Lawmakers in the town of New Lebanon have formally barred the installation and operation of Flock Safety surveillance cameras on all town-owned property. The unanimous decision by the New Lebanon Town Board marks a major local response to mounting public scrutiny over automated license plate tracking technology across Columbia County.
The municipal measure comes in the wake of recent disclosures showing that the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office acquired ten automated license plate readers without the prior knowledge or consent of the county Board of Supervisors. That revelation has sparked widespread debates regarding government transparency, law enforcement overreach, and the preservation of personal privacy.
In drafting the newly adopted measure, New Lebanon town officials stressed a profound obligation to protect the civil liberties, constitutional rights, and fundamental privacy of local residents, business owners, and travelers passing through the community. The town’s leadership framed the policy as a necessary safeguard against intrusive, unchecked digital monitoring.
The resolution specifically took aim at the continuous nature of automated license plate tracking, noting that the widespread use of Flock surveillance operates under a framework of mass observation rather than individualized probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Board members emphasized that such systems indiscriminately record law-abiding citizens as they go about ordinary errands, potentially cataloging visits to medical practices, places of worship, legal offices, and community or political gatherings.
To curb this type of tracking, the newly passed resolution strictly prohibits any town resources or assets from being utilized to support or expand the Flock Safety network. Furthermore, the measure mandates that any outside agency seeking to install surveillance apparatus on town-owned infrastructure must first submit to a formal public hearing and secure explicit authorization from the Town Board.
Local leaders made sure to distinguish between automated surveillance systems that record individual identifiers and standard traffic management tools. Under the terms of the resolution, New Lebanon does not object to or prohibit basic vehicle-counting devices that monitor roadway volume without gathering personal license plate data.
The actual reach of the town’s ban, however, faces practical boundaries established by how the devices are currently situated. Information from the crowd-sourced tracking platform DeFlock Maps indicates that one Flock camera is active in New Lebanon, but it is situated on private land and is therefore exempt from the restrictions imposed on town property.
Sheriff Jackie Salvatore has maintained that every one of the ten Flock units operating within Columbia County is installed on private property rather than public right-of-ways. Because the town resolution applies solely to municipal infrastructure and town-owned property, existing installations on private parcels will remain unaffected by the local vote.
The wider regional dispute traces back to decisions made under former Sheriff Don Krapf, who used a state law enforcement grant in 2024 to purchase the ten cameras. The purchase came roughly a year after a committee on the county Board of Supervisors tabled a previous proposal to acquire Flock devices using private donations from an anonymous group.
Sheriff Salvatore, who served as undersheriff at the time the grant was utilized, defended the former administration’s procurement. She contended that the legislative committee’s past reluctance had stemmed exclusively from discomfort surrounding the anonymous donation model rather than an objection to the cameras themselves. However, that explanation has been directly challenged by at least one former county supervisor.
The legality and protocol of the acquisition are now undergoing formal review by Columbia County Attorney Robert Fitzsimmons, who is investigating whether the purchase violated county bylaws or bypassed required legislative oversight. Salvatore has asserted that no rules were broken, maintaining that her department entered into a memorandum of understanding with Flock rather than a formal contract that would have required supervisor authorization.
Flock Safety systems function by automatically photographing vehicle license plates and feeding that imagery into artificial intelligence-powered databases. These databases enable law enforcement personnel to search, sort, and track vehicular movements across extensive geographic networks in real time.
Opposition to the technology has mobilized well beyond New Lebanon’s town hall. Last week, a coalition composed of activist organizations, community members, and current and former public officials staged a public rally to launch a broader campaign demanding a total prohibition on Flock cameras and automated license plate readers throughout Columbia County.
Similar debates have played out in neighboring Hudson Valley municipalities grappling with the rapid adoption of digital tracking tools. Earlier this summer, the City Council in Newburgh held extensive discussions regarding the possible cancellation of its own memorandum of understanding with Flock Safety, though that proposed repeal ultimately failed during a council vote last month.
Following New Lebanon’s decisive action, Town Supervisor Tistrya Houghtling, who also serves as the Democratic leader on the Columbia County Board of Supervisors, announced plans to share the newly approved resolution with other municipal leaders across the region. Houghtling aims to encourage neighboring municipalities to enact matching restrictions to protect resident privacy on public lands throughout the county.
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