They’re Tearing the Cameras Down

Something is happening on roadsides across the country: people are physically attacking Flock cameras — cutting them from poles, painting over the lenses, toppling them, and in some places obscuring their own plates to blind them. Reporters have documented it from Virginia to Oregon, and outlets from TechCrunch to The New Republic now call it a nationwide phenomenon.

Let’s be unambiguous: DeFlockILM does not condone this. Destroying property — even property we believe should never have gone up — is against the law, it is not how you change a policy in this country, and it hands the other side an easy story. We are asking our neighbors not to do it. Full stop.

But pretending the anger isn’t real would be dishonest

People don’t climb a pole with a saw over a parking ticket. They do it because they feel watched, unheard, and out of options — because a surveillance system went up over their streets without a vote, and the normal channels felt closed. You can reject the method completely and still hear what it is telling elected officials: a lot of people are angry, and they were never asked.

It is also self-defeating

Here is the irony the vandalism misses: Flock’s own cameras are used to catch the people damaging Flock’s cameras. In Suffolk, Virginia, one man was charged with 13 felony counts for destroying 13 cameras; departments elsewhere have pulled plate reads and nearby footage to identify suspects. Attacking the network feeds the network. It gives Flock a sympathetic headline and can put a frustrated resident in a cell — while the contract stays exactly where it was.

The thing that actually removes cameras is boring, and it works

Not one of the cameras that came down in Hillsborough, Pittsboro, or Chatham County was sawed off a pole. They were removed by votes — because residents read the contract, requested the records, filled the meeting, and made it politically untenable to keep the system. That is the unglamorous truth: paperwork and public comment outperform a crowbar every time, and they don’t get anyone arrested.

If you are angry enough to consider the crowbar, you are angry enough to be the person who ends the contract the right way. Put it here instead:

• Sign and share the petition — documented, countable opposition is what moves a board.
• Speak on the record at the August 17 or September 21 commission meeting — three minutes, on camera, in the minutes.
• Map the cameras legally — photograph them from public space and add them to the public map. Documentation is powerful, and lawful.
• Email the commissioners and the Sheriff with one hard question, and make them answer it in public.

Don’t give them a vandal to talk about. Give them a room full of voters they have to answer to.

Sources

• TechCrunch — “Americans are destroying Flock surveillance cameras”
• The New Republic — “The Nationwide Revolt Against Flock Safety Cameras”
• BGR — “People Across the US Are Tearing Down Flock’s Traffic Cameras”
• NBC News — Flock cameras scan billions a month, sparking protests