News

Surveillance cameras trigger DeFlock Henderson County, a citizen uprising

Austin Rhodes, an Edneyville berry farmer and beekeeper, asks county commissioners to defund the use of Flock surveillance cameras.

By Bill Moss, Published: August 10, 2026

Those surveillance cameras that have proliferated on black poles around Henderson County are fueling a citizen uprising calling for elected county commissioners to defund their use by the sheriff’s office.

“I’m a common man with a common concern,” Austin Rhodes told commissioners during public comment time on Aug. 3.

A 30-year-old berry grower and beekeeper from Edneyville whose family has been in the county since its founding, Rhodes urged commissioners to stand up for their constituents’ right to privacy.

“I am here tonight to urge this board not to allow funding to renew our Flock camera contract,” he said. “Henderson County is built on small town values, mutual respect and a deep appreciation for personal liberty. When we drive down our local roads, we expect a culture of trust. Unfortunately, these automated license placed readers do the exact opposite. They treat every law-abiding citizen like a suspect under a permanent microscope, quietly logging our locations, times, and daily patterns.”

Citing a Hendersonville Lightning news story published in May, Rhodes recalled the sheriff’s office account that the surveillance cameras had resulted in 31 arrests and 23 stolen vehicle recoveries.

“But let’s actually do the math,” he said. “Henderson County is home to roughly 123,000 residents. When you add in our daily commuters and shoppers, these cameras are scanning and storing the movements of millions of vehicles. Based on the sheriff’s own data, 99.99% of the information being swept up belongs to our innocent neighbors. It is data on our neighbors driving to work, parents dropping kids off at school, and citizens going to church. We are placing 123,000 law-abiding neighbors into a perpetual digital lineup just to catch a handful of bad actors.”

A private company, Flock has some 120,000 cameras in more than 6,000 communities across the U.S., scanning and recording 20 billion license plates each month, the pro-privacy website Deflock.org reports. A typical lease, like those paid by the sheriff’s office, costs around $3,000 per camera per year. The Hendersonville, Fletcher and Laurel Park police departments all pay for Flock data, too.

Spying on ‘political activists and public gatherings’

Immediately following Rhodes during the Aug. 3 Board of Commissioners meeting, another young man, Tiernan Turner, strode to the lectern to make his own case against Flock cameras.

Motorists approaching downtown Hendersonville on Asheville Highway are greeted with welcoming signs — plus a Flock camera.“These systems are new and already being abused at the expense of civilians,” Turner said. “The proliferation of these cameras and police surveillance has led to repeated abuse. There are over 24 cases spanning 12 different states of officers exploiting this technology. One common form of the misuse is LEOs using them to track personal romantic interest. They are also using these cameras to target political activism groups and public gatherings, such as protests and gun shows.”

A recent Washington Post investigation found that at least 50 law officers nationwide had been charged with misusing Flock surveillance cameras to spy on wives, girlfriends, exes, exes’ new partners or women they wanted to meet, the news website A Starting Point reported this week.

While county commissioners made no response to the comments condemning Flock cameras, Rhodes struck a community nerve when he created the Facebook page DeFlock Henderson County.

“In less than 3 days, I have obtained over 880 signatures” on a petition demanding the county defund the cameras, Rhodes said. “This coalition is bipartisan and has more momentum than I could have imagined.”

In an interview, he said he had never made public comments at a county commission meeting nor created an online petition.

“But whenever certain things happen, action has to occur to preserve liberty,” he said. “I love our community, and that’s the whole purpose. I wasn’t even asking for fundraising on the petition website, but as of yesterday, it was like $350. I didn’t even know you could donate.”

Rhodes said he’s read Flock subscribers’ defense that they have “strict guidelines and internal audits that protect us from abuses.”

“But obviously, no amount of self-regulation can ultimately prevent misuse,” he said. “If there were some sort of bad actor that wanted to hack into that system, since Flock is a privately owned company with cloud storage, that would be pretty easy for somebody with that intent to hack into and access your travel habits.”

‘It’s helped solve violent crimes’

Rhodes sent an email to all five county commissioners on Monday morning asking them to put the topic on the agenda at their next meeting. Lapsley himself brought up the topic during a county commission meeting last spring, saying he had received complaints about the cameras. He asked Sheriff Lowell Griffin how they were used. Griffin responded that “there’s a lesser expectation of privacy” on a public road than in a private home.

“It’s helped us solve violent crimes. It’s helped us solve a lot of breaking-and-entering” cases, he said.

Lapsley said since commissioners have already covered the topic, they may not be open to bringing it up again.

“We’ve solved probably five or six cases, because of those. So (Griffin) said he’s in support of continuing it,” the chairman said. “My position is until we hear of some abuse or something radical happening, I don’t see a problem.”

Lapsley said he’s not heard of any cases of inappropriate use of Flock data locally.

“I’m not aware of anything even close to that,” he said. “Somebody could say, ‘Well, they’re not going to tell you about it.’ Well, that may be true but I’ve got to depend on the sheriff to tell me the truth.”

As for privacy concerns, Griffin last May expressed doubt that there was any broad opposition to the license plate readers.

“I think what you’re going to find is most of your middle-of-the-road common-sense people who aren’t out committing crimes really aren’t worried about it,” he said. “They’re more concerned with who may have broken into their home or business, or finding the lost child, kidnapped child, the dementia patient.”

Griffin may have underestimated the anti-surveillance mood of the public. Clearly, concern is growing, not just here but across the country.

Rhodes, who has a schoolteacher wife and one child with another on the way, said he thinks law officers can use tried-and-proven investigative tools to solve crime, find missing people and recover stolen cars.

“I’m proud of law enforcement. I like Sheriff Lowell Griffin,” he said. “I like the commissioners. I think they’re all reasonable people. But I think this is an issue that is a losing one. I don’t think it’s a good look for our county.”