The ballot item, initially intended as a way to gauge public sentiment about the cameras, describes Proposition A as nonbinding. But the City Council approved a second resolution in mid-October that pledged to remove the cameras if voters rejected them on Nov. 3. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to show \u2026 we\u2019re going to have the procedures already in place, there\u2019s no second vote needed,\u201d League City Mayor Nick Long said during the Oct. 13 City Council meeting. <\/p>\n
If voters reject the cameras, Long said, \u201c72 hours after [the vote] certification, the city will start bagging them up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police praise Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers as a powerful tool for solving crimes, but growing concern about potentially intrusive surveillance, coupled with reports of police officers who abused the data, have fueled a backlash across the nation. <\/p>\n
Long said he introduced the resolution to place the question before voters because he saw residents of all political stripes on each side of the argument. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s passion on both sides of the issue, and [I] felt it was best to put it out there,\u201d Long said in an interview.<\/p>\n
AI-powered Flock cameras, which compile vehicle information into a database accessible to law enforcement nationwide, have become a political flashpoint over the past year. <\/p>\n
State and federal legislators from both parties have described their use as unconstitutional and ripe for abuse, with some state lawmakers promising to file legislation to ban or regulate the devices next legislative session. Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> in August banned the use<\/a> of state money for Flock cameras and halted new installations along state roads, though he has not said how long the moratoriums might last.<\/p>\n One other U.S. city \u2014 York, Maine \u2014 is asking voters to decide the fate of Flock cameras in Tuesday\u2019s midterm elections. In addition,Texas cities Kyle and Laredo plan to put the question to voters in May. <\/p>\n League City has continued using its cameras in the run-up to Election Day, while York officials have covered their cameras while awaiting a decision from voters. <\/p>\n Long said he understands the privacy concerns about the proliferation of the cameras, but he also has no illusions about their usefulness to police. Pointing to the use of Flock cameras in a recent missing persons case in League City, he said police \u201cwouldn’t have had anything to go on without the Flock cameras.\u201d The case ended with the 15-year-old girl found safe in Guadalupe County. <\/p>\n \u201cThey definitely work, and they definitely have privacy concerns, so I think both things can be true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Flock Safety said in a statement that it will \u201crespect any decision League City makes\u201d but emphasized the cameras\u2019 role in solving several crimes in the area, including the arrest of a murder suspect.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we understand there are questions on public safety technology, I would like to reiterate that Flock [cameras have] had a real impact on crime in League City,\u201d Flock Safety spokesperson Courtney Terlecki said.<\/p>\n The cameras\u2019 reputation in the Houston area has been damaged by reports that five police departments in the region \u2014 including League City neighbors Pasadena and Baytown \u2014 have arrested officers or launched investigations into alleged misuse of Flock data. <\/p>\n Long said only six officers have access to League City\u2019s Flock system, and two officers must work together to scan Flock data \u2014 policies he believes reduce the likelihood of abuse. But other departments\u2019 ability to search data captured by League City\u2019s cameras raises other questions about security, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe chance that two officers are both going to stalk somebody’s ex-girlfriend is pretty low, and that’s why we haven’t had any issues with it,\u201d Long said. \u201cBut the data, when it leaves League City and goes into the cloud and stored on servers or what have you, I think that’s still a bigger concern.\u201d<\/p>\n League City allows more than 400 agencies to access its Flock camera data. All agencies except for the FBI are in Texas, according to the city\u2019s Flock transparency portal<\/a>. League City police use the system roughly 200 times in an average 30-day period, the portal shows.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on The Texas Tribune<\/a>.\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793397728_223_cropped-cropped-texas-tribune-favicon.png\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday, voters in the Houston-area suburb of League City will be the first in Texas to decide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-481789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}