The city gave the Flock representative around an hour to explain his side of the story but their own residents only 2 minutes each. I’ll use this opportunity to respond to the city’s presentation slide by slide.
This is great to see. I wish every city would do this. It can be very difficult to discern from FOIA documents where these cameras are installed. Rolling Meadows cameras had been spotted and are all documented on Deflock.org
What doesn’t make sense about the LPR #01 camera and the one on Euclid is that we’ve heard that the cameras are being installed in ‘areas with a high demand for service’. This camera is surveilling people getting off 53 and going to residential neighborhoods in Ward 3 and Ward 7, some of the lowest crime areas in the city. Why do we have this here?
If there’s one thing I’m thankful about this issue, it’s the people.
Thank you to everyone how came out tonight. It was great to see everyone and hear everyone’s impassioned speeches. Thank you to all of the speakers and audience for being respectful.
The Flock topic ran for nearly an hour and a half. The flock representative had some major explaining to do and I don’t think anyone, council included was satisfied with all or many of his answers.
The council asked for time to review follow up data from the Flock representative and the evidence that I provided.
For me the most interesting part was learning more about the council itself. Our council people have a diverse background and come at this topic from incredibly different views.
Write me if you have notes or impressions of the meeting and I’ll post them here.
One thing I learned is that we need a mailing list for group discussion to build this community – there were several IT and software engineers at the meeting – if any of you have recommendations, please reach out.
I honestly don’t know where we stand. There was supposed to be a straw poll. There wasn’t. Now what? — call your alder people and ask! It sounds like they all got calls! Keep it up!
My message tonight is about TRUST. The trust of a city in its government. The trust of citizens in their elected officials. The trust of residents in their Police Department.
Trust is difficult to earn and is the foundation of our safety.
City staff has told us repeatedly that the city’s use of Flock cameras follows the law.
In an email to residents on April 20 the City Manager said “when Illinois Secretary of State Giannoulias… showed improper utilization of Flock Camera information, [the city] immediately checked our records to ensure our cameras were not accessed for uses that are not permitted by State law”
The City Manager said in an email he assured our State Representative Nicolle Grasse “any utilization strictly adhered to the legally applicable uses for such equipment.”
And again at the July Council Meeting Sabo said “we do not share information with Federal Immigration”.
My understanding is that sensitive communities in Rolling Meadows have reached out asking for protection from crime and in response we’ve used Flock cameras ensuring them these cameras were not used for immigration.
However, recently received FOIA documents show the exact opposite appears to be the case. Your own records show CBP has accessed our cameras for reason codes associated with immigration enforcement, a use not permitted by state law. Here is the evidence. Your department screenshots from your own logs. Who is accountable?
If City Staff and their vendor can not be trusted to reliably tell the truth about how this technology is being used, no one in this city can feel safe. We can not trust this technology or this vendor and we question our own city staff. Now we turn to the council.
Now is the time for the council to right the wrong it initiated in 2023 when it approved ALPRs. Over 500 people have signed our petition. Cancel the Rolling Meadows Flock Contract and launch an investigation to get to the bottom of this so residents know who we may be able to trust again.
We requested time to share our side of the story at the August 25 City Council meeting. Instead, the city has decided to bring Flock to try to explain itself. This is a company that appears to have lied to city councils in the past about their business practices. Their incentives are shaped by continuing to profit off of the communities they are surveilling.
We’ve asked for equal time and that the city bring in the ACLU, EFF or the Institute for Justice to give an unbiased opinion from a group who does not stand to benefit financially from their statements to the council. The Council has a Fiduciary Responsibility to the tax payers, and bringing in only one biased opinion calls into question that responsibility.
If you care about government spying on you, we urge you to come and voice your opinion. There will be a straw poll on whether the city should continue using ALPRs. Although a straw poll is not necessarily a final vote or binding decision, the council’s understanding of public opinion will be important. Your voice is critical. If you support ending or pausing the use of Flock cameras, please attend and make your position clear.
Meeting details
Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2026 Location: Rolling Meadows City Hall, Council Chambers Address: 3600 Kirchoff Road, Rolling Meadows, IL 60008
Get a yellow sticker to show your support!
The Committee of the Whole meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. The regular City Council meeting will begin afterward, but not before 7:00 p.m. Flock cameras and ALPR use are on the agenda.
If you plan to speak, arrive by 6:15 p.m. so you have time to find a seat and prepare.
Where to go when you arrive
Enter through the front door of City Hall. Once inside:
Walk past the windows for the Finance Office and the Community Development Office.
Our sign campaign took off like a powder keg. A silent majority of people don’t want this technology and certainly don’t want their tax dollars paying for it.
UPDATE: Did the city take your yard sign? You have a first amendment right to use your voice – email and we’ll drop off another one!
Put up a yard sign! Email rmnoflock@gmail.com with a drop-off address and we’ll deliver.
How to participate during 8/16–8/22
Action doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective. It can be as simple as:
Showing up for the council meeting on 8/25 at 6:30p. Flock cameras are ontheagenda. Tell the council what you think! The flock company might be there!
Contacting local decision-makers and requesting a clear timeline for removal
Sharing the message widely so more neighbors understand what’s at stake
Asking for accountability—documentation, compliance details, and responses that residents can evaluate
Put up a yard sign! Email rmnoflock@gmail.com with a drop-off address and we’ll deliver.
If you’ve been waiting for a moment to turn concern into action, this is it. National weeks of action help amplify local voices, and local voices are what create real change.
From August 16 through August 22, community members across the country are being invited to take part in a national week of action—an opportunity to speak up, organize, and push for accountable, transparent public policy at the local level.
Here in Rolling Meadows, that call is clear: cancel the Flock contract and restore community trust.
Mayor, members of the Rolling Meadows City Council, thank you for your service and for being here tonight. I appreciate the time and attention you give to our community.
My message today is about Flock cameras and other automated license plate reader camera systems in Rolling Meadows. When these systems are misused, they become tools for harassment, stalking, and violations of basic privacy rights—at precisely the scale and speed that makes accountability difficult, and that’s why they’re a liability rather than an asset for our community.
Rolling Meadows is about 20 miles from Holiday Hills, Illinois, and the case involving its police chief should be understood by everyone here. Prosecutors alleged that William C. Copp—who served as police chief for Holiday Hills and also worked as an officer in Prairie Grove—used Flock license plate readers hundreds of times to track three women he was connected to romantically and their friends. Prosecutors said the unauthorized searches were conducted for personal purposes, and in at least one alleged instance, the tracking was paired with calls and threats. The court petition states that Copp called one of the men on his “police phone” on September 1 and left a threatening voicemail telling him to no longer have contact with his ex-girlfriend—who Copp also allegedly knew through his own relationship. Copp allegedly told the man, “This is the only time that I’m going to be nice about this,” and then called again on September 22, telling him to leave her alone.
The impact of Flock isn’t abstract. It has real consequences for safety, peace of mind, and our ability to live normal lives without feeling watched.
So I want to put a question directly to this council and to City leadership: Do you think something like this can happen in our community? The truth is it already has. Rolling Meadows shares its cameras with Prairie Grove. Rolling Meadows opted to share our citizens movements with Prairie Grove. When Copp stalked his victims, we supported his crime. In fact, Copp and Prairie Grove searched our city 1,511 times over the past year, all with zero oversight.
At the May council meeting, City Manager Rob Sabo led the council to believe that each search was reviewed by the city. If that were true, then the department would have noticed his hundreds of searches for the same plates—over and over, at all hours of the day and night—especially given Copp’s claim that he needed it for “training” purposes. In fact, Rolling Meadows Police Department Policy 447.17 requires a written request to share this data, review and approval by the department, and the record of this approval to be retained on file. Yet that process was not followed in this case. I want an investigation into why in this case, stalking was allowed and why the department ignored its own policy in allowing it.
The problem isn’t only that these searches occurred. The problem is that there is a repeated pattern where safeguards and oversight are being ignored. With more than a 5 minute public comment period, I can show a repeated pattern of misuse. A prosecutor will be able to do this as well. When there is a repeated pattern, and the council does not act, it opens the city to financial liability, damage to public trust and legitimacy, and lawsuits.
City staff has claimed that these systems are being used to keep the community safe. Yet the department can’t produce reports or documentation showing that the system has helped solve crime. Well, now we know of at least one alleged crime that these systems were used to commit.
RMnoFlock: This Isn’t “Just Cameras”—It’s a Community-Wide Movement Ledger
If you drive through Rolling Meadows, you’re not imagining it: the streets are being watched. The debate is usually framed in comforting phrases—public safety, crime prevention, not 24/7—but residents feel something else too: that everyday life has become trackable.
A July 14, 2026 letter from the City acknowledges the practical reality of these systems. It describes “approximately twelve months of data consisting of millions of individual data entries,” with “more than 3,000,000 rows of data” requiring review and redaction before release. In plain language: the city isn’t dealing with a handful of incidents. It’s dealing with a flood of motion records.
And that’s exactly why communities across the country have been moving to de-Flock.
Flock doesn’t sell protection, they sell your movement data, every plate a datapoint, every route a product
