Paige Reiring showed up at Woodchuck’s house with a revolver strapped to her hip.
asserted
Reiring → show → hip
She didn’t know anything about the man except that he loved America and hated Flock cameras.
asserted
he → know → cameras
He’d reached out to Reiring via TikTok after seeing her videos tracking automated license plate readers in the city of Morgantown; he wanted her to come look at a new one in his neighborhood.
asserted
her → reach → neighborhood
Reiring told me she brought her gun as insurance—this was West Virginia, after all, and she was “just one lady.”
asserted
she → tell → insurance
At first glance, Reiring—a 33-year-old lesbian socialist and third-party candidate for the West Virginia House of Delegates—wouldn’t seem to have much in common with Woodchuck, a proud patriot who decries so-called “Nazi communist bastards” for putting a surveillance camera in front of his yard.
asserted
who → seem → yard
But over the course of a 45-minute conversation, the two found they were standing on some solid common ground.
asserted
they → find → ground
Neither thinks mass surveillance has a place in West Virginia.
asserted
surveillance → think → Virginia
“If I had introduced myself as a socialist, he would not have spoken to me,” Reiring said.
asserted
Reiring → introduce → me
But when she told Woodchuck she was running for the state house seat in his district, he pledged to pass out her yard signs.
asserted
he → tell → signs
“‘We need people like you who are willing to point these things out and get rid of them,’” Reiring recalled him saying of Flock cameras.
asserted
him → need → cameras
In 2026, few things unite Americans more than hating Flock.
asserted
things → unite → Flock
The company’s AI-powered network of license plate readers has been at the center of a much-documented nationwide backlash, as revelations about police abuses of the technology increasingly come to light.
asserted
revelations → power → light
More than half of US voters now say they oppose ALPRs in their communities.
asserted
they → say → communities
And as my colleagues Chasity Hale and Sophie Hurwitz reported last month, “Both Republicans and Democrats in battleground states like Florida, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are wooing voters by promising to place guardrails on unregulated surveillance technologies.”
asserted
Republicans → report → technologies
One Arizona sheriff put it best when he remarked at a hearing that “Flock has become a four-letter word.
asserted
Flock → put → hearing
I’ve been covering policing and surveillance for years, and I’ve never seen a law enforcement technology catch quite as much flak as Flock.
asserted
technology → cover → Flock
At first, the intense pushback surprised me—civil liberties advocates have been warning about the federal government’s expansion of mass surveillance since 9/11, and police departments across the country have long deployed ALPRs alongside other invasive technologies.
asserted
departments → surprise → technologies
I wanted to understand why Flock, specifically, has inspired such robust bipartisan reproach.
asserted
Flock → want → reproach
But more importantly, I wanted to see where all this anti-Flock momentum is going—and if it could spark a wider anti-surveillance movement in America.
uncertain
it → want → America
In August, I traveled to West Virginia in search of answers, where an unlikely coalition of activists is powering a thriving anti-Flock crusade.
asserted
coalition → travel → crusade
Crucially, the state isn’t a battleground: West Virginians voted for President Donald Trump by a whopping 42-point margin in 2024, second only to Wyoming, and Republicans hold more than nine in 10 seats in the state legislature.
asserted
Republicans → vote → legislature
Yet state lawmakers in Charleston have been among the most aggressive in the country when it comes to publicly sparring with Flock executives over privacy concerns.
asserted
it → come → concerns
While some officials are calling for better guardrails, many critics—including both the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia and the ultra-conservative state Freedom Caucus—are pushing to ban mass surveillance technology altogether.
asserted
critics → call → technology
Freedom Caucus chair S. Chris Anders told me Flock is “the first really big bipartisan issue [he’s] seen come up” in West Virginia since starting his term in 2024.
asserted
he → tell → 2024
In an August hearing, state delegates grilled Flock’s director of government affairs, Kevin Kane, on the company’s privacy policies and security.
asserted
delegates → grill → policies
Unsatisfied with Kane’s answers, Republican lawmakers then exchanged a series of scathing public letters with Flock, accusing the company of attempting to hold secretive back-door conversations and demanding that corporate representatives testify under oath before the House Government Organization Committee.
asserted
representatives → exchange → Committee
Flock’s “technical personnel” are now set to appear in Charleston days after the midterm elections; legislators say to expect state regulations next year.
asserted
legislators → set → regulations
The backlash to Flock “is an example of the facade starting to crumble,” said Kyle Vass, an investigative reporter with the West Virginia ACLU who grew up in the southwestern city of Huntington.
asserted
who → start → Huntington
“People are seeing this for what it is: the expansion of the police state.”
asserted
it → see → state
On a Monday night in mid-August, I attended a “DeFlock teach-in” at Monkey Wrench Books in downtown Morgantown, a city in the north-central part of the state that’s home to West Virginia University.
asserted
that → attend → University
More than 40 people packed into the small space, squeezing between bookshelves displaying titles like All This Safety is Killing Us and Why Would Feminists Trust the Police?
asserted
Feminists → pack → Police
The crowd was rapt as civil rights attorney Lesley Nash explained how to find public information about Monongalia County’s Flock contract and navigate the open-source ALPR mapping website DeFlock.
asserted
Nash → explain → website
When it came time for audience questions, a young, cherub-faced man with long dirty-blond hair announced he’d recently been arrested for allegedly destroying a Flock camera.
uncertain
he → come → camera
The room erupted in applause.
asserted
room → erupt → applause
“You didn’t do it!” someone shouted.
asserted
someone → do → it
Earlier that month, a local news post about the young man’s arrest had received 29,000 comments, as Facebook users rushed to his defense with a flood of implausible alibis.
asserted
users → receive → alibis
(Morgantown has a population of around 30,000.)
asserted
Morgantown → have → 30,000
Suffice to say he’s a bit of a hometown hero.
asserted
he → suffice → hero
In Morgantown, locals have been particularly incensed that the Monongalia County Commission approved spending up to $180,000 of opioid settlement money to fund the sheriff’s office’s contract with Flock.
asserted
Commission → incense → Flock
Those funds—the product of years of nationwide litigation against major pharmaceutical companies accused of fueling the opioid epidemic—were largely intended to provide crucial addiction recovery and harm reduction services.
asserted
funds → accuse → services
…and 69 more, not listed.
The Aporia
