Your Tax Dollars Are Watching You—And Now You Can Watch Back

A judge just ruled Flock surveillance images are public records. Here’s why that matters when cops use them to stalk.

Nov 13, 2025

In a quiet courtroom in Washington State last week, Judge Elizabeth Neidzwski made a ruling that should send shockwaves through every municipality using automated surveillance technology: Flock camera images are public records that can be requested by anyone.

Not “law enforcement sensitive.” Not “investigative materials.” Not protected from disclosure. Public records. Period.

Why does this matter? Because right now, thousands of communities across America have installed these AI-powered license plate readers—paid for with your tax dollars—creating a massive surveillance dragnet that tracks where you drive, when you drive, and who you drive with. And until now, that data has largely been locked away from the very citizens funding it.

When The Watchers Become The Stalkers

But there’s an even darker reason this transparency matters. While Flock Safety markets its cameras as crime-fighting tools, the system has been repeatedly abused by the very officers sworn to protect us.

Kansas Police Chief Lee Nygaard didn’t use Flock cameras to catch criminals. Over four months in 2023, he used them to stalk his ex-girlfriend—164 times. He also tracked her new boyfriend’s vehicle 64 times. When investigators looked at his search reasons, they found fabricated justifications: “suspicious,” “missing child,” “drug investigation,” “narcotics investigation.” All lies. All to track a woman who had left him.

He lost his police certification. He got probation. But he faced no criminal charges.

Victor Heiar, a Kechi, Kansas lieutenant, used Wichita Police Department’s Flock system to track his estranged wife from September 23 to October 23, 2022. When caught, the victim told detectives she felt “violated, and had no source of privacy, and unsafe.” Heiar later texted her: “You were spotted on meridian.”

How did he know? Taxpayer-funded surveillance cameras that were supposed to catch criminals, not enable domestic stalking.

Jamarus Brown, an Orange City, Florida officer, ran his ex-girlfriend’s license plate—along with her mother’s and brother’s plates—more than 100 times between April and November 2024. When confronted, he admitted: “It was dumb as hell on my end, emotions flowing, mind going.”

Dumb? Try criminal. He was charged with stalking and unauthorized access to computer systems.

What Judge Neidzwski Got Right

Back to that Washington courtroom. Judge Neidzwski didn’t just say Flock images were public records—she laid out a framework that should apply to every surveillance system in America:

Images are created to further a governmental purpose (solving crimes, supposedly)
They’re funded by taxpayers (your money bought them)
An agency doesn’t have to possess a record for it to be subject to public records law (can’t dodge responsibility by letting Flock “own” the data)

Translation: If it’s paid for with public money and used for a public purpose, the public has a right to see it.

The 30-Day Delete Problem

Despite this landmark ruling, the actual records requested in the Washington case won’t be released. Why? The cities automatically deleted them after 30 days—which is standard Flock policy.

Think about that for a moment. A surveillance system that captures 6-12 timestamped images of every vehicle that passes by, creating a detailed database of citizens’ movements, and it all gets automatically deleted before anyone can verify how it’s being used.

What This Means For Municipal Accountability

We’ve seen cops steal, stalk and beat people with no accountability. But this ruling creates a powerful new tool for journalists, activists, and concerned citizens:

If your community has Flock cameras, you can now request:

How many searches have been conducted
What “reasons” officers gave for those searches
Which license plates were searched most frequently
Time and date stamps of surveillance captures
Audit logs of who accessed what data and when

This is critical because, as the Kansas cases show, the abuse isn’t always caught in real-time. Nygaard admitted his Flock abuse only when being investigated for unrelated misconduct. How many other officers are using these systems to stalk, harass, or intimidate with no oversight?

The Broader Surveillance Question

Flock operates in more than 1,400 cities nationwide. The company launched in 2017, and its growth has been explosive—particularly in smaller municipalities that lack the budget for traditional law enforcement technology but can swing a monthly subscription to Flock’s surveillance-as-a-service model.

Here’s what Flock won’t tell you in its sales pitch to your city council:

There are minimal state laws regulating these systems
The audit trails that supposedly catch abuse are only reviewed if someone gets suspicious
Officers can fabricate search reasons (”test,” “invest,” “123abv,” “****”—all real examples from the Heiar case)
Inter-agency access means one department’s cameras can be accessed by any subscribing agency

The Kansas Coalition for Open Government said it best: “The fact that the statute that authorizes its use in Kansas is not consistent with the other statutes in this country, there’s more possibility for abuse and we’re seeing that here.”

Your Move, Citizens

This Washington ruling won’t automatically apply to your state—but it should. If you live in a community with Flock cameras (check your city council minutes; they’re usually approved with minimal fanfare), here’s what you can do:

File a public records request for Flock data usage in your community
Ask your city council: What policies govern Flock usage? Who audits the searches? How often?
Demand legislation requiring strict oversight and audit trails
Request annual reports on camera effectiveness versus cost (Spoiler: Most cities can’t prove ROI)
Challenge automatic deletion policies that destroy records before citizens can review them

Because here’s the bottom line: You’re paying for this surveillance. You deserve to know how it’s being used—and abused.

Follow The Money

One final thought from someone who’s built municipal budgets and secured millions in funding: When a private company sells “crime-fighting technology” to cash-strapped communities on a subscription model, ask yourself who really benefits.

Is it the citizens being surveilled 24/7? Is it the victims of stalking by badge-wearing abusers? Or is it Flock Safety’s bottom line and the false sense of security sold to anxious city councils?

Judge Neidzwski just gave citizens a powerful tool. Use it.