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End Lebanon's Flock contract. Sign the petition.
The cameras are bagged, but the contract is still alive. On Oct 27 the vote to end it tied 3–3 and failed — the second miss in two weeks. One vote is all that's missing.
Where it stands · Oct 28, 2026
- Sept 8: all 20 cameras bagged and disabled.
- Oct 13: resolution to end the contract failed 3–4. Yes: Messer, Sellers, Lamoreaux. No: Norris, Cope, Harper, Edgars.
- Oct 27: a second resolution to end the contract tied 3–3, so it failed. Vice Mayor Norris was absent. Yes: Messer, Sellers, Lamoreaux. No: Cope, Edgars, Harper.
- Same week: Flock removed 6 of Lebanon’s bagged cameras without telling the city. Flock says it was “an error.”
- Now: cameras stay bagged while staff meets with public safety officials on policy.
Councilman Matt Sellers
"I love this city. I love this country. Loving it means defending the rights that make us free, even when it's unpopular and especially when it's hard."
“When government wants to search you, there's first probable cause, then a warrant from an independent magistrate or neutral judge, and then the search comes. Flock just flips that. It’s the absolute opposite. That's not how a free country works. That's how a free country dies.” — Oct 27
Mayor Mark Messer · Oct 27
"[Whoever has access] can track the whole of your movement over the past 30 days … without a warrant. I believe that is a gross overstep, and it's an affront to the Fourth Amendment."
On Oct 13 he said Flock couldn't even produce the terms of service Lebanon signed: “This is a company whose business is data.” Even the police chief told council on Oct 27: “I'm not here tonight to ask council to trust Flock Safety.”
Answering the no votes
What they said on Oct 27, and what they left out.
“Every court that has ruled on a Flock-style system to date … has found that it is not a Fourth Amendment search.” — Councilman Cope
Those are lower courts. The Supreme Court has spoken twice. In Carpenter (2018) it held people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in “the whole of their physical movements,” even when every piece was gathered in public. In Chatrie (June 2026) it held that police getting just two hours of phone location data was a search. Neither case was mentioned.
“Public travel is public” (Knotts, 1983). A plate has no privacy (Ellison, 2006).
Knotts was one beeper on one trip, and the Court said if “dragnet-type” practices ever came, different rules might apply. Ellison was one officer running one plate. Flock logs every car, every day, and lets police search back 30 days. Carpenter said that kind of tracking “runs against everyone.”
“A small network of 20 cameras.”
The chief told council that while Lebanon only shares its data with Ohio agencies, there’s “a whole nationwide network that still allows us to search theirs.” Lebanon’s contract plugs into other agencies’ cameras across the country, not just our 20.
“Safeguards have continued to evolve.” — Chief Mitchell
They’re Flock’s settings, under Flock’s terms, which Flock keeps changing and couldn’t even produce for the mayor. The same week, Flock pulled 6 of Lebanon’s cameras without telling the city and called it an error. The city doesn’t control this system. Flock does.
Original intent is “a different argument.”
It’s the whole argument. The founders wrote the Fourth Amendment against general warrants, which let officers search anyone with no named suspect and no judge. Ohio’s first constitution in 1802 called them “dangerous to liberty.” Flock records everyone first, and the only “warrant” is a case number police assign themselves.
Used in 167 investigations since June 2024.
That’s about 6 a month, and the chief said it doesn’t mean 167 solved. Lebanon police solved crimes long before Flock arrived in 2024. Nobody is asking police to stop investigating. We’re asking them to get a warrant.
Show up
Tuesday, Nov 10 · 50 South Broadway
Regular meeting. (Council's work session moved to Wed, Nov 4.) You don't have to speak — showing up is the message. Check the agenda at lebanonohio.gov.
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Not just Lebanon
- Monroe voted 5–0 on Sept 22 to end its Flock contract.
- Hamilton County's sheriff stopped using all 75 of her Flock cameras. Reynoldsburg ended its contract Sept 9.
- Oct 26: Cleveland schools refused a $603,000 renewal and told Flock to shut off all 201 cameras on district property.
- Close to home: in October a Sharonville police lieutenant was indicted on a felony charge for allegedly searching Flock 29 times for personal reasons.
- The law is moving: in Carpenter v. U.S. (2018) the Supreme Court held people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in “the whole of their physical movements.” On June 29, 2026, Chatrie v. U.S. extended that to phone location data police got from Google, which counts as a search. Neither case is about Flock, but plate readers log movements too.
- Oct 1: a federal judge in Oklahoma (U.S. v. Kyle) threw out evidence from a warrantless Flock search.