Subject: Opposition to Continued Use and Expansion of Flock Safety License Plate Reader Cameras in Moore County

Dear Chairman Picerno and Members of the Board of Commissioners,

I am writing as a resident of Moore County to formally register my opposition to the Sheriff's Office's continued use, and any proposed expansion, of Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras in our county. I am asking the Board to halt further funding and installation of this camera network, to decline renewal of the current contract absent significant policy changes, and to commission an independent, public review of the program's costs, effectiveness, and privacy risks before any further commitment of county funds.

The scope of the program has grown quietly.
The Sheriff's Office currently owns 10 Flock cameras and has access to at least 23 additional cameras operated by municipalities across the county, with more installations planned by the Sheriff's Office, Aberdeen Police Department, and Pinehurst Police Department. By the Sheriff's Office's own account, 99% of vehicles captured by these cameras are never connected to any investigation, meaning the movements of nearly every driver in this county are logged, stored, and made searchable regardless of suspicion of wrongdoing (WRAL, Aug. 2026).

This is a Fourth Amendment and civil liberties concern, not a partisan one.
Residents packed two recent Board meetings, on August 4 and August 17, 2026, to raise these concerns directly, and the local "DeFlock Moore County" group has grown to more than 350 members asking the Board to remove the cameras (WRAL; Sandhills Sentinel). This is part of a much broader reckoning happening across our state: over a dozen North Carolina municipalities, including Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, and Fayetteville, are actively reconsidering their Flock contracts as part of a coordinated statewide week of action running August 16-22, 2026 (DeFlock NC Tracker). Moore County should not be an outlier that moves forward while its neighbors pull back.

The data does not stay local, and it does not stay with law enforcement's stated purpose.
Flock's networked system allows agencies to share and search data across jurisdictions and, in numerous documented cases nationwide, across state and federal lines without a warrant. Reporting by 404 Media, corroborated by the ACLU and the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, found more than 4,000 lookups by local and state police conducted on behalf of ICE for immigration enforcement, and separately documented that Customs and Border Protection gained direct access to Flock's backend covering more than 80,000 cameras nationwide through an undisclosed pilot program (404 Media, Aug. 2025; ACLU, Aug. 2025). These searches occurred despite Flock's own written policies prohibiting immigration-related use, which demonstrates that policy language alone does not prevent misuse once data exists in a searchable, cross-jurisdictional network.

Misuse is not hypothetical, including here in North Carolina.
A Mooresville, NC police officer was recently accused of using the Flock system to track her boyfriend's ex-wife, prompting other NC agencies to review whether they have had similar breaches (WCNC, Aug. 2026). A Southern Pines resident and former military intelligence analyst also raised cybersecurity concerns directly to our commissioners, warning that inadequate safeguards could put local service members and their families at risk (Star 102.5, Aug. 2026). These are exactly the kinds of harms that arise when a surveillance tool's user base and search justifications are broader than the narrow public-safety purpose used to sell it to the public.

The effectiveness claims driving this spending come almost entirely from Flock itself.
Flock's marketing cites figures such as a company-commissioned study claiming its cameras help "solve" 10% of reported crime nationally, and individual departments reporting large year-over-year crime drops. Independent journalists and researchers have flagged that several of these studies rely on Flock's own customer surveys, without control groups or independent replication, and involve authors employed by Flock itself. Before Moore County commits additional taxpayer funds to this program, the Board should require independently verified, Moore-County-specific data on case outcomes, not vendor-supplied national statistics, to justify the cost and the privacy trade-off.
Requested actions:
● Do not approve additional funding for new or expanded Flock camera installations at this time.
● Commission an independent, publicly released audit of camera usage, search logs, and outcomes over the life of the current contract before any renewal.
● Adopt a written, binding policy that permanently disables federal and out-of-state data sharing (including any "national lookup" feature), consistent with steps other jurisdictions have already taken.
● Shorten data retention to the minimum period necessary and require documented, auditable justification for every search.
● Hold a formal public hearing and vote on the program's future, rather than treating it as a routine budget line item.

Moore County residents deserve public safety tools that have been independently vetted and that come with enforceable guardrails against misuse and unauthorized data sharing. I urge the Board to pause this program until those guardrails exist and to make its decision-making process fully transparent to the public it serves.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I would appreciate a written response outlining the Board's position and any planned next steps.

Respectfully,

[Your Name]
[Your Address, City, NC ZIP]

Sources Cited
WRAL, "Moore County meeting on Flock cameras ends abruptly, residents push back on law enforcement use," August 2026 — moorecountync camera counts, 99% non-investigative capture, retention policy.
WRAL, "Privacy concerns: Moore County holding special meeting on Flock surveillance cameras," August 2026.
Sandhills Sentinel, "County hears concerns over Flock cameras," August 2026 — Aug. 4 Board of Commissioners meeting, public comments.
Sandhills News, "Moore County Commissioners schedule Aug. 17 work session on Flock public surveillance cameras," August 2026.
Star 102.5 (star1025fm.com), "Moore County Flock Cameras Draw Public Concerns," August 2026 — cybersecurity concerns raised by Southern Pines resident.
WCNC Charlotte, "Mooresville police showcase Flock camera system amid public scrutiny, officer arrests," August 2026 — officer misuse case.
DeFlock Wilmington/NC Tracker, "Flock Cameras in North Carolina: Town-by-Town Tracker," deflockilm.org, accessed August 2026 — statewide week of action, NC municipalities reconsidering contracts.
404 Media, "ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows," May 27, 2025.
404 Media, "CBP Had Access to More than 80,000 Flock AI Cameras Nationwide," August 26, 2025.
404 Media, "Flock Removes States From National Lookup Tool After ICE and Abortion Searches Revealed," June 25, 2025.
American Civil Liberties Union, "Flock's Aggressive Expansions Go Far Beyond Simple Driver Surveillance," aclu.org, August 18, 2025.
University of Washington Center for Human Rights, "Leaving the Door Wide Open: Flock Surveillance Systems Expose Washington Data to Immigration Enforcement," November 2025.
Electronic Frontier Foundation, Atlas of Surveillance, atlasofsurveillance.org — ALPR deployment documentation.