It started April 24, 2026. I filed a public records request for information on the Flock Automated License Plate Reader system the City of Visalia was utilizing. Today, August 3, 2026, I got the final response. Basically, “NO”. The only thing they sent me that was not readily available on the Visalia Police Department Flock Transparency page was a list of “audits”, reporting which agencies had access to Visalia’s Flock network. It was in the tens of thousands of PDF pages. What that revealed is a whole blog post in itself, perhaps at a later date. (I did not see any evidence in those pages of any non-California agencies accessing Visalia Police Department’s database, such as ICE or Homeland Security. There’s a loop-hole about that, however.)

2026.08.03 RB Ltr to J. Reeves (final)Download

The only thing they were willing to tell me about my vehicle being identified, cataloged, and stored in the Flock database was that they didn’t have any record of Visalia PD checking for my plate. I suppose that’s good. Of course, it doesn’t mean that they haven’t, after my request.

Here are the blog posts I’ve made during this investigation:

  1. “What the Flock?” My first notice of the Flock cameras in Visalia.
  2. “Well, Flock Me!” Stories about agencies cancelling their Flock contracts due to violations of state law by Flock.
  3. “More Flock, More Fun” Another blogger runs the stuff I’ve done through an AI for analysis.
  4. “Flock You Later” The Police Department opts to take their allowed 14 day extension to respond to my request.
  5. “Flock the Lawyers” The Police Department hands my request off to the City’s lawyers. That’s seldom a good sign.
  6. “Flock Me A Little Bit” They send me the list of which agencies can access VPD Flock data, and want me to prove the license plate I asked about is mine.
  7. “Tick Tock Tick Flock” The lawyers dump a huge file on me, with audit logs of agencies that accessed Visalia’s Flock data. Want to know the biggest user, by far? California Highway Patrol. They routinely check thousands of camera files.

So they’ve decided “…data is exempt from public disclosure under the public records act balancing test because the public interest in preventing disclosure clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure…” and “Visalia PD’s policy “Because such data may contain confidential information, it is not open to public view.” (Policy 428.2.)”

They took 14 weeks to determine they wouldn’t give me data on myself. Due diligence, or deliberate delay?

This story is not over.

Image by Gemini AI