In McDowell County, no one is checking at all.
Timeline
- By September 2025: 12+ cameras on the record, and that’s the entire record. Per public records compiled by EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance, the Sheriff’s Office runs 8 Flock cameras and Marion PD runs 4, with two more mapped in Old Fort. No commission vote, no council vote, no news story precedes or follows. (Getting Flock Out)
Links of note
- EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance: McDowell County: the only public documentation
- DeFlockILM’s NC records-request template: the tool for the first records request
- County commissioners on YouTube: official meeting video
The documentation hole
Beyond the Atlas entry, there is nothing: no commission vote, no council vote, no news story, no stated position from Sheriff Ricky Buchanan, no contract value, no local coverage of any kind; the county’s own paper has run only wire stories about Flock elsewhere. No tracker lists McDowell; no opposition exists because nobody knows.
That makes McDowell the cheapest high-value target in the region: a single records request (contract, cost, policies, audit logs; DeFlockILM’s NC template works) would produce the county’s first-ever public documentation of its own surveillance network, and a single resident asking at public comment would be the first ever to do so.
Video: commissioners post to YouTube (2nd Monday 5 PM, 3rd Monday 11:30 AM); Marion City Council’s channel needs manual verification.
Related: WNC and NC · Getting Flock Out