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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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.
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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!
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The Green New Scam got its start in Arizona two decades ago when a 5-0 Republican Commission (including then Republican Kris Mayes) adopted the Renewable Energy Standard and Tarriff Rules, or the REST Rules. Among other things, most significantly it ushered in the first “renewable” mandates in our state, forcing utilities to obtain at least 15% of their power from “renewables.” Ratepayers have been paying the costs (over $2 billion) ever since.
The REST Rules had a target date: 2025. Well, it’s now 2025, and the utilities have not only met that mandate, but they have also voluntarily exceeded it. Now our current 5-0 Republican Commission has started the process of repealing them.
Repealing the REST Rules is important, but the targets have already been met, and the price has already been paid. Substantively, the repeal won’t really affect ratepayers all that much. Why? Because mandate or no mandate, our utilities are completely committed to going “Net Zero” by 2050, and so far, they’ve been allowed to do it.
Just look at what solar advocates tell the mainstream media: “[The Corporation Commission] are acknowledging integrated resource plans of the utilities that call for building a lot of renewables. They are not blocking the line [siting] approvals for certificates of environmental compatibility for renewables projects. They’re not disallowing the capital costs for these projects in rate cases.” In other words, they are approving Integrated Resource Plans littered with “renewables” that will cost tens of billions, will result in the closure of all Arizona’s coal generation in the next decade, and build barely enough natural gas to cover those closures. They are not blocking Green New Scam subsidized projects. And they are allowing the utilities to recover the costs of expensive solar and wind from ratepayers. That’s not just our assessment – that’s the solar lobby’s too.
The real cause of rising electricity costs and more double-digit rate hikes is not a 15% mandate; it’s the self-imposed “Net Zero” commitment. If a 15% renewable mandate has already cost ratepayers nearly $3 billion over the last 20 years, how much more will going 100%? The Commission knows it’s at least $6 billion, because that is what their independent cost analysis told them it would cost just a few years ago. In reality, the number is far higher – $42.7 billion just for APS customers. If the high cost alone wasn’t bad enough, Net Zero also means California (or Spain, or Germany, or Hawaii) style blackouts.
Over the last 5 years, these dangerous climate commitments have shaped the utilities’ Integrated Resource Plans, which in turn have shaped their rigged “All Source” Request for Proposals, finally leading to double digit rate hike requests so that ratepayers can foot the bill. In fact, the result of the most recent RFP process for APS resulted in 93% of new generation coming from solar, wind, and battery storage. Only 7% is new natural gas capacity. And when you look at the most recent Resource Plans the four largest utilities in the state (APS, SRP, TEP, and UNS), in the next 15 years we will get a measly net increase of 751 MW of dispatchable power compared to 23,364 MW from “renewables.” That’s 31 times more “renewables” than reliable and dispatchable power, while energy demand is expected to explode. That is an energy crisis.
Though the Arizona Corporation Commission should repeal the REST Rules, we will still face major energy shortfalls unless those rules are replaced with necessary and overdue reforms. Reforms like prohibiting utilities from having climate commitments at all, ensuring Resource Planning prioritizes affordability and reliability and not carbon emission reductions, and that utilities have truly competitive All Source Request for Proposals to get the lowest cost, most reliable energy, not Green New Scam subsidized projects.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club has filed public comments to the Arizona Corporation Commission in the docket for the REST Rule repeal in support of these reforms. The Commission is accepting public comment until November 15th.
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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!
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OFFICIAL RECOMMENDATION FROM THE ARIZONA FREE ENTERPRISE CLUB: The Arizona Free Enterprise Club recommends that Maricopa County voters vote NO on Proposition 409, the $898 million bond proposal from Valleywise Health.
It was just over 10 years ago, in 2014, that Valleywise Health placed a $935 million bond on the ballot. It was approved by voters and will continue to be paid by Maricopa County homeowners through at least 2038. Now, Valleywise Health is proposing to stack another $898 million on top, for another 30 years.
First and foremost, taxpayers deserve accountability, transparency, and results when saddled with nearly a billion dollars in debt, before being burdened with even more. Stacking bonds is terrible tax policy and is indicative of poor financial management on the part of ValleyWise Health. Prop 409 should include substantive reforms in the way of transparency, accountability, and guardrails for how debt can be used as to prevent burdening property owners with more property tax hikes.
Secondly, the last bond proposal was on an even year ballot, which comes with much higher turnout. The Arizona Free Enterprise Club has long opposed off-cycle elections, where school boards, cities, and other local taxing jurisdictions will place their bond and override proposals, leading to higher turnout from those favorable to more taxes, and lower turnout from those opposed. A proposal like Prop 409, which would indebt Maricopa County homeowners to the tune of nearly a billion dollars (in addition to the existing $935 million debt) over the next 30 years, should never be decided in an odd-year election.
Finally, it is a county-wide all mail election, meaning there are no polling locations for voters who prefer to cast their ballot in person. Consistent with the second point, a proposal so large is deserving of an on-cycle election with multiple polling locations where voters can choose to mail in their ballot, drop it off, or show up in-person to fill out their ballot and tabulate it themselves.
For these reasons, Proposition 409 should be rejected by Maricopa County voters.
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!
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In 2022, the Arizona legislature passed—and then-Governor Ducey signed into law—a landmark election integrity bill: HB 2492. Authored by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, the law bolsters safeguards to our election process by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ensuring that only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections.
It’s commonsense legislation that is popular with the public and a blueprint for other states looking to adopt nearly identical bills. And why wouldn’t it be? U.S. citizens cannot go into France, Australia, or any other country throughout the world and vote in their elections, so why should citizens from other countries be allowed to vote in our elections?
Yet immediately after HB 2492 was passed, a consortium of liberal organizations and the Biden Justice department sued to stop the law from going into effect. Now, after multiple trips to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of which included a bizarre ruling that required an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to let Arizona enforce our proof of citizenship requirements for the 2024 election (which we won), the entire law will now be going to the nation’s highest court.
We are confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law in its entirety, but one issue about the litigation has been simmering beneath the surface: Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes.
After taking office in January 2023, Mayes joined the lawsuit (which includes the state legislature) to “defend” HB 2492. But throughout the process, it’s been pretty obvious that her legal team has been doing as little as possible to protect the law from the onslaught of litigation from the left. When you follow the money, that doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
Of the dozen or so liberal groups that filed suit to stop the law, several spent huge sums of money in 2022 to get Kris Mayes elected as Arizona’s Attorney General. Just look at this list of donations to Mayes’ campaign right here. It’s riddled with groups that either give money to Mi Familia Vota (the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against HB 2492), receive money from the group, are partners with the group, or have positions that stand in opposition to any election integrity measure in general. Chief among them is Arizona Wins, a lobbying organization founded in 2011 to oppose election integrity measures and enforcement of immigration laws in our state. Mi Familia Vota has received tens of thousands of dollars from Arizona Wins. Does that sound like a conflict of interest to you?
The liberal Ninth Circuit ruled against HB 2492 earlier this year, and most recently, it rejected a request for a full review from the court (although an astounding 11 judges dissented). Now, the case should be fast-tracked to the U.S. Supreme Court once again. But surprise, surprise. Mayes’ office appears to be slow walking the appeal. And can you guess why? Mayes knows that if she can hold out long enough, it would prevent the Supreme Court from hearing the case until after the 2026 general election (when Mayes will be up for reelection).
At this point, it’s obvious that Kris Mayes is trying to play both sides. On the one hand, she wants to say that she defended a wildly popular law with citizens across our state. On the other hand, she wants to do everything she can to appease her liberal friends by sandbagging the case.
That leaves just one solution. It’s time for Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to recuse herself from the defense of HB 2492 and let the legislature finish the job. The legal team representing the House and Senate is more than capable at handling the appeal and defending the law at the U.S. Supreme Court. And organizations like ours are more than happy to provide outside support to their legal efforts.
If she had any integrity, Mayes would be getting out of the way so the nation’s highest court can once again overturn the Ninth Circuit, return common sense to our voter registration process, and restore confidence in Arizona’s elections. Of course, given her history of politicizing the office with ridiculous lawfare that have resulted in embarrassing legal defeats, we suspect she will do everything she can to drive this lawsuit into a ditch.
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.
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