Politics

Here's what 14 no-Flockers told county commissioners

'We are not animals in a zoo for all of you and our law enforcement to keep an eye on,' Maddie Drake told county commissioners.

By Bill Moss, Published: September 15, 2026

They cited George Orwell’s 1984, the Fourth Amendment, civil liberties, the right of privacy, the cost of defending lawsuits. They frequently used the phrase “mass surveillance.”

One pointed out that a profit-motivated company funded by venture capital does not consider privacy rights a priority. Another vowed that if politicians don’t vote to remove Flock cameras “we will vote you out and send you to the house.” Yet another lamented that tar-and-feathering has faded into the ash heap of history. And two made reference to the board’s action moments before proclaiming Sept. 13-19 as Constitution Week — “whereas, it is fitting and proper to officially recognize this magnificent document and the

anniversary of its creation” — suggesting the timing was rich.

All in all, it was a bad P.R. day for Flock Safety, the company that leases tens of thousands of automated license plate readers across the U.S., including 39 in Henderson County.

Hendersonville Police Chief Blair Myhand and Sheriff Lowell Griffin strongly defend the cameras as a valuable tool for making arrests, locating missing people and recovering stolen cars, and both say they have guardrails in place to prevent the unethical or inappropriate use of the data. Flock itself has recently announced new safeguards, including retention of date for seven days instead of 30 and mandatory logging of an active case number for searches.

Last Tuesday night the elected commissioners bore the blame for the cameras, although the Flock contract would be signed by the sheriff, just as the city’s is signed by the police chief. Fourteen speakers strode to the lectern during public comment time to make their views known.

Here’s what they said:

• James Dillon: The network of Flock cameras “is nearly as invasive as placing a GPS tracker on an individual, all without the inconvenience of the Fourth Amendment: no warrant is required. People are being wrongly arrested, dragged from their cars, and held at gunpoint because of mistakes in this system. Not only is this humiliating, terrifying, and costly for the innocent people arrested, (but) when they inevitably sue for the damage done, our tax dollars will pay for the defense. Dozens, if not hundreds, of officers have been arrested for misuse of this data. I do not think this is our police department. I approve of and respect the officers in our county; they are good people. But it is not comforting to know that we pay for the usage of the technology that has made this possible elsewhere. And I feel the divisive nature of this issue incorrectly pits the public against the police.”
• Samuel Mershon: “We keep hearing that automated surveillance cameras are the price that we pay for modern safety. I reject that notion wholesale. These systems routinely misread license plates, creating bureaucratic and safety nightmares for innocent citizens. The Flock cameras, in particular, have been found to carry glaring security vulnerabilities that leave them open to abuse and unsophisticated hacks, putting vulnerable citizens and children at risk. This is why my opposition to Flock and other ALPR cameras is more than just logistical; it’s personal. I have two small children, and I shudder to think that they’re growing up in a county and country where one day they’ll read George Orwell’s 1984, and I’ll have to explain that it’s no longer a warning against a tyrannical government. It was a blueprint that our own government officials used to stomp out their right to privacy.”
• Jon Williams: “I want to remind everyone that safety is not surveillance. As somebody who values our police force, values the people that serve, we can’t give up our rights for what we see as government overreach. I’m just one person here, but there’s dozens and hundreds and maybe even thousands of people like me who have concerns over Flock cameras, over what we see as government surveillance. And you, as a voting body, have the ability to heed our wishes and heed our concerns with this. One thing that’s ingrained within us is mountain culture, and one thing about our culture is a distrust for big government and for government coming in and telling us what to do. And this is a prime example of that. … There’s many other people like me, and we all vote, and we will vote you out and send you to the house.”
• Scott Lesser: Two petitions are circulating on line. “One is to increase flock funding. It currently has 67 verified signatures. The second petition is to defund flock cameras. It has 2,576 verified signatures. I think the people are speaking. 214 cities and municipalities have canceled flock contracts. Do they know something we don’t know? So the one question I would like to ask all of you: Where does this end? And if you can’t answer that question, then it has to end now. George Orwell told us where this could end. We need to listen.”
• Tiernan Turner, a No Flock organizer, presented a 60-page petition containing more than over 2,500 names with verified signatures. “Every day you drive through Henderson County, a private corporation logs your movements,” he said. “These cameras capture the license plate make, model, and color of every single vehicle that passes them. They track where you go, when you leave, and who you visit, treating every law-abiding citizen in our county like a criminal suspect. We the residents and taxpayers of Henderson County demand that the Board of Commissioners and county manager immediately end all funding and appropriations for this invasive surveillance tech. … We do not support sending our hard-earned tax dollars to private tech corporations to build a continuous law enforcement checkpoint around our daily commutes, school drop-offs and grocery trips.”
• Kelly Bouchard Turner: “I am frustrated when I keep hearing our local officials say that these are just ALPR readers. A single camera recording a car at a particular moment is one thing. A network of cameras capable of recording vehicles across an entire community is something else. Flock is a private venture capitalist-backed company. Venture capitalists are not interested in keeping you safe. They are interested in making more and more money each year. Money, not safety, is their only concern.”
• Bonnie Magronne: “While I’m very appreciative of the sheriff’s comments and everything that he stated about the technology of the cameras, he did say that the camera’s current use and function is not cause for alarm. However, we must always think of the next person in charge, the next generation, and the risk of misuse that exists. We should stop it now. We might trust this administration, but we must always think of the next. The risk of misuse or error is too great to gamble with.”
• Gretchen Roe: “Over 90 municipalities terminated their contracts with Flock Safety in the last 30 days. What do those municipalities know that we in Hendersonville do not know? At the end of July, Flock Safety did a presentation for the city Council of Oshkosh, and they said we do not create heat maps for our readers. It is merely a static license plate reader, and the police chief for Oshkosh went out, and within 24 hours, his staff found that there were indeed heat maps created for their surveillance. This information is uploaded to large-language learning models, and if you believe that it is not going to go beyond the bounds of Henderson County, you are deceived.”
• Aaron Black: “I love that y’all just voted to make next week Constitution Week. It is a bit ironic (in light of) what we’re discussing. … I woke many months ago to the realization that my town and county that I love dearly decided to install ALPRs to track and monitor its citizens in the name of public safety; this popped up overnight without any public consent.  …As a freedom-loving Christian, I want to state that the implementation and use of ALPRs in our county is abhorrent, unacceptable, and a violation of mine and every citizen’s God-given civil liberties under your watch. I look forward to each of you to do the right thing and to stand with the Constitution and uphold our God-given rights and move to ban these illegal, unethical and immoral devices from our county. I’m going to say that it is a shame that tarring and feathering fell out of public use. … I do not fear tyrants many states away. I fear tyrants locally that will usurp my rights. Long live the republic.”
• Maddie Drake: “We do not want you in office if you are going to approve these of any kind. This is not China. This is America. This is not Europe. This is America. We are supposed to be the land of the free. We have had enough. We are not animals in a zoo for all of you and our law enforcement to keep an eye on. We are citizens of this county and of this country.”

County commission Chair Bill Lapsley thanked the residents for expressing their concerns.

“The board certainly hears you, and we will be discussing it amongst ourselves to see how we, as a board, want to proceed,” he said.

Lapsley told the Lightning on Tuesday that those conversations had yielded no enthusiasm for taking up the topic.

“From our point of view the sheriff is in charge of that,” he said. “He’s telling us it’s been very beneficial and he has protocols in place to prevent and avoid any kind of misuse by sheriff’s department staff. He tells us there’s been no abuse. Until we see evidence of misuse of the technology we’re gonna depend on the sheriff.”