By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — The future of Flock Cameras in Kosciusko County appears to be hanging in the balance ahead of tonight’s County Council meeting.
Council is expected to hear a presentation from County Prosecutor Brad Voelz defending and explaining details of the program, which has been in use for several years.
Opposition to what some consider to be a surveillance system has grown across parts of the country and has become an issue in Kosciusko County in recent weeks.
Consider the following:
- Over the past week, more than a dozen communities in Wisconsin have suspended their contracts with Flock Safety, the company behind Flock’s automated license plate readers, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.
- News outlets in Fort Wayne reported Wednesday that Noble County has decided to shut down its Flock cameras, mainly because of vandalism. Noble County officials say six cameras have been damaged recently.
- Earlier this month, Fort Wayne Police announced it would take down its cameras.
- In Warsaw, a change.org petition posted by a resident critical of Flock Cameras has attracted support from more than 1,000 people.
Several Kosciusko County Council members have expressed concerns about the program, marking a rare instance where some of the conservative, all-Republican Council have come out in opposition to a local law enforcement initiative.
Former County Commissioner Brad Jackson said he’s been talking to local, state, and federal officials about the issue and said he thinks more regulations may well eventually be set by Congress.
Jackson said policymakers have struggled to keep up with the emerging technology in ways that could rein in some concerns.
In the meantime, he said he thinks efforts to shut down Flock Cameras in Kosciusko County have gained momentum.
“People are just realizing and waking up to that, hey, we live in a free country, and we don’t need to be tracked,” Jackson said.
He said it boils down to personal freedom.
“I just don’t like them knowing your every movement. It’s not the government’s business,” he said. “It’s very Orwellian. I mean, George Orwell was almost prophetic in what he wrote.”
Jackson said he realizes the cameras are a good tool for police but thinks the use of such devices violates privacy rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
“You look at it, and you say, what’s the good that comes from it, what’s the bad that comes from it? I just feel the bad outweighs the good in the fact that they’re tracking vehicles,” Jackson said. “They call them license plate readers, but you can see more than the license plates.”
Tonight’s meeting comes one week after law enforcement and Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose released 20 pages of documents supporting the use of Flock Cameras.
Travis McConnell, a local attorney who earlier this week questioned details of a 2023 ordinance by the county commission involving a Flock Camera donation fund, said he thinks the release of information last week may have backfired in terms of public opinion.
Opponents of the devices, he said, find it an “odd hill to die on” for the sake of “defending mass surveillance of Americans.”
More than 30 cameras have been installed in Kosciusko County.
Officials said nearly one-third of those have been damaged.
Tonight’s meeting starts at 6 p.m. at the county courthouse.
