Wesley Jackson, a 20-year-old from Gerrardstown, West Virginia, is facing two felony charges after deputies say they caught him on camera cutting down Flock license plate readers in Monongalia County. He has pleaded not guilty. The internet, however, has a different idea – and roughly 20,000 people are willing to testify to it.

When a local news station posted about Jackson’s arrest on Facebook, the comment section transformed into something between a community character witness stand and improv comedy night. Strangers from across the country flooded in with alibis so heroic they’d make a Boy Scout blush.

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A critical Reddit comment about immigration enforcement can, four months later, bring plainclothes agents to a poster's door carrying a printout of the post — a scenario no longer hypothetical. According to the Wall Street Journal, ICE has built a funded, contractor-powered surveillance operation that monitors social media around the clock — not just for credible violence, but for speech that challenges the agency's mission. Since early 2025, DHS has fired off hundreds of administrative subpoenas to unmask anonymous users. The volume is unprecedented, and the targets are often ordinary people.

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As concerns over law enforcement’s use of Flock Safety cameras intensify, there has been an increasing number of reports about police officers misusing the surveillance system for personal purposes.

Officers all across the country have exploited the company's automated license plate reader cameras to track romantic partners or acquaintances in recent months. Despite claims that the cameras help police find and apprehend criminals, this new trend has raised even more complaints and criticisms about law enforcement agencies using the cameras with little to no oversight.

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A half-dozen employees with the Savannah Police Department are under investigation for possibly misusing the city's Flock camera system, Mayor Van Johnson says.

In a Facebook post on Friday, the mayor said that the four officers and two civilian employees have been placed on administrative leave. The department has referred the cases to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for an independent investigation to see whether charges will be filed. The six individuals are also facing potential disciplinary action, including termination.

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You probably didn’t know you’re being watched and videotaped by local police departments. I know I didn’t.

Chances are, if you’ve driven through the state, your car has been captured by a growing network of automated license-plate readers — creating “vehicle fingerprints” — that police use to solve crimes, track stolen cars and investigate cases.

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Michael Soyfer, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, calls it “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Arrests in Georgia for the misuse of Flock Safety's surveillance system by public officers continued to rise this week, climbing to at least 20 statewide. 

On Monday, Andrae Wright was arrested and charged for allegedly accessing the license plate reader system over 60 times between June 15 and July 5 while employed as an investigator with the Ogeechee Circuit District Attorney's Office northwest of Savannah, reports WSB-TV Atlanta. And on Friday, the Habersham County Sheriff's Office in north Georgia announced that Deputy Christian Brewer had been fired and arrested for allegedly misusing license plate data. The misuse, according to NowGeorgia.com, involved "an individual with whom Brewer had a personal relationship at the time."

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Over the last few months, people have cut down surveillance cameras owned by the company Flock Safety with an electric saw in upstate New York, thrown paint on them in Oakland, California, and rammed a truck into them in Idaho. One man in Florida sits in a lawn chair holding up a piece of cardboard on a pole to block the camera’s view. City governments have joined in by deactivating the cameras or canceling contracts with Flock in Fort Collins, Colorado; Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Knoxville, Tennessee; Syracuse, New York; and Walla Walla, Washington.

Flock sells its services as a crime-fighting tool, built on a network of cameras that record and analyze everything that passes by them. Law enforcement agencies that have contracts with Flock use its troves of observed license plate numbers and other vehicle data to track or reconstruct the movements of vehicles in criminal investigations.

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On Paul Robeson Boulevard in New Brunswick, a small camera mounted to a slim pole tracks every car that passes. Two blocks west, another watches Remsen Avenue. Three blocks farther, a third records a quiet street of two-story homes from its perch across from a neighborhood bakery.

They’re automated license plate readers — cameras that log the plate, make, model, and color of passing cars. 

Those three were made by Flock Safety, the country’s fastest-growing maker of the technology. But drive north to French Street and the cameras multiply, and become harder to identify. Once you start looking, you’ll notice dozens: CCTV bolted to utility poles, traffic cameras hanging over intersections, license plate readers tucked beside stoplights — a surveillance network that rarely draws a second glance.

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“Invasion of Privacy” or Essential Safety? Flock License Plate Cameras Spark Massive New Jersey Debatehttps://t.co/nvpRcuPOgt
New Jersey News, Privacy & Technology, Local Law Enforcement, Bergen County News, Public Safety

— the Ridgewood blog (@TRBNJNews) July 27, 2026