Video: Auburn City Councilor Terry Cuddy on Flock cameras

Our Take

Credit to The Citizen Newspaper for capturing something we don't see nearly often enough: an elected official actually asking hard questions about Flock Safety in public, on the record. Terry Cuddy pressing his fellow councilors after weeks of unanswered questions is exactly the kind of friction these systems are supposed to face before they get bolted onto every intersection in town. Too often these contracts get rubber-stamped in a five-minute consent agenda item with zero debate.

What's notable here isn't just that a councilor is skeptical — it's that it took weeks of stonewalling to get to this point. That's the pattern nationwide: vague answers about data retention, unclear language on who can query the system, and a general assumption that residents will just accept a private company's cameras logging every car that passes through. When a city council member has to publicly demand accountability, that tells you the normal oversight process already failed somewhere upstream.

This is why local fights matter as much as national ones. Flock's footprint grows one city council vote at a time, and it shrinks the same way — when residents show up, ask the same uncomfortable questions Cuddy is asking, and refuse to let 'public safety' be the end of the conversation. Check our camera map to see what's already deployed near you, and if your city hasn't had its own version of this moment yet, our take-action page has what you need to start one.