FLOCK Cameras are Invading – Coming Soon to a City Near You

by admin | Nov 20, 2025 | Arizona, News and Updates

Don’t you want to live in a crime-free utopia? Wouldn’t allowing the government to track our every move, solve all our problems? Local authorities seem to think so, and they have the perfect tool to usher in mass surveillance in your city: Flock cameras. Flock Safety is one of the main manufacturers of Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) that have been quietly taking over cities and have already infiltrated nearly every state. These cameras monitor cars and even pedestrians constantly, logging minute details about every vehicle that passes, storing the data in Flock’s database, and feeding it into an AI platform with the capability of stitching together elaborate travel patterns. No court-issued warrant is required – not even public consent – creating massive privacy concerns for residents who often don’t know they are being watched until these cameras have saturated their community.  

According to Flock’s own website, they cover 49 states, over 5,000 communities, partner with more than 4,800 law enforcement agencies, and read upwards of 20 billion license plates per month. Though law enforcement agencies are one of the primary users of these devices stated to reduce crime, cities, businesses, and even HOAs are also deploying them in residential areas. 

You might think, “We don’t have these in our town.” But sometimes these cameras show up without public approval. That was the case in Sedona where the police department partnered with Flock and quietly set up 11 cameras around the city without notifying the city council. Once the council found out, they held a public meeting, heard residents’ concerns, and ultimately terminated the contract and removed every camera. 

City of Flagstaff too has seen controversy over whether to renew their Flock contract for 36 ALPRs. Their council recently delayed a vote until they could get more public feedback and revisit their contract terms with Flock. The Town of Prescott Valley, AZ has 101 cameras. Tolleson, AZ has 77. Scottsdale, AZ uses dozens of Flock cameras and recently voted to remove specific references to license plate readers, photo radar, and AI technologies from its 2026 Legislative Agenda. The fight is ongoing across the state. 

Casa Grande, Arizona in Pinal County, recently approved a 10-year contract with Flock totaling $10 million for 100 ALPRs, 100 pan-tilt-zoom cameras, 10 video cameras, a gunshot detection system, and additional surveillance devices. With 22 ALPRs already operating and 100 more on the way, no one will be cruising around Casa Grande without the government’s careful observation. Yet the Casa Grande police chief brushes off privacy concerns, saying: “I know people are worried about Big Brother… But if they’re calling or emailing with these concerns on their phone, that phone is capturing a thousand times more information than Flock will.” In other words, you’re already being tracked, so what’s a little more? 

While Arizona is home to some of the most Flock-saturated cities in the country, the problem stretches far beyond our borders.  

In Norfolk, Virginia, for example, 176 Flock cameras blanket the city. In a recent lawsuit, two Norfolk residents discovered their locations had been logged hundreds of times in less than five months: one was tracked 526 times, the other 849. These are ordinary citizens whose movements were recorded and stored for 30 days.   

Oakland, CA owns 293 cameras.  Denver, CO has over 100. McDonough, GA has 60. And the list keeps growing. If you want to know whether your city already uses Flock cameras, the website deflock.me shows a map of nearly 55,000 ALPRs worldwide and is growing every day, though this only lists a fraction of what is out there (Flock has over 84,000 ALPRs in the United States alone). Turns out it is harder to track the tracker, and there is no legal requirement that these governments provide a transparent database of when and where you are being surveilled.  

If your city doesn’t have them yet, the city next door does. Because Flock freely shares data across jurisdictions, your information can cross state lines and land in the hands of any law enforcement agency or private company connected to the network. Many jurisdictions (including the Town of Prescott Valley) have actively sought private residences and businesses to connect their camera systems into their Flock surveillance systems – which given enough participation by private surveillance systems and Flock’s emerging use of drones would leave few places outside of government’s voyeurism. Flock boasts this integrated network as “coverage that never sleeps,” an eerie and disquieting promise. 

Which is probably why people and groups that span the political spectrum oppose these ALPRs en masse.  American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) oppose the surveillance of “immigrants, transgender people, Black and Brown people” while Institute for Justice points out having a government log every trip to church and the gun store is likely to make conservatives squeamish. IJ has been involved in multiple lawsuits (including the above-mentioned in Norfolk) to protect against the threat these cameras pose to “people’s privacy, security, and freedom of movement.” 

Maybe you’re like the Casa Grande police chief who insists these license plate readers are no different from tech companies tracking your cellphone. But the difference is, Flock monitors your movement constantly, often without your knowledge, and always without your consent. You can turn off your phone. You can’t turn off a camera mounted on a pole. Every car you drive and every route you take is automatically logged, creating a permanent record you never agreed to. 

If Flock isn’t in your city yet, they’re probably on their way. Remind your council members that these cameras don’t belong anywhere near your neighborhood and that you didn’t sign up for 24/7 government monitoring.  

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SRP’s Plan to Trade Coal Generation for Gas will only Accelerate Green Scam Rate Hikes 

by admin | Nov 13, 2025 | Arizona, News and Updates

Two months ago, Arizona’s monopoly utilities and their political allies were patting themselves on the back about the expansion and development of a couple of new natural gas projects that they claim will help the Grand Canyon state keep up with growing energy demand.  

On the surface, an announcement of new projects like the Transwestern Expansion should have been great news for Arizona ratepayers. Our state is in desperate need of more reliable, dispatchable power; especially after years of reckless green new deal investments that have raised costs and reduced reliability.  

But sadly, it turns out that SRP’s enthusiasm for gas isn’t about expanding baseload power on the grid after all. The new gas capacity is instead being used to replace existing coal power generation that SRP has pledged to shut down in Arizona. All to meet ridiculous self-imposed carbon reduction goals and climate commitments that should have been junked a long time ago. 

New Gas Capacity being Wasted to Shut down Coal 

Last week, the SRP’s Board of Directors held a meeting and voted to convert the Springerville Generating Station from coal to natural gas by the early 2030s. That follows an earlier vote to repower the Coronado Generating Station (CGS) near St. Johns, retool it for gas by 2029, and cease burning coal entirely by 2032. It is very likely that by the time these two plants have been decommissioned, SRP won’t have any coal generation left in their portfolio, as the 527MW they get from Craig Generating, Four Corners, and Hayden Generating are all slated to be decommissioned by 2031 as well. The evaporation of a total of 2,600MW of coal generation in less than a decade.  

SRP calls these decisions the “lowest-cost option” to preserve 400MW and 762 MW, respectively, of capacity, while simultaneously bragging that it will “support its carbon-reduction goals and net-zero vision”. In reality, it demonstrates that they still believe that costly and unreliable solar, wind, and battery storage are the future to meet energy demands.  

Nuclear not riding to the Rescue 

Since we aren’t getting any meaningful bump in baseload power capacity from these bait-and-switch plant conversions from coal to natural gas, perhaps SRP is looking at nuclear to meet our significant future energy needs.  

The good news is that SRP and our other major utilities have issued rosy press releases about future partnerships and grant-funded studies to explore small modular reactors (SMRs).  

The bad news: not a single nuclear plant is expected to come online before the 2040’s! Talk of expanded nuclear power from our monopoly utilities isn’t a plan; it’s a prayer. 

Green Scam All the Way Down 

So, if SRP’s nuclear talk is nothing more than fan fiction, and if they are chewing up all of our natural gas capacity to shut down coal, how are they going to meet future energy demand?  

Two words: Green Scam. 

Just like APS and TEP, SRP is pouring billions into solar and battery projects that must be massively overbuilt to replace the dispatchable energy coal once provided.  

Take the Copper Crossing expansion in Pinal County: an expensive 55-MW solar field paired with 65 MW of battery storage — enough to power about 14,000 homes for only four hours. To meet evening demand, SRP would need to triple that capacity, all while still depending on natural gas for backup.  

Or the largest battery storage project in the state of Arizona that went live last year – the Sonoran Solar Energy Center – with its 260MW of solar generation and 1 GW of battery storage just south of Buckeye. This “asset” was not just about meeting SRP’s decarbonization goals – but Google’s too – as they stated, “Google’s current projections indicate these projects will help its Arizona operations reach at least 80% [carbon free energy] on an hourly basis by 2026.”  

And the list goes on. SRP customers aren’t getting large expansions of gas, coal or nuclear anytime soon; they’re getting expensive intermittent power that can’t stand on its own and will lead to endless double digit rate hikes. 

SRP Should Abandon Their Climate Commitments & Embrace the Trump Energy Agenda 

SRP has completely failed to recognize the moment. The political and energy landscape has shifted under their feet. We now have a president openly calling for America’s coal plants to stay open, and for new coals plants to be built.  

Meanwhile, Arizona is on the cusp of an energy demand explosion. New data centers and chip manufacturers to fuel the AI revolution – which everyone recognizes cannot feasibly be supplied by intermittent sources.   

And yet SRP is whistling past the graveyard, shutting down reliable generation and pretending nothing has changed. 

There is no excuse for shuttering any working generation asset — coal, gas, or otherwise — in the face of unprecedented growth, the collapse of the ESG financing scam, and complete national policy reversal. 

The path forward is obvious – SRP needs to abandon their net-zero crusade, keep the plants running, expand dispatchable capacity, and serve their customers with power they can afford, and that actually works. 

Help Protect Freedom in Arizona by Joining Our Grassroots Network

Arizona needs to have a unified voice promoting economic freedom and prosperity, and the Free Enterprise Club is committed to making that happen. But we can’t do it alone. We need YOU!

Join our FREE Grassroots Action List to stay up to date on the latest battles against big government and how YOU can help influence crucial bills at the Arizona State Legislature.