DELAVAN, Wis. — Rachel DeBow felt angry and uncomfortable when she first noticed Flock cameras watching over Delavan. She has since started a petition to try and convince city leaders to shut them off.
"Flock is violating, untrusting, for-profit, and unprecedented," DeBow said. "It feels line a Orwellian mass surveillance state. That thought has popped in my mind and in a lot of other people's minds."
Her initial petition against Delavan's Flock cameras has gathered more than 800 signatures.
"We deserve the right to privacy, to move about and exist in our community without being watched constantly," one of the petition supporters said on the petition's website. "Delavan is not a high crime area. America is supposed to stand for freedom, not surveillance."
TMJ4 obtained the contract the City of Delavan signed with Flock. Delavan purchased nine cameras from Flock, which cost the city $27,000 a year to operate.
Most of Delavan's Flock cameras are clustered around the junction of Highway 50 and Interstate 43.
"There's at least four that we can point out on this road," DeBow said. "It's making a lot of people uncomfortable. Now we're banding together and we're going to get them down."
Delavan's General Operations Committee is holding a special meeting September 29 to discuss the future of Flock cameras in the city.
In addition to the four Flock cameras found near the Highway 50/I-43 intersection, TMJ4 also documented cameras at the following locations in Delavan:
- County Road X near the Interstate 43 interchange
- County Road O between I-43 and Delbrook Golf Course
- Lawson School Road at Creek Road
"What can we do to make sure our police have the resources they need without feeling like our rights are being violated?" DeBow said.
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