About DeFlock Fox Cities

What We Do

DeFlock Fox Cities is a grassroots surveillance accountability project documenting the expansion of automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology across the Fox Valley — and pushing back.

We map cameras. We file public records requests. We analyze the data agencies don't volunteer. We show up at city council meetings. And we make sure Fox Valley residents know what's watching them.

What Is a Flock Safety Camera?

Flock Safety sells a network of roadside cameras that automatically photograph every passing vehicle, recording your license plate, make, model, color, and identifying features — bumper stickers, roof racks, even dents. Every capture is timestamped and geolocated. According to Flock Safety's own product documentation, the company performs over 20 billion vehicle scans per month across more than 4,800 agencies nationwide.

That data doesn't just stay local. Through Flock's National Lookup feature, any agency on the network can query your location history across cameras nationwide. No warrant required. No notification to you. The ACLU of Massachusetts documented how this works in practice: a department simply clicks "Enable National Lookup" and gains the ability to search cameras across thousands of jurisdictions — and in exchange, shares its own data with those same agencies nationwide.

In Wisconsin, there is no state law limiting how long this data is kept, who can access it, or what justification officers must provide to run a search. Agencies set their own rules — or none at all.

The Fox Valley Is One of Wisconsin's Most Surveilled Regions

A Wisconsin Examiner investigation analyzing Flock audit data found that at least 221 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies used the system between January and May 2025 alone. The Fox Valley accounts for a disproportionate share of that activity. At least 25 law enforcement agencies across Outagamie, Winnebago, Calumet, Brown, and Fond du Lac counties actively use Flock cameras.

Brown County Sheriff's Office logged over 13,000 searches in just five months — second in the state only to Milwaukee, a city eight times its size. Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Office ranked fourth statewide with nearly 12,000 searches during the same period.

Most of these cameras were installed without public hearings, community input, or council votes. Residents had no idea the network existed.

Until now.

The Federal Access Problem

The Flock network doesn't just connect local agencies to each other. Federal immigration enforcement has accessed local camera data through what NPR documented as a pattern of local officers conducting searches on behalf of federal agencies, logging terms like "ICE" or "immigration" as the reason. An investigation by 404 Media and subsequent reporting found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had direct access to over 80,000 Flock cameras nationwide through "pilot programs" — access that, in many cases, local agencies didn't even know they'd granted.

Flock acknowledged the pilot programs and says they have since ended. But backdoor access — local officers running searches on behalf of federal agencies — continues through the national lookup network. Wisconsin has no law prohibiting it.

The Misuse Problem Is Not Hypothetical

In October 2025, Menasha Police Officer Cristian Morales used Flock Safety to run searches on his ex-girlfriend's vehicle from his personal phone, while off duty, at home. No internal audit caught it. No monitoring system flagged it. According to the criminal complaint, the victim had to report the misuse herself — to a different police department.

Morales was arrested January 7, 2026 and charged January 9 with one count of Misconduct in Office — a Class I felony carrying up to 3.5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He pleaded not guilty February 10, 2026. The case is pending.

He is not alone. A March 2026 Wisconsin Examiner investigation found four Wisconsin officers now face legal consequences for Flock misuse — in Milwaukee, Menasha, Greenfield, and Kenosha County. In each case, the system's own safeguards failed to detect the abuse. Victims and outside agencies caught it instead.

This is what we mean when we say oversight is broken.

What We're Doing About It

Mapping the network. We're building the first comprehensive public map of Flock camera locations across the Fox Valley, crowdsourced from public records, news reports, and tips from residents.

Filing FOIA requests. We request audit logs, search data, access records, and contract documents from Fox Valley agencies. When we get them, we publish what we find.

Attending council meetings. City councils have the power to reject contracts, demand audits, and set real oversight requirements. We show up, and we help residents show up too.

Building the record. Every search log, every contract dollar, every federal agency access — documented and public. Accountability starts with knowing the facts.

Who We Are

DeFlock Fox Cities is run by one person using a pen name, operating under the same model as DeFlock Dane — the grassroots project that helped end Verona's Flock contract and triggered a Dane County defunding resolution, all without a formal organization, budget, or public identity.

We are not affiliated with any law enforcement agency, political party, or corporation. We receive no funding from Flock Safety or any surveillance vendor.

We believe public safety and civil liberties are not in conflict. We believe surveillance that operates without transparency, oversight, or community consent is not safety — it's control.

What You Can Do

See a camera? Report it. We're crowdsourcing locations across the Fox Valley. Every dot on the map is a data point the public deserves to see.

Have a tip? If you work in law enforcement, local government, or have information about Flock deployments in the Fox Valley, we want to hear from you. All tips are confidential.

Want to get involved? Sign up for our newsletter. Use our public comment templates before your city council votes. Share this site with your neighbors.

Contact: deflock.foxcities@protonmail.com

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