We all deserve to drive to work, to school, and to the doctor without our own government logging every trip. But the Columbia County Sheriff's Office secretly spent over $100,000 to join a national network that tracks every passing car and putting private information about us in the hands of bad actors. Read below to learn more and to join your neighbors taking action to keep our community safe.
We all want Columbia County to be a wonderful place to live and work. Whether we were born here or moved here and now call it home, we want to know our loved ones can get to work and school safely. But, big tech companies are teaming up with police agencies to use AI surveillance to track our movements, follow us, and share our information to enormous databases.
News reports have exposed how ICE and bad actors in law enforcement use this AI technology to stalk women, go after people for their political speech, and to target people because of their immigration status. ICE has caused chaos in our community and across the country, and the technology fuels their overreach. Because of ICE, parents are afraid to go to work or visit a doctor, and children are scared to go to school.
We expect our local government and law enforcement to take action to keep us safe. They should be building safeguards against this kind of surveillance, not feeding it. Instead, in Columbia County our government is running a system to track us. At least 11 Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) photograph us every time we drive pass, enabling them to feed our data into a national database. The date, time, location, make, model, color and identifying features are being turned into shared and searchable data points. These details have been used to create heat maps of where an individual travels most.
At the August 18, 2026 Columbia County Board of Supervisors Public Safety Committee meeting, it was revealed that the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department secretly procured approximately $36,000 in camera equipment, in addition to paying $60,000 per year for Flock software supscription. They have been surveilling everyone’s movement since 2024, even though that same committee denied the request for Flock cameras in 2023. Flock is one of the most pervasive brands of Automated License Plate Readers: cameras that photograph every passing car and create a database based on identifying features. Police departments and ICE have used Flock cameras to target immigrants and surveil the masses.
In response to community outcry, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office recently launched a new page on Flock’s website which raises even more concerns about how this AI technology is endangering our community. Despite the Sheriff’s Office policy to not cooperate or collude with ICE, the information collected by their Flock cameras is shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Crime Information Center (NCIC) who shares it with ICE to target immigrants in our region. Data may also be shared with other local law enforcement agencies, such as Rensselaer County Sheriff’s Office who have officially deputized their employees as ICE agents. Meanwhile, Flock technology singles out vehicles on the ‘NCIC hotlist’ that includes targeting immigrants. The hotlist is also riddled with errors with everyday people getting tracked across states and arrested because of administrative errors.
Communities across the country are taking action, forcing their city, county and state governments to cut contracts with Flock and similar AI surveillance and pass legislation to prohibit their use in the first place. The time has come for Columbia County residents to take action to protect ourselves and our neighbors from mass surveillance. We must stand united against the use of AI surveillance technologies that monitor our every movement.
We, the undersigned, say Get The Flock Out and demand the following: Columbia County Sheriff's Office immediately end their contract with FLOCK, uninstall the cameras and stop using ALPR technology for mass surveillance.
1. Columbia County Sheriff's Office immediately end their contract with FLOCK, uninstall the cameras and stop using ALPR technology for mass surveillance.
2. Columbia County Board of Supervisors investigate the use of Flock by the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office and decline to fund Flock.
3. Local governments in Columbia County (county, village, town and city) pass comprehensive legislation to prohibit the use of Flock and other ALPRs.
Together we will create a community where we can move freely without fear of being surveilled and unjustly targeted by our local government and law enforcement.