Burnet County Courthouse in Burnet, Texas
Photo: 25or6to4, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Cropped responsively for display.
Editorial perspective: Wilco Liberty Project approaches government surveillance from a constitutionalist perspective favoring individual liberty, limited government, due process, transparency and strict limits on warrantless tracking. Factual claims remain subject to our evidence standards.

Burnet County removed its fixed Flock automated license plate reader cameras in early August, becoming another Central Texas jurisdiction where the future of the surveillance technology has come under public scrutiny.

The immediate reason for the removal was not a formal countywide rejection of ALPR surveillance. DailyTrib reported that two cameras used by the Burnet County Sheriff's Office and the Heart of Texas Auto Theft Task Force had been damaged. After those incidents, the remaining fixed cameras deployed by the task force were removed. Chief Deputy Alan Trevino said that, effective August 4, there were no fixed Flock cameras under the Sheriff's Office.

That distinction matters. WLP should not portray the removal as something the evidence does not establish. The Sheriff's Office still had access to portable Flock surveillance trailers, and county officials had not adopted a blanket prohibition on the technology.

Public opposition was already part of the debate

The physical damage was the immediate operational trigger, but privacy objections were also being raised publicly. DailyTrib reported that a Burnet County resident urged the Commissioners Court on July 28 to end its Flock contract and remove the surveillance equipment. The county had approved a two-year, $44,000 Flock contract in March 2025 that included fixed pole equipment and mobile trailers.

Trevino acknowledged the public's privacy concerns and said the department would wait to hear more before implementing additional Flock technology. Burnet Police Department separately told DailyTrib that it had not contracted with Flock and had no intention of doing so.

What Williamson County should take from Burnet

The Burnet experience is useful because it illustrates how quickly a surveillance program can move from procurement to public controversy. Fixed ALPR cameras can become part of the landscape before many residents understand what is being collected, how long it is retained, which agencies can search it and how an interconnected network changes the scale of government tracking.

Burnet County has not eliminated all access to Flock technology. Still, the absence of its fixed Sheriff's Office cameras and Burnet PD's stated decision not to contract with Flock undermine the idea that every police agency needs a permanent network of cameras logging motorists as a baseline condition of public safety.

For Taylor and Pflugerville, the appropriate question is not simply whether Flock has produced useful investigative leads. It is whether permanent suspicionless collection is justified, whether the limits are enforceable, and whether residents were given enough information before the system became embedded in local policing.

Sources

This article is original Wilco Liberty Project reporting and analysis based on the linked sources. External reporting is summarized and attributed; it is not republished.