When Ashley Grogg learned that city council members in her hometown of Fort Wayne, IN, were delaying a vote on expanding Flock surveillance cameras, she saw an opportunity. Despite raising four children, running a farm, leading a statewide medical liberty organization, and hosting a podcast, she knew she had to act. With the help of Liberty Action, activists delivered nearly 800 combined petition signatures to ban the cameras.
“I thought, ‘Oh, they're delaying the vote. This is a perfect time to take action because it shows that they're already being a little bit responsive to the people,’” Grogg said. “If we're being gifted something like this, we might as well take advantage of it. And I didn't see anybody working out there in any organized fashion.”
She received calls from news outlets requesting interviews the very next day.
Seeing residents already discussing the issue online, Grogg created a Facebook group and launched a petition calling for Fort Wayne and Allen County to eliminate automated license plate readers.
“That took off, and we've delivered over 250 petitions as of the last meeting,” Grogg said. “I did that because it's important to be able to mobilize those people. If you don't have the ability to mobilize at key points, there's really no point in complaining.”
Grogg said the community stepped up beyond just sharing the petition on Facebook.
“I had a web developer reach out and say, ‘Hey, I want to design a website for this. Let's make it a little bit more sturdy,’” Grogg said. “Community engagement and activity has been kind of neat. People are showing up to testify at the public comment. That makes me really happy.”
Grogg said she didn't have to persuade people to care.
“I didn't have to do any convincing, I just shared information,” Grogg said. “It was just a matter of capturing that outrage and giving it direction.”
Flock Safety cameras differ from traditional license plate readers because they store vehicle information in a privately-owned nationwide database that participating law enforcement agencies can utilize, according to Liberty Action Mid-Atlantic Field Manager Derin Stidd.
“What this system does is it allows the government to track your movements as a law-abiding citizen,” he said. “Due process requires a warrant in order for you to track a citizen, and law-abiding citizens have the right to privacy.”
Grogg believes the problem isn't one camera on one street corner, but a surveillance network that extends far beyond Fort Wayne.
“I don't like any surveillance,” Grogg said. “I just want to be left alone. But the problem comes with size and the expansiveness. This is a national digital blanket.”
Stidd echoed Grogg’s sentiment.
“People don't want to be tracked,” he said. “People generally want to be left alone. They don't want America to become communist China where the government tracks every movement and they have cameras all over the place and they're recording our conversations.”
Grogg wanted to expand the campaign even further, so she contacted Liberty Action.
Liberty Action launched a petition, promoted the petition through Facebook ads, and sent two rounds of roughly 15,000 text messages to Fort Wayne voters to alert them to what their city council was doing.
“Generating something like 500 petitions in just under two weeks in a local municipality like Fort Wayne is a very big victory,” Stidd said. “I suspect that some of these local city council members are not used to dealing with that level of pressure. So, getting 500 citizens in Fort Wayne to raise their voice and say, ‘We don't want Flock cameras,’ that's a huge victory.”
The pressure campaign worked—the city council blinked and postponed the vote until Aug. 25. They also asked the community to recommend amendments to the Flock contract.
“They're asking activists and city members to give them amendments, which is another sign of political victory, because basically that's them coming our direction,” Stidd said. “Our message is very simple: we don't want amendments. We don't want regulated Flock cams. We want Flock cams banned in the city of Fort Wayne.”
The delay gave activists the perfect opportunity to turn up the heat on council members.
“I'd like to continue to turn people out for that public comment so they know we're not going away,” Grogg said. “We keep showing up, we're going to be really annoying, and we will replace them.”
Liberty Action says the delay is only the beginning. Organizers are continuing to pressure council members ahead of the Aug. 25 vote, arguing the only acceptable outcome is ending the contract altogether.
“We don't want the government to have any means or ability to lawlessly track our whereabouts,” he said. “We're going to continue to fight to eliminate the Flock camera system contract in Fort Wayne, not just regulate it.”
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