A Muskego group is demanding the city ditch its Flock Safety license plate cameras after finding that the system's data was searched nearly 1 million times in a single month, with requests coming in from as far away as Texas, California and Florida. The group, called No Cams Muskego, has asked the Muskego Common Council to draft an ordinance eliminating the cameras entirely, arguing that residents' driving habits are being pulled up by people who have no business looking.
No Cams Muskego founder Pete Karas said the numbers tell the story on their own. As reported by TMJ4 News, Karas said there were 900,000 searches of Muskego's Flock data, with people in states across the country — including Texas, California and Florida — accessing the city's camera data. Karas said people in California, Florida and Texas were not authorized to look at Muskego residents' driving habits, calling the searches an invasion of privacy. He has said he would find Flock use acceptable if authorities were required to obtain a warrant first.
The cameras function as license plate readers capable of collecting pictures and video, and the Muskego system reportedly includes access to live video feeds as well as nationwide search capability. No Cams Muskego has called on city officials to stop using Flock cameras without a warrant, even as other Muskego residents have said they support keeping the cameras if they help cut down on crime. Karas is also a Green Party candidate running for Wisconsin secretary of state.
Police Point to Solved Cases
The Muskego Police Department has pushed back against calls to scrap the technology, saying the cameras have helped solve numerous cases and that using Flock with internal safeguards has benefited the community, according to a police statement reported by the same outlet. Officers said Flock assistance helped clear an attempted child abduction case, though the department also said that case stemmed from an honest mistake by a transportation employee and that the innocent person involved was exonerated.
Police also credited the cameras with alerting the department to a stalking suspect entering Muskego, leading to an arrest near the victim's workplace, and with helping locate and apprehend two armed robbery suspects after a shot was fired at the robbery victim. The department said it conducts monthly audits of Flock usage, operates a Flock transparency portal, and has documented zero instances of system misuse. Police said they believe most robbery, stalking and child abduction victims or families would support legally available investigative tools like Flock.
The Muskego mayor said he is listening to both sides of the argument and expects more discussion on Flock during fall budget hearings, since the cameras are funded through the city budget. The mayor said he will work with the Common Council to determine the best path forward, while police said they have no immediate plans to change how the system is used but will continue evaluating it alongside the mayor and council.
A Statewide Pattern of Cutting Ties
Muskego is not an outlier — it is the latest front in a rapidly spreading revolt against Flock Safety across southeastern Wisconsin. The Racine County Sheriff's Office removed its Flock cameras and ended its contract entirely, with Sheriff Christopher Schmaling accusing the vendor of collecting, retaining and monetizing data on innocent citizens through a commercial Traffic Analytics product that went beyond what the county's public safety contract allowed.
Fond du Lac County cited similar concerns after sheriff's and police officials there discovered that investigative search data had been exposed to the public through out-of-state open records requests, prompting the county to shut down its Flock camera network, as Hoodline reported in Fond du Lac's data leak fears. Sheboygan covered all 15 cameras and moved to end its own Flock contract after an offer involving five years of traffic and speed data, as Hoodline detailed in its report on Sheboygan's trust breach.
Kenosha announced it is transitioning away from Flock to Axon's license plate reader technology, which requires explicit approval from the originating jurisdiction before outside agencies can view local camera scans — an architecture Kenosha officials said prevents unauthorized out-of-state search queries, according to WTMJ. Dane County deputies covered all 26 of the county's Flock cameras in May after the county board terminated its contract and the company failed to remove the physical hardware, echoing a similar standoff in Verona, Wisconsin, where cameras stayed bagged for months.
A Legal Void and a Statewide Reckoning
Part of what's driving the chaos is scrutiny of how Wisconsin agencies handle automated license plate reader data, according to reporting cited by UpNorthNews. The reporting cited here does not establish whether the Wisconsin Department of Justice maintains a central registry of active ALPR cameras statewide.
By comparison, records compiled in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Atlas of Surveillance show the Muskego Police Department operates seven Flock cameras. Flock Safety itself announced nationwide system updates in August, reducing default retention from 30 days to seven days and requiring search audit codes, according to StateScoop.
The scrutiny has also turned inward on officer conduct. Several Wisconsin law enforcement personnel have faced internal discipline or criminal charges for misusing Flock database searches to stalk or track romantic interests and exes, in cases spanning Milwaukee, Kenosha and Racine counties. In Milwaukee County, Executive David Crowley issued an executive directive this month setting strict new standards for ALPR data retention, access and agency sharing, per WisPolitics.
Muskego's fight now joins a growing list of Wisconsin communities, including Stevens Point's camera standoff, wrestling with the same question: whether the crime-solving value of automated license plate readers is worth the price of data that can travel far beyond the city that paid for it.
