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# What the Flock?
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/what-the-flock/
- Published: 2026-08-27T00:53:58.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T00:53:58.000Z
- Description: Baton Rouge's license-plate cameras are stirring up privacy fears, not political ones.
- Author: JR Ball
- Tags: News

Flock cameras have become punching bags on campaign trails from Michigan to Tennessee this fall. Nobody in Baton Rouge is throwing any haymakers over them. Here it's a pillow fight over privacy, not party.

**Why it matters:** Somebody's watching you whenever you're behind the wheel in East Baton Rouge Parish, and nobody at Metro Council has asked whether that's OK.

**Camera count:** Baton Rouge's got more Flock cameras watching it than most cities its size, and the badge doesn't seem to mind.

- BRPD and the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office both run active networks, and Central police use their own readers.
- Police Chief TJ Morse says the systems help recover [more than $2.5 million](https://www.wbrz.com/news/baton-rouge-police-credit-license-plate-cameras-with-helping-solve-crimes/?ref=redeyebr.com) in stolen property most years, and every search gets logged.
- That kind of audit trail is exactly what was missing in Jefferson Parish, where a deputy got fired this summer for running his ex-fiancée's plate 5,000 times.

**Uneven map:** Zoom in on a [crowdsourced camera map](https://deflock.org/?ref=redeyebr.com), and East Baton Rouge starts to look lopsided.

- The camera cluster is thick through St. George and elsewhere along the southern and southeastern swing of the parish.
- North Baton Rouge—the parish's highest-crime turf—has barely a blip.
- Neither BRPD nor the Sheriff's Office gives official camera locations, so there's no easy way to tell if a camera is for law enforcement or a nearby HOA.
- These pins are volunteer-reported, not an official registry—so a lighter cluster in North Baton Rouge could mean fewer cameras, or just fewer people looking—or reporting.

**State pushback:** Baton Rouge's Metro Council hasn't touched the issue, but a Shreveport-area Republican wants to go on a statewide Flock hunt.

- State Rep. [Danny McCormick](https://www.shreveportbossieradvocate.com/news/reel-this-back-in-caddo-legislator-wants-to-ban-flock-cameras-statewide/article%5Fcad0c051-3d92-4125-99f2-61d24a2468b7.html?ref=redeyebr.com) of Oil City is drafting a bill for next spring's session, calling the cameras warrantless surveillance.
- McCormick says the anger crosses party lines—conservatives and civil libertarians alike.

**Security or nanny state:** This isn't a Mechanical Hound tracking dissenters without a warrant, but it's not exactly asking permission, either.

- Ask Morse, and it's a crime-fighting tool; ask the ACLU, and it's more like a leash.
- ACLU of Louisiana advocacy director [Sarah Whittington](https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/baton-rouge-residents-spark-debate-224716595.html?ref=redeyebr.com) says solving crimes doesn't erase the fact that thousands of innocent drivers get tracked with zero judicial oversight.
- Baton Rouge privacy advocate Chris Alexander doesn't mince words: the cameras are "digitally tracking your every movement."

**The bottom line:** It's fascinating the privacy and civil liberties people are willing to sacrifice in the name of public safety—whether it's full-body X-ray scans at the airport or eye-on-a-pole surveillance cameras along a street near you.

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