Post Falls mayor condemns Flock cameras while city uses license plate readers
Westlund says Post Falls will "never use Flock cameras," yet the city still relies on Motorola plate readers tied to the FBI crime database.
Post Falls Mayor Randy Westlund has condemned Flock camera systems as unconstitutional mass surveillance while the city continues using its own license plate readers. Westlund said Post Falls will "never use Flock cameras" and described himself as "firmly opposed to unconstitutional mass surveillance," even as the city keeps a separate system in service for police work.
The distinction matters because Post Falls is not camera-free. KREM reported that the city uses Motorola cameras that read license plates and check them against the National Crime Information Center’s database, a narrower setup than Flock’s networked system. Post Falls Police also posted a Mayor’s Statement on its website, signaling that the issue has moved beyond routine technology management and into the city’s public-facing civil liberties debate.
That debate has become sharper across Idaho as lawmakers and police agencies argue over how much data should be collected, how long it should be kept and who can see it. KTVB reported that the Idaho Legislature passed a law last year requiring license plate reader data to be used only for law enforcement purposes. Civil liberties critics have still warned that networked camera systems can create broader surveillance databases than local police intend.
Kootenai County cities are making different choices on the same technology. KREM reported that Coeur d’Alene approved funds for license plate reader cameras, with one camera estimated at $33,980 and paid for through a Justice Assistance Grant already awarded. That puts neighboring North Idaho communities on different tracks even as they face the same arguments about privacy, policing and public spending.
The statewide fight has not slowed elsewhere. In Twin Falls, police requested $88,400 for a Flock Safety Real-Time Information Program, and dozens of residents spoke for and against the cameras at a city council meeting. For Post Falls, the immediate question is less about whether license plate readers exist than about which kind the city will tolerate, what limits will govern them and how much the public can see about the system already in use.
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