Surveillance Engineer's Unlikely Hero Status

Our Take

Mumford Law's rundown of Flock Safety cameras getting torn down, smashed, and dumped on highways from Virginia to Oregon to California taps into something real: people are fed up. When a private company's cameras are logging every car that passes, with little public input and even less accountability, it's not surprising that frustration boils over into direct action. We get why folks cheer it on.

But vigilante destruction is a dead end as a strategy. Flock doesn't eat the cost — insurance and local contracts usually cover a quick swap, and sometimes cities tack on "vandalism" clauses that justify expanding the network further. Worse, it hands police and Flock's PR team a tidy narrative about "attacks on public safety infrastructure" that distracts from the actual debate: should this surveillance exist at all, who's watching the watchers, and where is the data going.

The more durable fight happens in public meetings, records requests, and local ordinances that force transparency or kill contracts outright — boring, slower, and far less viral, but it's what actually rolls back these networks instead of just delaying a reinstall. If you want to know where these cameras are near you, check our map, and if you want a way to push back that doesn't end with a trespassing charge, our take-action page has real steps that work.