LANSING—More than five weeks after the Lansing City Council voted 7-1 to ask the mayor to end the city’s contract with Flock Safety, the cameras are still surveilling every car that passes.
And the push to make Mayor Andy Schor finally shut them off has now reached the streets, the City Council chambers, and one of the most competitive congressional races in the country.
Protesters this week blocked the automated license plate readers with signs. At least one City Council member is pressing the city attorney for a legal path to ban the controversial technology altogether. Even the council’s lone no vote now says he’ll help them get there.
And Will Lawrence, the Democrat running against US Rep. Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, has joined protesters in calling for the cameras to come down.
“This is a violation of the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search,” Lawrence told The ‘Gander this week. “We gotta draw the line here, prevent any further infringement on our privacy, and then push the line back and restore the right to privacy that has been taken away.”
How did Lansing get here?
Lansing police have used Flock’s cameras for about three years. Mounted on poles at several of the busiest intersections across the city, the 26 cameras capture an image of every vehicle that passes and log its license plate, building a searchable record of where cars have been.
This year, the technology started drawing increased scrutiny as cities across Michigan and the country questioned how the data is used and who can see it. Several Michigan communities have since moved to cancel their Flock contracts. Most recently, the South Lyon City Council voted Sept. 30 to cover its cameras and back out of its existing contract with the company.
In Lansing, that scrutiny came to a head in August. A resolution asking the administration and the Lansing Police Department to terminate all contracts with Flock landed on the Council’s agenda four days before its Aug. 24 meeting. Dozens of residents spoke against the cameras.
Council member Ryan Kost said the opposition didn’t break down along party lines: “The political spectrum on the people that have sent us emails to take down these cameras is vast.”
Council President Peter Spadafore was the only member of the Council who voted no.
He told The ‘Gander his concern wasn’t about Flock itself. It was that the resolution’s broad language could have potentially swept in other city technologies—like automated parking enforcement systems, body cameras, and security cameras—with only a weekend to review it.
“It wasn’t at all a pro-Flock camera vote,” Spadafore told The ‘Gander this week.
He also noted that before the resolution came up, most of what he’d heard from local residents about cameras was requests for more of them—largely in response to violent crime in the city.
But he said the vote settled the question for him.
“It passed 7-1. That’s obviously the will of the body,” he said. “I’m gonna now be supportive of trying to help the Council navigate how we can legally operationalize what we’re trying to do.”
Why are the cameras still on?
But in Lansing, a nearly unanimous vote only goes so far.
Because the Council’s resolution was non-binding, it essentially amounted to a firm request. And under Lansing’s strong-mayor system, the decision belongs entirely to Schor.
Schor’s office says the city is locked into its Flock contract for another year and a half. And it won’t say what’s in it. When The ‘Gander asked for a copy of the agreement with Flock Safety, his office said to file a public records request and declined to answer most questions.
In a statement, Schor’s office said the cameras have been “key to solving several violent crimes in the City of Lansing.” It also insisted the cameras are “not used for surveillance” even though they’re specifically designed to capture photographs of every vehicle that passes.
The statement pointed to policies that require data to be deleted after 30 days, limit who within the Lansing Police Department can access it, and bar sharing it outside the department. A spokesman also said Schor is still hearing from “those interested and impacted” before making any “final determinations” on whether he intends to act on the City Council’s resolution.
It’s worth noting: Schor’s statement leaves the most basic questions unanswered.
His office wouldn’t say whether the contract includes a termination fee, a clause allowing the city to exit if the Council cuts funding, or a way to end it for cause. It also wouldn’t say whether the city has asked Flock about leaving the contract early, and it offered no timeline for a decision.
When asked to follow up, a spokesman said only that the city is under contract for another year and a half and that Schor “will let the community know if there are any decisions made.”
Why not just turn them off?
If the mayor won’t move, some Council members want to find a way to act without him.
Kost said the City Council is actively exploring its options. Other Michigan communities have managed to escape their Flock contracts and Kost said Lansing’s deal isn’t any different.
“I promise you that if all of these other cities around us are canceling their contract with Flock mid-contract, we do not have some specialized contract with them,” Kost told The ‘Gander.
Spadafore suggested that ending the contract early could carry a financial penalty. But even if that’s true, Kost and other critics say it doesn’t explain why the cameras are still turned on when the city could just keep paying Flock through the end of the term and still switch the cameras off.
Schor’s office also did not answer whether the contract would allow for that scenario.
In the meantime, Kost isn’t waiting on the mayor. Last month, he asked the city attorney’s office for a legal opinion on whether the Council can ban license plate reader cameras outright. He said a written opinion was due back last week but the Council is still waiting for it to arrive.
“These Flock cameras don’t do a damn thing to prevent the crime,” Kost said. “It may catch the person that did the horrible thing to that person or their family, but that doesn’t stop the thing.”
Spadafore said he has also raised other options with Schor’s administration—including tighter data retention rules and storing the images on Lansing’s own servers rather than Flock’s.
“I believe the concerns folks have around privacy are very real, and this technology deserves more scrutiny,” he said.
What could go wrong?
Concerns about Flock reach well beyond Lansing.
A USA Today investigation found that at least 22 police officers had been arrested, fired, or placed on leave over alleged misuse of the cameras nationwide. In one case, an officer faced felony charges after he searched a woman’s license plate at least 189 times over eight months.
For Lawrence, that’s exactly why the fight can’t stop at city limits.
“This is a federal constitutional issue,” he said. “We need to address this at the federal level.”
Lawrence, a Lansing-area organizer who has made reining in Big Tech a centerpiece of his congressional campaign, said the City Council’s vote was only a beginning—not an end.
“I think the fight continues,” he said. “There’ll be continued efforts to stop Big Tech from treading on us and spying on us, and so nothing has been lost. This struggle is just beginning.”
What’s next?
John Warmb, an organizer with DeFlock Lansing, says his guidance for the mayor is simple.
“Even if you don’t think you can cancel the contract, even if you are waiting for input from other people, don’t just go silent,” Warmb said. “Hell, put a bag on the cameras while you figure it out.”
For now, the cameras are still running. The City Council is still waiting on its legal opinion. And the contract that Schor says keeps Lansing tied to Flock is still out of public view.
The ‘Gander filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the contract on Oct. 1. Michigan law gives the city five business days to respond with a possible 10-day extension.
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