Amid surveillance concerns, many are saying 'Flock off!'

Our Take

KGW News is putting a local news lens on something we've been tracking nationally for a while now: ordinary people are getting fed up with Flock Safety cameras popping up on their streets without much say in the matter. The "Flock off" framing in the segment title is a good sign that this isn't just an online activist thing anymore — it's reaching mainstream newsrooms, which means more residents are learning these cameras exist, where they came from, and who's footing the bill.

What makes this coverage worth watching is the "public safety vs. privacy" tension that keeps getting repeated in every city council meeting where Flock contracts come up. Police departments pitch these networks as a crime-fighting tool, but the reality is a permanent, searchable record of where your car has been, built without a warrant and often without public debate before the cameras go live. That data doesn't stay local either — it can be queried by other agencies far outside the jurisdiction that installed it.

Credit to KGW News for giving this story airtime in Oregon's market. If you want to see whether this kind of dragnet is already running in your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back at a council meeting or through public records requests, our take-action page has what you need to get started.