Two companies sell camera systems to the towns of Western North Carolina. Asheville ended its contract with one on Aug 25, 2026 and holds a contract with the other to 2033.
| What it sells here | Contract | The page | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flock Safety | 11 fixed plate readers, the national search network, transparency portals | $72,000 a year, ending Feb 2027 or on termination | The company, its products (Nova, FreeForm, Condor, drones), its own safeguards, and what leaks and audits show |
| Axon | Fusus (the RTIC platform), body and in-car cameras, tasers, drones, cloud storage, and now fixed plate readers built into streetlights | 7.5 years to 2033, plus 20 in-car readers in a separate July 2026 agreement | The company, the “blend in” hardware, facial recognition, the ethics board, the bundle |
Camera network misuse, documented cases is the cross-cutting ledger: dated, sourced incidents organized by harm (federal reach, reproductive care, stalking, wrong-person stops, tracking people not plates, hiding the tool, leaks, and corporate conduct when a town says no).
Communities that ended or limited camera contracts is the dated table of the bodies that ended, rejected or limited contracts, the state actions of late August 2026, the court cases, and the vendors’ responses.
What Axon Contracts Do: what the same paper did to Baltimore, Mesa, Fontana, and Evanston, plus the data program the contract enrolls the city in by default. Flock’s guide for presenting to councils: Flock’s leaked script for selling councils on cameras, laid beside what Asheville officials actually said.
The national cancellations are on Communities that ended or limited camera contracts; what the data becomes is on What a plate read becomes. The people: Rick Smith (Axon) and Garrett Langley (Flock), on The Vendors’ Executives.