By Ghost Zero
On August 26, 2025, Evanston, Illinois switched off all 19 of its Flock cameras and sent the company a termination notice. That should have been the end of it.
It was not. Flock challenged the termination and, according to city records and local reporting, reinstalled the cameras without authorization. Evanston sent a cease-and-desist letter and covered the cameras in plastic. The last two finally came down in March 2026, after a local newspaper started asking questions.
Seven months. That is how long it took a city to get rid of cameras it had already cancelled.
This is Part 4 of The Warrantless Road. Parts 1 through 3 laid out the problem. This part is the way out, and the proof that it works.
Towns That Said No
Cancelling Flock is not a fringe idea anymore. City records and local reporting show:
– Oak Park, Illinois ended its contract immediately in August 2025.
– Cambridge, Massachusetts terminated in December 2025 after Flock installed two cameras without the city's knowledge. The city called it "a material breach of trust."
– Mountain View, California voted unanimously in February 2026 to end its contract after a police audit found federal and out-of-state access that broke city policy.
– Ithaca, New York voted to end its contract in March 2026.
– Kingston, Tennessee dropped Flock in August 2026 because "the benefits of the cameras were not worth the cost."
– New Hanover County, North Carolina voted 4-0 in September 2026 to end its contract.
– Several Minnesota cities, including Plymouth, St. Paul, Crystal and Dayton, have moved to remove their cameras, according to KARE 11.
And on November 3, 2026, voters get a direct say. York, Maine has a citizen-petition ordinance called "Stop ALPRs" on the ballot. League City, Texas has a nonbinding proposition on the city's use of Flock cameras.
Make Sure They Are Actually Gone
Winning the vote is half the fight. Evanston was not the only town that had to fight to get the cameras off its poles.
– Littleton, Massachusetts shut its cameras off in May 2026, and the Select Board said they would not be turned back on without a public process. By August, Flock technicians had restored power to them. The police chief said this was Flock's standard procedure and that the town had not told Flock directly it was turning them off.
– Dayton, Minnesota told Flock on September 18, 2026 that its program was on hold and no work orders should be done. A camera went back into service anyway, and later a second one.
– In October 2026, KARE 11 reported that Flock still had not picked up cameras in several Minnesota cities that voted them out. Flock says it respects those decisions and is working on removal.
The lesson: put everything in writing, straight to the company, and verify with your own eyes.
What the Law Says Now
Some states have already drawn lines:
– Washington's 2026 law caps retention at 21 days, limits sharing, requires a warrant for privately held plate data, and says a plate match alone is not reasonable suspicion.
– Virginia requires plate data to be destroyed after 21 days, unrecoverable by the vendor or police, and says a camera alert alone is not reasonable suspicion.
– New Hampshire requires plate data with no law enforcement use to be purged within three minutes.
– California bars police from sharing plate data outside California public agencies. The state attorney general has sued El Cajon, alleging it kept sharing with more than 100 out-of-state agencies.
In Congress, Rep. Tim Burchett's H.R. 9800 names Flock cameras and would bar federal use and funding. Rep. Thomas Massie's Flock-Off Act would ban federal money for these camera systems. Both are introduced, not passed. In May 2026, a House committee voted down, 20 to 44, Rep. Scott Perry's amendment that would have let states taking federal highway money use plate readers only for tolling.
The courts have not saved us yet. In Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, a federal judge in Virginia ruled for the city in January 2026, finding the evidence did not show the cameras captured the whole of a person's movements. The case is on appeal at the Fourth Circuit. Massachusetts' highest court said in 2020 that widespread plate reader use could violate a person's privacy in the whole of their movements, but found that four cameras on two bridges did not.
The honest takeaway: the wins so far have come from local votes, not courtrooms.
Citizens Mapping the Grid
DeFlock, founded in October 2024 by software engineer Will Freeman, maps plate reader cameras so anyone can see where they are. Forbes reported its app passed 350,000 downloads, with sign-ups across 102 cities for a national week of action. Flock's CEO once called DeFlock a "terroristic organization." He later apologized.
Have I Been Flocked lets you check your plate against roughly 280 million Flock searches pulled from public records. It is how the victim of a Milwaukee officer found out about the tracking.
Some people have gone further. A man in Suffolk, Virginia faces 13 counts of destruction of property over damaged Flock cameras. A man in New Mexico faces ten charges over destroyed cameras. Three men in DuPage County, Illinois were charged with stealing cameras. Those are charges, not convictions. Protocol Media does not support destroying or stealing property. It puts people in court and hands the company the story it wants. The legal path is working. Use it.
My opinion, labeled as my opinion: every one of these cameras went up because a few people signed a contract, and every one can come down the same way. The grid is not permanent. It is a line item. I do not consent, and neither should you.
What You Can Do
The goal is removal. Here is the playbook:
– Get the contract with a public records request. Find the renewal date, the termination clause and how much notice it requires.
– Pack public comment before the renewal vote. Tell the council in writing: I do not consent. End the contract and take the cameras down.
– When the vote passes, send the termination notice to Flock directly, in writing. Get a removal date in writing.
– Verify it. Photograph every pole on the DeFlock map, then check again a month later.
– Push for an ordinance that requires a public vote before any surveillance technology goes up again.
If your town will not take them down yet, demand the fallback in writing while you keep pushing: 21-day deletion, no federal or out-of-state sharing, and a rule that an alert alone never justifies a stop.
Safeguards are the floor, not the goal.
Start today. Search your city council's records for the words "Flock" or "license plate reader" and find out when the contract renews.
The full research is in The Flock Files: How a $7.5 Billion Startup Built America’s Surveillance Grid – and How We Stop It, free in the Red Pill Library. Part 1 of The Warrantless Road covers who built the network, who is watching through it and how exposed it is, Part 2 covers what happens when the machine is wrong, Part 3 covers officers who abused it and the honest ones who want it checked, and Part 5 covers Illinois. I also put this subject into song form, released by Vigilant Protocol as FLOCKED and by The Valkyrie Project as SMILE, with songs from Redline Republic and Axiom 312 on the way. Protocol Media is building an archive for every topic it covers: books, briefs, music, art and short-form video, backed by the Evidence, Founding and Acts Records. The work is underway and the documents are still being added, so the page keeps growing.
ART AS THE WEAPON. TRUTH AS THE AMMUNITION.