The government spent years promising Americans that license plate reader cameras were only for catching criminals.
Now the person running those cameras just got arrested for abusing them.
What police found when they audited the system in Conyers, Georgia is the small story – Democrats already have the big one mapped out.
Flock Safety License Plate Reader Misuse Reaches the Supervisor Level
Paige Forte, 30, ran the Conyers Police Department's Real-Time Crime Center.
She was the supervisor – the person in charge of making sure nobody abused the Flock Safety surveillance cameras set up throughout the city.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says Forte queried the Flock Safety system more than 30 times between April and July of 2026. Every search was her domestic partner's vehicle. None of it had anything to do with law enforcement.
She was arrested July 22 and booked into Rockdale County Jail on charges of Misuse of a License Plate Reader System.
Conyers Police Chief Scott Freeman acted fast, launched an internal probe, and called in the GBI. "No employee is above the law," he said.
But this was not one rogue supervisor. This was a Tuesday.
Flock Camera Abuse Cases Are Piling Up Across Georgia and the Country
The Georgia accounting alone is staggering. Five Albany officers were fired and charged after an internal audit caught them running personal searches. Fayetteville had three officers. Cherokee County lost three deputies. DeKalb and Greene counties each added their own disciplinary actions.
The Institute for Justice has documented at least 28 cases nationwide of law enforcement officers using license plate readers to track romantic partners – and that count was compiled before the current Georgia wave.
One Milwaukee officer ran his girlfriend's plate and her ex-boyfriend's nearly 180 times over two months.
A Florida officer pulled his ex-girlfriend's plate 69 times across seven months, then ran her mother's 24 times and her father's 15 times.
None of it was police work.
Democrats Used Covid Lockdowns for Selective Enforcement and Flock Gives Them a Permanent Tool
License plate cameras on street corners are not the outrage. Flock has helped recover abducted children and catch carjackers. Americans can live with that trade.
The outrage is who controls the system – and what they do when the rules are theirs to write.
The Covid lockdowns answered that question.
Socialist Democrat governors told citizens they could not leave their homes, visit family, or attend church.
Police in blue cities ticketed people for sitting alone in parks. Pastors were arrested for holding outdoor services. The crackdown fell on law-abiding Americans while Democrat politicians held maskless fundraisers and flew to Cabo.
Flock is the hardware that makes that kind of selective enforcement permanent and automatic.
Run the system during the 2020 lockdowns and the picture gets clear fast. A plate scanned leaving a neighborhood after curfew generates an automated citation – no officer, no discretion, no appeal. Just a ticket in the mail and a flag in the database.
A Trump rally declared an unlawful assembly? Every attendee's plate is already logged. A church parking lot flagged as a public health violation? The data is waiting.
The illegal alien who crossed the border last week gets a free pass – sanctuary policies guarantee it in every Democrat-run city. The system gets pointed at law-abiding citizens instead.
Flock Alpha Drone Surveillance Is Next and the Ground Cameras Are Already Out of Control
While police departments cannot stop their own supervisors from abusing ground-based cameras, Flock just unveiled Flock Alpha – an autonomous drone that reads license plates from 2,000 feet, flies at 60 miles per hour, and streams thermal video in real time.
Congressman Scott Perry put it directly on X: "Flock cameras now log approximately 20 BILLION vehicle scans every month. That's not targeted policing of bad guys. That's mass collection and surveillance."
The Paige Forte case is what this technology looks like in the hands of someone with petty personal motives.
A Socialist Democrat city government with a political agenda is not a petty personal motive.
It is a governing philosophy.
Sources:
- Georgia Bureau of Investigation, "GBI Arrests Conyers Police Department Employee for Misuse of a License Plate Reader System," GBI Press Release, July 23, 2026.
- Jeff Charles, "Georgia Cop Arrested for Stalking Boyfriend With Mass Surveillance Cameras," Townhall, July 28, 2026.
- Daily Caller, "Thought Flock Cameras Were Dystopian? Wait Until You Learn About Their Other Spy Tool," July 24, 2026.
- Institute for Justice, "Police Have Reportedly Used License Plate Readers to Stalk Romantic Interests at Least 28 Times in Recent Years," April 27, 2026.
- Flock Safety, "Flock's Audit Assistance Surfaces License Plate Reader Misuse in Albany, Georgia; Five Officers Arrested," Globe Newswire, July 8, 2026.
- Flock Safety, "Flock Safety Unveils Alpha, a U.S.-Built Drone as First Responder System," Globe Newswire, October 16, 2025.
