One Year Later: Why Scarsdale Residents Were Right to Question Flock

(This is the opinion of Scarsdale10583 site founder Joanne Wallenstein)

It’s been a little over a year since the Mayor of Scarsdale announced that a highly controversial contract with Flock Safety had been postponed.

The seven-year, $1.8 million contract included the purchase and installation of license plate readers, cameras and a drone. The contract was approved by the Village Board in April 2025, when a last minute resolution was added to the meeting agenda before the meeting, without any public review.

After a public outcry, and a petition signed by over 400 residents, the contract was put on hold.

In the intervening year, Flock Safety has continued to expand, and so has the movement against it.

On August 10, the New York Times reported, “Flock’s 120,000 cameras can be found alongside roads in every state but Alaska, allowing law enforcement officers to see within seconds where a car might be, and where it has been. The company has contracts with 7,000 law enforcement agencies, which is 40 percent of all departments in the United States.”

At the same time, a movement to block the cameras has also gone national. Why? People fear that police can use the data to track their movements without a search warrant and use the data collected by the cameras to arrest immigrants, track women crossing state lines for an abortion and collect information about our movements without a court order. They say that the web of interstate data held by Flock Safety violates individuals’ civil liberties.

Even conservative commentator Tucker Carlson has spoken out about the surveillance, saying, “he had only recently become aware of the scale of Flock’s network after visiting (the app) DeFlock, which had left him “horrified.” He said he was surprised such an expansive surveillance system had grown with so little public attention.”

He was referring to an app called DeFlock created in 2024 to allow users to track and report the location of Flock cameras. It has now been downloaded 350,000 times.

And people are doing more than reporting the locations of the cameras. In some cities, the cameras are being vandalized. All across the country there are reports of vandalism to the cameras, and the critics are non-partisan. In Texas, the cameras were opposed by both liberals and conservatives.

On August 12, 2026, the Suffolk Times reported that cameras in Southold and Peconic New York were splattered with paint and turned so that they could not track the traffic.

On August 6, police in Summit ,Colorado reported the 4 of the cities 30 Flock cameras have been disconnected from wires and turned away from traffic.

The Des Moines Register reports similar destruction in Iowa

And these are only a few of the scores of reports of vandalism to Flock cameras from Florida, to Rhode Island and Troy New York.

What can we learn from recent history?

The Flock resolution in Scarsdale caught many by surprise. Residents had not heard of the company and did not realize that the contract for “Police Technology” was actually a contract for “Police Surveillance.”

So the first lesson is to stay informed. Though it’s a daunting task these days, keep up on both local and national news and read the agendas for the Scarsdale Village and Scarsdale School Boards. You’ll find they contain lots of interesting facts. I’ve heard too many people tell me they are “taking a break” from the news, or that they feel that they have no impact. Don’t let yourself off the hook.

Second, it’s up to you to speak up to protect your rights. In Scarsdale, it’s safe to say that it was the outcry from residents that brought the Flock Safety proposal to a halt. Stay informed and use your voice to advocate for what you believe is right.

Last, if you witness a violation of civil rights, report it. Just last summer a Scarsdale resident was taken away by ICE when she went to Manhattan for a routine visa hearing. The efforts of her neighbors in Scarsdale were ultimately pivotal in securing her release from a detention facility in Louisiana.

A parting thought. Last week Congressman George Latimer visited a detention facility in Newark, NJ where 800 immigrants are being held. The detainees, many who have lived in the United States for years, worked and paid taxes, were rounded up by masked ICE agents. They now sit in limbo, separated from their homes and families.

Commenting on what he saw, Latimer offered a cautionary warning to us all. He said, “One day they decide that immigrants are the target – and they round them up without warning. But the next time the target could be you. You could say something that the authorities don’t like or simply be part of a targeted group.”

He urged everyone to stay informed and vigilant in an age where our civil rights are being challenged.