The cameras, which use AI to constantly record and monitor people in the city, were installed this year by the city without the knowledge of the citizens or aldermen. This is part of a disturbing trend across the country, where local governments are plugging citizens in to Flock’s AI surveillance network without telling them (https://thedailybs.com/2025/11/22/flock-cameras-are-invading-and-coming-to-a-city-near-you/). The cameras are promoted as a way to help police solve crimes. On the face of it, that sounds good. But in this case, most people feel that the proffered cure is worse than the disease.
Across the country, Flock cameras and similar technologies are facing constitutional and popular challenges. (https://truthout.org/articles/a-vast-camera-system-now-feeds-information-to-police-on-drivers-across-the-us/) This is in part because they are claimed to be a violation of the spirit and letter of the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. The Amendment states that
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Courts have ruled that this protection extends to vehicles as well—although that right is routinely violated by police (https://proceedings.nyumootcourt.org/2023/10/an-exception-that-swallows-the-rule-limiting-the-automobile-exception-to-prohibit-warrantless-searches-of-electronic-data-in-cars/). Organizations across the US, from local grassroots (https://techplanet.today/post/alprwatch-the-grassroots-movement-fighting-mass-surveillance-in-your-neighborhood) to the ACLU (https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup) are pushing back against the Flock camera surveillance. They claim that constant and omnipresent recording and AI monitoring of personal information such as license plate numbers, as well as visible passengers, contents of vehicles, and location and time, can hardly be considered reasonable—and by definition, it does not have probable cause.
Citizens of Adrian are particularly disturbed because these cameras were installed in their city without the knowledge of the citizens that are paying for them, or their representatives the aldermen. Even more disturbingly, at the alderman board meeting on 8 December, false information about the Flock cameras was provided to the aldermen when they questioned the technology (https://batescountynewswire.blogspot.com/2025/12/flock-camera-concerns-top-adrian.html). The Adrian police and City Administrator Ryan Wescote told the aldermen (as they were no doubt told by the Flock corporation) that the information is secure, and is only shared if the city wishes it to be. This is not true. All information recorded by the cameras becomes part of the public record—meaning that anyone can request and receive anything the cameras record, under the Freedom of Information Act and Missouri Sunshine Law (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/washington-court-rules-data-captured-flock-safety-cameras-are-public-records).
I personally was able to obtain Flock camera records from the city of Adrian. In addition to photographs of the cars, there is a convenient AI summary of the plate number, license state, date and time the photo was taken, car make, body type, color, extra identifiers like racks and stickers, and latitude and longitude. This is a lot of information, and it is certainly not secure. Not only is it available to anyone who requests it, there have also been instances of hackers using stolen police logins to access Flock camera information (https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/03/lawmakers-say-stolen-police-logins-are-exposing-flock-surveillance-cameras-to-hackers/).
Some citizens of Adrian feel that promises from the city that the information will be handled responsibly ring hollow. After all, they bypassed the citizens and aldermen of Adrian to install the Flock AI monitoring system, at their expense, without their knowledge or consent. There are no safeguards to stop the city from sharing citizen’s personal information with outside agencies, as has happened thousands of times in other cities that use Flock cameras (https://lookout.co/anti-flock-group-finds-that-state-agencies-accessed-scpd-camera-data-thousands-of-times-on-feds-behalf-since-mid-2024/story). Many feel that the city of Adrian’s clandestine installation of the cameras demonstrates that they are willing to betray the trust of the people and subvert principles of good governance to collaborate with Big Business and Big Tech.
Furthermore, the story told by the Adrian police doesn’t add up. In the 8 December meeting they claimed that the Flock camera system would only be used to identify and apprehend perpetrators after a crime has taken place, but in the same meeting they said that the system had identified the presence of convicted sex offenders (https://batescountynewswire.blogspot.com/2025/12/flock-camera-concerns-top-adrian.html). But sex offenders are already required to register with police (making the Flock camera irrelevant), and having committed a crime in the past and paid the debt to society is not the same thing as committing a crime in the present. Despite that, their presence was being tracked by the police—something the police assured the Adrian aldermen they were not doing. This is especially concerning since police across the nation have been using Flock cameras to stalk victims (https://www.kwch.com/2022/11/01/ff12-kechi-officer-stalking-incident-prompts-concerns-about-wpd-flock-technology/), harass law-abiding citizens (https://lookout.co/georgia-police-chief-arrested-for-using-flock-cameras-for-stalking-and-harassment-searched-capitola-data-earlier-this-year/story), spy on ex-girlfriends, (https://www.yahoo.com/news/kansas-police-chief-used-flock-093300946.html), and sell the information gathered by Flock for personal profit (https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/fulton-county/sandy-springs-police-officer-terminated-after-allegedly-using-citys-flock-cameras-personal-gain/FXWATJXJDRCFJKEHUOAHGLIE2U/).
A local mother who lives near Adrian (and requested to remain anonymous due to fear of police retribution) said “I’m not going into Adrian anymore. I feel bad, because I love eating at Byrd’s Pecan Delights, El Caballo Dos, and The Wine Journal. I want to keep giving them business. But I don’t feel safe while I’m being constantly recorded and monitored. What if I do something the police don’t like? They could see everywhere I’ve been and everything I’ve done, and then find out where I live. No, thank you!”
She’s not alone. A US Air Force veteran who lives in Adrian (who also wanted to remain anonymous) said “I left California because of [expletive] like this. I can’t believe it’s here in a small town in Missouri. I came here to escape from big government and big tech….When people become obsessed with safety, they lose freedom. The Constitution doesn’t say anything about a right to be protected from crime—it says a lot about the right to be free from government searches and overreach.”
In response to similar concerns voiced by everyday Americans, city governments from coast to coast have acted to remove their AI Flock surveillance cameras (https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/cities-fighting-back-against-law-011500912.html). There’s another Adrian aldermen meeting coming up in January. Hopefully, the aldermen will join representatives across the nation and demand the removal of the Flock AI surveillance system that is targeting their constituents.
- Jeff Perry, Adrian MO
