Leander, Texas, joins growing list of towns pausing or cutting Flock cameras
The short version: KXAN reports Leander, Texas hit pause on its Flock Safety ALPR program after more than 100 residents showed up to oppose it, joining a growing wave of local pushback.
Our Take
Credit to KXAN for capturing what's becoming a familiar scene across the country: a city council chamber packed with residents who showed up to say no to automated license plate readers. Leander is just the latest town to hit the brakes on Flock Safety, and the fact that it took over 100 people turning out in person tells you something about how quickly public awareness is catching up to the surveillance infrastructure that's been quietly installed in their communities.
These pauses matter because they prove the expansion of ALPR networks isn't inevitable — it's a policy choice, and policy choices can be reversed when enough people pay attention and show up. Flock's pitch to city councils is almost always the same: crime-fighting tool, minimal oversight needed, trust us. What Leander and the other towns on this growing list are demonstrating is that residents aren't willing to take that pitch at face value once they understand these cameras log every vehicle's movements, feed data into a nationwide network, and operate with little transparency about who accesses that data and why.
If you want to know whether these cameras are already watching your own street, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back the way Leander residents did, our take-action resources can help you get started.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KXAN, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.