's not happening" is where accountability goes to die.

If you're in or near New Bern, don't take anyone's word for it — go look. Check our camera map to see what's actually documented in your area, and if you spot hardware that isn't on there, help us fill in the picture. If city council tells you there's nothing to see, that's precisely when you should be asking for the paper trail — our take-action page has steps for filing public records requests and pushing for real transparency.