Ohioans can resist Flock cameras in their communities. #acluohio #Flock #dragnet #surveillance
The short version: ACLU Ohio is right: Flock's ALPR dragnet isn't public safety, it's mass surveillance, and residents have more power to push back than they think.
Our Take
Credit to ACLU Ohio for putting it plainly: surveillance and policing are not the same thing as public safety, and the fact that a civil liberties organization has to say that out loud tells you how normalized dragnet license plate reading has become in Ohio and everywhere else. Flock Safety doesn't ask permission to blanket a town in cameras — it asks a city council for a line item, and most residents never get a real say before the hardware goes up on a pole near their house, their church, or their kid's school.
What makes this video useful isn't just the warning, it's the reminder that this fight is winnable at the local level. Flock contracts get renewed or killed in public meetings, and council members respond to constituents who show up and ask hard questions about retention windows, data sharing with ICE and out-of-state agencies, and whether any of this has actually reduced crime or just generated more surveillance data on innocent drivers. Ohio communities have pushed back before; they can do it again.
If you want to see how many of these cameras are already watching your commute, check our camera map, and if you're ready to do something about it, our take-action resources walk you through exactly how to raise this with your local officials.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of acluohio, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.