Americans are cheering the people tearing down Flock cameras

A man got arrested for cutting down surveillance cameras, and strangers lined up under the local news post to offer him an alibi.

The numbers

The Verge reports that taking down Flock Safety license plate readers has grown into a national movement. The FlockStats tracker counts 162 cameras destroyed so far. DeFlock, which tracks the contracts, logged more than 20 cities and counties dropping Flock in July alone, the most in a single month since it began counting in 2021.

The social response is the striking part. Under a report about a West Virginia man’s arrest, commenters volunteered alibis, and one described the backlash as a rare point of national unity against the cameras.

From incident to movement

Flock’s automated license plate readers have been accumulating controversy for months. Earlier in August, records showed a police officer had searched his ex-partner through Flock’s network 717 times, one of several documented abuses of the system’s search capability.

What has changed is the scale and the tone. Individual incidents of vandalism have consolidated into something decentralized, bipartisan and openly celebrated, paired with the institutional track of jurisdictions formally canceling contracts.

Why it matters

Almost no technology in America draws opposition across party lines. Automated surveillance appears to be the exception: the camera takedowns draw public support from both directions, and the contract cancellations show local governments responding to that pressure. For the surveillance industry, the July numbers suggest the constraint on growth is no longer procurement budgets but public consent.