One sleepy Virginia town. Nearly 7 million hits on its surveillance network

September 18, 2025 • 09:03

In the small, low-crime town of Bridgewater, Virginia, five Flock Safety license plate cameras captured data that was accessed nearly 7 million times by over 4,600 law enforcement agencies across the United States in just one year. An investigation by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO reveals how this created a massive, passive surveillance network, tracking the movements of ordinary citizens far beyond local jurisdictions, often without their knowledge or any public oversight. While a new state law now restricts this out-of-state data sharing, it also shields the audit logs that made these findings public. The extensive data collection on innocent individuals raises profound civil liberties questions, highlighting a conflict between public safety initiatives and the right to privacy in an era of interconnected, corporate-run surveillance systems.

Read the article at WHRO