$88,000
Fulton County’s 2025 maintenance list included a Flock Falcon license plate reader camera line item.
Fulton County, Georgia
Don’t let every drive become a dossier.
Flock cameras and similar automated plate-reader systems turn routine movement into searchable location histories. Fulton residents can demand a pause, public disclosure, strict limits, and civil-liberties review before the network expands.
Evidence from Fulton County research
$220,000
The same materials listed Vigilant mobile LPR software maintenance, showing this is a broader surveillance stack.
30 months
Georgia law allows ALPR data retention for up to this long unless tied to a toll violation or law-enforcement purpose.
Not settled
Courts are still wrestling with dragnet tracking. Local policy can set bright lines before rights are tested after harm.
Field brief
What to hand someone in the room.
The rough PDF has the right spine: this is not about one camera. It is about renewing a county surveillance stack without a public audit, public rules, or civil-liberties review.
$220kVigilant mobile LPR software maintenance listed in county budget materials.
$88kFlock Falcon license plate reader camera line item.
$307.5kCombined annual LPR cost before another 2026 Flock request.
Automatic plate readers are pattern-of-life tools.
They photograph passing vehicles, convert plates into searchable text, and let officials look backward through ordinary movement. A trip to work, worship, a clinic, a school, or a protest can become part of a searchable timeline.
Constitutional concern
Long-term location tracking raises the same Fourth Amendment worries courts recognized in GPS and cell-site cases.
Fiscal concern
Flock, Vigilant, Fusus, Clearview AI, and covert-equipment lines point to a growing stack with no public performance review.
Reliability concern
False reads can mean wrongful stops, wasted time, and civil liability. Fulton has not published local accuracy audits.
Effectiveness concern
Vendor claims are not independent proof. The handout cites research showing ALPR impact depends heavily on implementation.
Vendor concern
Private vendors can store and maintain sensitive location records, creating opaque practices and lock-in.
The ask: delete the line items or table renewal pending audit.
No renewal until Fulton publishes accuracy, effectiveness, retention, sharing, and vendor-oversight findings in a public hearing.
What Fulton should do now
A narrow tool should not become a countywide dragnet.
The ask is practical: stop expansion, publish what exists, and put civil-liberties guardrails around any technology that can reconstruct where people go.
01
Freeze new ALPR purchases and data-sharing expansions.
No new Flock, Vigilant, Fusus, Clearview, or adjacent surveillance contracts until commissioners hold a public hearing and publish contract terms, camera locations, access rules, and retention settings.
02
Adopt a binding surveillance ordinance.
Require warrants for historical searches when legally available, short default retention, public audits, error reporting, impact assessments, and a ban on immigration or out-of-state sharing without a public vote.
03
Bring ACLU of Georgia into the review.
Ask ACLU of Georgia and local civil-rights groups to review the policy, co-sign public letters where appropriate, and help residents understand the speech, privacy, racial-justice, and protest implications.
Three-minute action
Send a specific message, not a form-letter shrug.
Choose your concerns, add your district if you know it, then copy the message or open your email client. Nothing is submitted from this page.
The email draft uses Fulton County commissioner addresses listed in the official Legistar members directory. Your own email app sends it; this website does not collect or submit anything.
Generated message
Coalition routes
Make the pressure wider than one inbox.
Pair the commissioner email with a civil-liberties ask and a public-comment plan.
Send this packetMake the ACLU ask concrete.
- Attach the handout.Lead with the Fulton budget lines, retention issue, and renewal-pending-audit ask.
- Ask for policy review.Request feedback on retention, sharing, warrant rules, audit logs, and public notice.
- Request a sign-on path.Ask whether ACLU Georgia can review, co-sign, or refer coalition partners before a vote.
- Name the public forum.Pair the legal review with Fulton public comment, agenda monitoring, and commissioner outreach.
Contact ACLU of Georgia
Use their contact page for legal help, speaker requests, volunteer paths, media, and general inquiries.Request a letter sign-on
Ask ACLU Georgia to review or co-sign a community letter before a Fulton vote.Show up for public comment
Fulton’s commission page lists meeting cadence, public-comment rules, agendas, and commissioner pages.Receipts
Claims residents can verify.
- Draft Fulton ALPR handout PDF: one-page brief summarizing the budget lines, constitutional concern, reliability concern, effectiveness gap, vendor governance issue, and renewal ask.
- Fulton County Board of Commissioners: seven-member board, meeting cadence, public-comment participation, agendas, district finder, and commissioner pages.
- Fulton County Legistar members directory: official commissioner names and direct email addresses used by the email draft button.
- ACLU of Georgia contact page: speaker requests, letter sign-on, legal help, legal observers, volunteer, media, and general inquiry routes.
- Georgia ALPR statute: O.C.G.A. § 35-1-22 allows law-enforcement ALPR collection, vendor storage, law-enforcement sharing, and retention up to 30 months under the conditions summarized in the handout.