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Big Brother is Watching You a Little Bit Closer
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Like It Or Not, Anoka County Sheriff Expands Flock Camera Program
Vice Chair of he Anoka County Board Mandy Meisner took to Facebook on Wednesday, July 8th, to let the public know she did not support the manner in which the Anoka County Sheriff's office implemented the Flock Safe County Pilot program.
"As a County Commissioner, I was neither invited to provide input nor informed of this contract until after it had already been signed.
Prior to the Sheriff's decision, I had advocated for keeping this project within the County's Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) process so the financial implications could be fully reviewed, the public could be meaningfully engaged, and clear policies governing the use of this technology could be developed before implementation."
The post leads readers to believe that the Sheriff is operating apart from the County Board, and that she takes offense to his actions.
Going through great pains to explain that the Sheriff is an independently elected official, and that he has the right to enter into contracts under $175,000, Meisner emphasizes that she was not consulted:
You might be excused for being confused. The program is not a pilot program, but an expansion of existing services. A slight play on language ala Orwell, but we can overlook that and simply note it for the future. You can find Vice Chair Meisner's full Facebook post here:
Meisner goes on to specify that the Sheriff is using discretionary funds to pay for the cameras. Research reveals that County Boards typically do not have authority over how a Sheriff spends or allocates such funds, though the Board itself grants those funds and sets the dollar amount in consultation with the Sheriff. One wonders if there was any conversation when the dollar amount of the funds was set last fall.
What the Vice Chair does not say is that the County Board has the ability to dictate what can be affixed to its buildings, lands and rights-of-way. The Board has absolute authority to ban these devices on its property. This would not stop the Sheriff from seeking leases on his own authority, but it illustrates that the Board does in fact have a very meaningful lever.
Trend of Shirking Responsibility
This post is part of a larger trend of County Officials pointing at each other and throwing up their hands. This author notes that the Board and individual members have claimed that they didn't know the County Attorney was going to sue Anoka City over jail related issues earlier this year. This spring, Vice Chair Meisner spent considerable time decrying Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics but claimed no power over the situation. Now, our Vice Chair simply didn't know that the Sheriff was going to expand a highly controversial surveillance program though she would have been intimately involved in crafting, identifying sources of funds, and approving the Sheriff's final budget. Whether you agree with the actions or not is beside the point. A pattern emerges of a commissioners that don't know what is going on. It is unfathomable that this is the case. This is a refrain heard by this author at one time or another from 5 of the 7 members of the current County Board. The Anoka County Connection and this author wonders why, for $90,000 per year, that the majority of commissioners can say that they are unaware of what is happening. It feels too convenient an excuse, but perhaps they should be aware that it looks bad that a well paid public servant just doesn't know what's happening.
Maybe we should raise their pay so that they can be implored to attend staff meetings and also talk to their fellow elected officials so that they are in the know.
In the case Commissioner Meisner, The Anoka County Connection notes that she is fully capable of authoring legislation, and as Vice Chair has special powers as well as unlimited access to administration staff and internal communications. She cannot ask us to believe that she is unaware of the operations of the County. To do so admits that the Board has lost control of its staff and is letting appointed officials manage a 400 Million dollar organization unsupervised. Or it means we have a rogue Sheriff and County Attorney in addition to a clueless Board.
In the case of Commissioner Heinrich, he may indeed not know what is happening as he readily admits that he spends no more than one day at the County Building in Downtown Anoka weekly. As mayor of a City that had one-tenth the budget, I spent no less than 20 hours per week examining City operations. It was not possible to understand what staff was talking about without that level of commitment. Presumably, this is why Commissioners at Anoka County earn a full time salary for their work. If commissioners understood how this argument makes them look, they might find better excuses or, God forbid, own their decisions.
Why Flock Cameras are Controversial
The controversy surrounding Flock Safety cameras centers on the balance between public safety and personal privacy. Critics and civil liberties advocates raise several main concerns:
Mass Surveillance of Innocent Citizens: Unlike traditional police cameras triggered by a crime, Flock cameras log the location, time, and vehicle details of every single driver passing by, regardless of any wrongdoing.
Creation of a "Vehicle Footprint": By pooling data across thousands of jurisdictions, the system allows law enforcement to profile all individuals that pass their cameras. This includes daily routines, habits, long distance car trips, and frequent locations over time.
Data Security and Sharing Risks: Concerns exist over who has access to the central cloud database. While rules dictate when data should be purged, critics worry about systemic hacks or unauthorized sharing between local, state, and federal agencies. They also worry about the removal of data to be stored outside the database to circumvent State mandated, automatic deletion timelines.
Lack of Public Oversight: Many police departments have quietly deployed these networks using discretionary budgets or free trials before the public or local city councils have had a chance to debate or vote on them.
Broad Immunity: The company asks for and receives broad indemnity for deployment, placing liability on the user and taking little responsibility itself.
The "Slippery Slope" to Expansion: While currently limited to license plates and vehicle characteristics, privacy advocates fear the infrastructure lays the groundwork for more intrusive tracking technologies, such as facial recognition.
Misuse: The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have catalogued instances where Flock was misused.
Law enforcement have wrongly accused people who have had to use their own camera and GPS data to prove innocence
Jealous officers and chiefs have tracked their ex-girlfriends and their new partners
Operators have fed data out of Flock's databases to use facial recognition
Unauthorized installations have been catalogued where the company installed cameras in public rights-of-way without municipal consent
Government agencies have been lied to about the capabilities, access and use cases of the technology
In addition to the above, Flock has developed an operating system where other data can be fed into the system and managed with Artificial Intelligence. Ring camera systems are now integrated, and if agencies use facial recognition outside of the system before feeding it such data, Flock will not reject that information and will readily incorporate it.
Flock In Anoka County
The adoption and use of Flock Safety Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras in Anoka County, Minnesota, has followed a path of expanding law enforcement adoption balanced by intense public push back over privacy and mass surveillance.
1. Initial Implementation & Sheriff's Office Expansion
The Anoka County Sheriff's Office quietly adopted the stationary, motion-activated Flock Safety cameras to assist with criminal investigations.
By early 2024, the Sheriff's Office officially operated Flock Automated Licence Plate Reader (ALPR) units deployed across select areas (such as Andover).
Under Minnesota state law, the technology is strictly programmed to capture vehicle and license plate data—not facial recognition—and is legally mandated to automatically purge any data not tied to an active criminal investigation after 30 days.
2. Integration with Regional "Hotlists"
The data pipeline works by comparing every passing vehicle against a law enforcement "hotlist" (fed by state and national databases like MNJIS and NLETS).
Over the years, the county highlighted high-profile "success stories" to justify the expansion, including locating a fugitive from Arizona, tracking a child sexual assault suspect, and recovering an abducted child where the suspect was trying to cross state lines.
The technology has recently been integrated into a broader multi-city framework (including cities like Fridley, Blaine, and Coon Rapids) under the coordination of the Anoka County Real Time Crime Center, allowing cross-jurisdictional tracking of suspect vehicles.
3. Public Backlash - Columbia Heights Walkback (2026)
While law enforcement agencies across Anoka County pushed for a wider rollout—including pitching a sweeping county-wide pilot program combining Flock cameras with a Drone Assisted Response (DAR) program—community resistance hit a boiling point in the Anoka County city of Columbia Heights.
In June 2026, following mounting public outcry over "Big Brother" mass surveillance and the potential for tracking innocent civilians, the Columbia Heights City Council voted unanimously to completely remove all 12 of its Flock cameras.
The Debate: While the Anoka County Sheriff's Office defended the technology at local town halls, pointing to Minnesota's incredibly strict penalties for police misuse of data, privacy advocates argued that the multi-city matrix created a continuous tracking network of ordinary residents without a warrant.
Anoka County's Sheriff, and now via inaction and excuse, its County Board, are complicit in allowing a Ready-Fire-Aim approach to our safety. Please follow the Anoka County Connectionon Facebook for updates, and if you are against the use of Flock cameras in our County, please consider signing our petition to have the cameras removed from County property.
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