The story, in six beats
- 2023Texas adds $1 to every auto-insurance policy for “catalytic-converter theft.” The fund quietly buys 3,200+ license-plate cameras instead.
- 2025A Texas sheriff’s office searches cameras nationwide over an abortion. Austin drops out. The Legislature passes nothing.
- Aug 3, 2026The Texas Tribune counts 10,000+ cameras statewide and 206 agencies feeding plate data to DPS.
- Aug 20, 2026A Lufkin officer is indicted on 100 felony counts — he used the cameras to track 11 people, one of them more than 10,000 times.
- Aug 27, 2026Gov. Abbott freezes all state spending on the cameras. A freeze is a signature. Only a law outlasts one — and Texas has no law.
- Nov 3, 2026You elect the Legislature that decides. That’s what this page is for.
The full record — every event dated and sourced
- July 2024
DPS orders Flock to stop operating as an unlicensed security contractor in Texas. Per the Texas Observer, the company’s license was suspended, lapsed in 2025, and was not reissued until December 4, 2025 — while cameras kept running.
- May 2025
A Johnson County sheriff’s office runs a nationwide Flock search — reason field: an abortion — for a woman who had self-managed one, reaching cameras in dozens of states. Flock’s public account of the incident was later contradicted by the sheriff’s own affidavit. The episode is chapter one of the evidence file.
- June 2025
Austin lets its Flock contract lapse after sustained public pressure — then police access neighboring agencies’ cameras anyway, the gap advocacy groups now call the access-through-neighbors loophole. Hays County terminates in October; Bandera (pop. 900) drops out too.
- 2025 session
The 89th Legislature adjourns without passing any ALPR statute. Bills to require public use policies and audit reporting die without a floor vote. Texas law still says nothing about warrants, retention, or sharing.
- February 2026
DPS installs its own Flock cameras in Austin — the city that had just declined to renew.
- August 3, 2026
The Texas Tribune counts 206 local agencies sharing plate data with DPS — up 69% in five months — over an estimated 10,000+ cameras statewide. DPS holds a $26 million Flock contract tied to Operation Lone Star and declines to say how many cameras it operates.
- August 20, 2026
Texas Rangers arrest a Lufkin officer; a grand jury indicts him on 100 felony counts for using Flock cameras to track 11 people — one ex-girlfriend’s plate searched more than 10,000 times. Lufkin takes its whole network offline, and at least six Texas agencies open misuse investigations within the month.
- August 2026
Pflugerville’s council votes unanimously to end its 28-camera contract. Hood County orders its three cameras disconnected and covered.
- August 27–28, 2026
As the Tribune prepares to publish its money trail, Gov. Abbott orders every state agency to stop spending on Flock cameras. The trail: the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority put at least $30 million — from a $1 fee on every auto policy, enacted for catalytic-converter theft — into 3,200+ cameras since 2023, and DPS runs nearly 1,200 more under a $15.9 million authority contract. Abbott, on air: the cameras “are going to be required to be used responsibly if they’re used at all.”
Since the freeze
- Late AugDallas — 684 cameras under a $5.74M contract, partly state-backed — weighs its Flock funding as the freeze lands; its council has not decided. source
- Aug 29The governor's office confirms agencies are “clarifying that those funds cannot be used for Flock cameras.” source
- Aug 27–28Abbott orders every state agency to stop spending on Flock as the Tribune publishes the $30M money trail. source