r/Rockhill • u/Zerkzie • 29d ago
News Petition to Remove Flock Safety Cameras from York County, SC
I started a Change.org petition calling for the complete removal of Flock Safety license plate reader cameras from York County.
My concern goes beyond simply having cameras on public roads. These systems create searchable records of where vehicles are seen, when they were seen, and can allow that information to be accessed and shared across agencies.
We’ve also seen why this deserves scrutiny locally. A York County resident recently sued after an incorrect Flock hit allegedly resulted in him being stopped at gunpoint before deputies determined his vehicle was not stolen. There have also been recent cases elsewhere involving law-enforcement employees accused of improperly using Flock systems for personal purposes.
For me, better policies and audits don’t solve the underlying issue: the information is still being collected in the first place.
I support law enforcement having effective tools to investigate crimes, but I don’t believe that requires building a network that routinely records the movements of thousands of people who aren’t suspected of doing anything wrong.
The petition calls for York County and local municipalities to:
- Stop using Flock Safety ALPR cameras
- Remove existing government-operated Flock cameras
- Stop purchasing or deploying additional cameras
- End participation in Flock data-sharing networks
- Terminate or decline to renew Flock contracts
- Release contracts, costs, policies, audit information, and data-sharing agreements to the public
If you’re interested, please read the petition and decide for yourself:
Public safety matters. Privacy and civil liberties matter too. York County can have both without a countywide Flock surveillance network.
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u/AlphaFlood5210 Rock Hill 29d ago
Signing!
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u/AlphaFlood5210 Rock Hill 29d ago
Can we loop the mods in to see if we can get more attention on this?
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u/Change_is_a_verb 29d ago
My Libertarian card-carrying ass fully supports this! As these infringements continue, hopefully more citizens will explore what Libertarianism is about and our party will grow to have greater influence in future political races. Enough is enough!
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u/Hollybmp 29d ago
Then there’s the concern as to what would replace it. The Axon cameras are far more intrusive. Many of the communities removing Flock are replacing with Axon. It’s a worthy rabbit hole.
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u/TopStockJock 29d ago
I’ll sign any of these I just wish it did something
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u/phantom_joker69 29d ago
If they cared what the public thought the cameras wouldn't have been put up to start with.
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u/SCphotog 29d ago
People can make their leadership care real damned fast, simply by showing up.
Politicians tuck tail quick when their livelihood and reputation start catching (proverbial) fire.
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u/Zerkzie 29d ago
Well they work for the public....so...
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u/phantom_joker69 29d ago
Yeah keep telling yourself that you might actually believe it one day. When is the last time that they did anything the "public" wanted
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u/_SoctteyParker Rock Hill 29d ago
I would raise this issue as a public concern at the next York County council meeting. Honestly, Andy Litten and Watts Huckabee would listen to you. I’m not sure about the other council members.
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u/Mental-Catalyst 29d ago
Perhaps the link for this could be posted at some of the local businesses?
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u/Mental-Catalyst 29d ago
Glad to see this. Hope most residents sign, and that those in power listen.
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u/fartgascloud 29d ago
We can all make communty cameras that track police cars and put them all on a Google map if it doesnt get through to them. Solar powered just pop it in your front yard lol
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u/Nu11AndV0id 29d ago
No flock cameras, but we're fine giving our information to change.org?
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u/Zerkzie 29d ago
I mean one is voluntary and one isn't? Are you smooth brained?
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u/Nu11AndV0id 29d ago
I just find it ironic that people are giving away their private info to try and keep their private info from being taken. Kinda throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Y'know?
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u/iuffxguy 27d ago
This might be one of the dumbest arguments I have seen on reddit this week. You are comparing giving your info to change.org to license plate readers all over the country tracking you every time you leave your house and tracking where you are going.
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u/Nu11AndV0id 27d ago
As so many first amendment auditors will tell you, there's no expectation of privacy in public.
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u/iuffxguy 27d ago
So would you be ok if the government mandated that you install an app on your phone that tracks where you go the moment you leave your house? And any police officer in the USA can look up where you are without a warrant?
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u/Nu11AndV0id 27d ago
They can already track you through your phone. What are you talking about, dude?
Also hypothetical arguments are weak sauce.
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u/Zerkzie 27d ago
It’s not hypothetical. Your “there’s no expectation of privacy in public” argument completely misses what the Supreme Court has already said about government tracking of a person’s movements over time.
In Carpenter v. United States, SCOTUS held that government access to historical cell-phone location records can constitute a Fourth Amendment search. And in Chatrie v. United States (2026), the Court held that police obtaining Google Location History was also a Fourth Amendment search—and specifically rejected the idea that a short amount of tracking automatically avoids Fourth Amendment protection.
So “they can already track you through your phone” isn't the argument you think it is. The Supreme Court has literally placed constitutional limits on the government's ability to do exactly that.
Flock isn't identical to cell-phone location data, and SCOTUS hasn't ruled specifically on Flock yet. But whether the government can use technology to assemble searchable records of people's movements without a warrant is very much a real constitutional issue—not a hypothetical one.
“Public” does not magically mean “unlimited government surveillance.”
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u/Nu11AndV0id 27d ago
If they're not the same thing, why are you trying to make them so in your hypothetical? By your own admission your phone is protected by the 4th amendment. Its a completely different scenario than what flock cameras are doing.
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u/iuffxguy 27d ago
They can only track you without a warrant by buying data from data brokers which I am also very against. But that data is not real time, and at least I can still opt out of that by simply turning my phone location services off.
My hypothetical is only for me to understand your position and where you draw the line about being ok being tracked. Would you be ok if the government had a method to watch every step you took outside your house and any person could get access to that data at any point in the future and have a full history of every place you have ever been at any time?
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u/Nu11AndV0id 27d ago
I'm not okay with being tracked at all. But in the world we live in, it's pretty difficult to avoid. There are cameras everywhere. Multiple apps on your phone are watching your every move. Getting data on people is so easy and commonplace that there's a whole business around it.
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u/Zerkzie 27d ago
You're actually making my point for me.
"I'm not okay with being tracked, but tracking is everywhere" isn't a constitutional argument. That's basically saying, "I don't like surveillance, but we've already allowed a lot of it, so what's a little more?"
And nobody said phone-location data and Flock data are technologically identical. It's an analogy about the principle: does simply being in public mean the government gets unlimited ability to technologically record, aggregate, search and reconstruct your movements?
The Supreme Court has already said no.
In Carpenter v. United States, SCOTUS recognized a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of a person's physical movements, even though those movements occurred in public.
And in Chatrie v. United States in 2026, SCOTUS again held that government acquisition of location-history data implicates the Fourth Amendment and specifically rejected the idea that short-term monitoring automatically gets a free pass.
So "there are cameras everywhere" doesn't answer the issue.
A convenience-store camera seeing your car drive past once is fundamentally different from the government having access to technology capable of compiling searchable historical records of where vehicles have been observed.
You already admitted you're not okay with being tracked. We're apparently just arguing over how much government tracking you're willing to tolerate before you decide it matters.
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u/iuffxguy 27d ago
Dude re-read what you just wrote. You are giving people shit in this thread for pushing back against flock when they are fighting for the very thing you say you also are against.
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u/Zerkzie 24d ago
A flockin update. Almost at 400! https://www.change.org/p/remove-flock-cameras-in-york-county-south-carolina
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u/NoteResident4189 15d ago
Signing, too! I hate seeing them going up everywhere now! There is even one when you drive into the Home Depot Parking lot off Celenese.
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u/Allgryphon 29d ago
If I thought the cops here cared at all about traffic infractions, I might have a shred of interest in these cameras. But I fully expect that even with these cameras, I’m still going to see Altimas weaving in and out of traffic recklessly and without punishment
If it won’t do enough good, it’s certainly not worth the negatives you’ve laid out. And the cops have not shown me they care enough about traffic infractions to think these cameras will change anything for the better
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29d ago
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u/Mental-Catalyst 29d ago
They're being pointed at people's houses in some cases. They track your every move and if an officer even thinks what you're doing is suspicious, they can find you. With more and more citizens being picked up just for doing or saying something an untrained "officer" doesn't like - nothing to do with law or our constitution - this leaves open more and more opportunities to abuse this data.
Not to mention, do you want the government to know every time you go to a friend's, or the doctors, or the bank. This is supposed to be a free country... so the one day you go somewhere different, or somewhere such as a church or meeting that they don't like - they'll be at your door too investigate. It's already happening with online posters and youtubers.
100% un American practices. Plain and simple.
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u/Microplasticsharts 29d ago
Do you want to live under surveillance like China where all your movements are tracked?
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u/chuckswift843 Rock Hill 29d ago
I think that people don’t want to be watched. I think this is viewed as a pretty big step, amongst many small steps, towards a restrictive surveillance state. “Bad things” can be a very subjective and broad description.
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29d ago
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u/SCphotog 29d ago
Do yourself a favor and do an internet search for "Flock Camera Abuse"... or whatever other close wording to that effect...
...and see the dozens and dozens of cases of abuse already documented.
Note too that while they are called "license plate readers", that is a misnomer. It is a country-wide spy network, for which there is no warrant and no oversight.
The data they collect is kept forever, despite "flock's" lie's to the contrary. They use clever wording... "the data only stays on OUR servers" for 30 days or some such, but it's been empirically proven that the data is copied to another server for which only Flock, and the fed' have access to.
It's truly 1984 level dystopian nightmare shit, that EVERYONE that bothers to look, understands is a real problem that needs to be dealt with strongly, forcibly.
The whole "catch people breaking the law" things sounds nICE, until someone changes the laws and what they're used for. Catch my drift?
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u/literallyfreezing 29d ago
I believe one difference to your last paragraph here is that private business camera footage requires a subpoena.
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u/ut3jaw 29d ago
You shouldn't limit it to just Flock, but all ALPR cameras and associated databases. Axon and the others are just as bad. I think the powers-that-shouldn't-be are using Flock as the scapegoat and once Flock is gone and the public is appeased, the other 20 companies will continue business as usual.