Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03) on Flock Cameras

Earlier this week Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03) held a town hall in Norfolk, Virginia. In the city council meeting room he fielded questions about veterans affairs issues, Palestine, on Flock cameras. Like data centers Flock cameras have become a unifying issue locally for Democrats and Republicans who do not like the idea of an encroaching security state run by private corporations.

Flock cameras for those who might not know are not like red light cameras that only take images when you run a red light, committing a traffic infraction - they are on all the time scooping up data.

ACLU describes them as such: “This surveillance technology records and tracks every car that comes into view, and then an AI algorithm catalogs the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers, and even scratches. This personal information is then uploaded into a nationwide database that any law enforcement agency with a Flock contract can search — with few regulations or oversight on how they use what they find.”

The Flock cameras have been used by law enforcement to track ex-girlfriends, track a woman trying to get an abortion and have been the cause of many false police stops. These reasons and more are why residents of Norfolk (and many other cities) have joined together to hold trainings about Flock and spoken out at city halls, In fact they’ve been so effective at organizing that Norfolk City Council has tried to silence them. At a Council meeting in June, Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander told the assembled anti-Flock residents that, “If you are here to speak on Flock cameras, we’ve heard from you. But if there is one person who is here to speak, we will certainly allow that, but we have new business.” The Mayor claimed that the activists were “running a campaign and trying to game the system… What do you want me to do?”

This week an attendee and member of the Deflock Norfolk Coalition at Bobby Scotts town hall asked the Congressman “What are you doing in Congress to protect our privacy and protect us from repression by our own government? Congressman Scott answered surprisingly (to me at least") “Not enough.” He went on you explain that while they are a “state by state issue” they cause “a lot of privacy problems.”

Here’s the rest of his comments unedited:

Part of the issue isn’t as much you’ve got two problems. One, they compile a lot of data and then what they do with it under the under the FISA, they get a lot of information. And then the question is what they do with it. There’s are two separate questions with flock. They can get all kinds of information if properly used. It’s good law enforcement if improperly used. And I understand there’s some charges against police officers that have used it to, to to harass people. And that’s clearly illegal. But if the information is there, that’s what happens. And I think we need to look very carefully what’s going on in Virginia. And. We have to be skeptical about them. Just start off with a lot of skepticism. They can’t they properly use they you can make a case for it. But there’s so many problems. So keep up the keep the pressure on. Thank you very much. But there’s a lot of areas where privacy is, is not being protected.

I also spoke to Congressman Bobby Scott for WHRO after the town hall briefly where he also connected the issues (with a question I asked) over DOGE and Musk. You can watch towards the end of the video at the top.

If you want to see the full unedited 80min town hall that happened on Monday, August 17th, 2026 - you can watch it below on VisuNews’ Youtube page (subscribe here)