Dragnet surveillance in Ohio is a civil liberties issue. #acluohio #Flock #dragnet #surveillance

Our Take

Credit where it's due: ACLU Ohio is using its platform to say plainly what we've been documenting for a while — Flock Safety's network of license plate cameras isn't just "public safety tech," it's a dragnet. When a system logs every car that passes, regardless of suspicion, you've built a tool that can track where people worship, who they see a doctor about, which political meetings they attend, or when they leave an abusive relationship. That's the definition of mass surveillance, and it doesn't require a warrant, a crime, or even probable cause to put you in the database.

What makes this video worth your time isn't shock value — it's that a civil liberties organization with legal muscle is framing Flock cameras as a rights issue, not just a budget line item for local police departments. That framing matters because most city councils approve these contracts with little public debate, treating ALPRs as interchangeable with streetlights. They're not. They're a searchable, often shared, surveillance ledger of everyone's movements, and in Ohio as elsewhere, local data has a way of flowing into state and federal hands without residents ever voting on it.

If you want to see how far this has spread in your own state, check our camera map — Ohio included — and if you'd rather not just watch this fight from the sidelines, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back at the city council level before the next contract renewal sails through unopposed.