Don’t worry, I brought receipts :)

Our Take

Credit where it's due: Lindsay DeFranco did what more residents should do before their city writes another check to Flock Safety — she showed up with actual numbers instead of taking the sales pitch at face value. Milton's contract is up for renewal next month, and instead of letting the vote sail through on vague promises about "solving crime," she asked the city council to look at what the cameras have actually produced. That's the whole ballgame with ALPR programs: they get sold on hypotheticals and renewed on inertia, because almost nobody drags the actual clearance rates and cost data into the room.

This is exactly the leverage point that matters in the fight against mass license-plate surveillance — not just Congress, but county commissions and city councils that quietly rubber-stamp multi-year Flock deals every renewal cycle. Once a network of cameras is scanning every plate that passes through a town, logging location data on residents who've never been suspected of anything, walking it back gets a lot harder than never signing the contract in the first place. Renewal season is the moment communities actually have some power, and Milton's council now has a resident on record forcing that accountability question.

If you live somewhere with a Flock contract coming up, or you're not sure whether your town already has one, check our camera map to see what's tracking you, and use our take-action resources to push your own local officials to ask the same hard questions before they sign on the dotted line again.