Marathon County’s cameras

The Marathon County Sheriff’s Office runs its own Flock cameras on county roads, separate from the city’s. The Wausau Common Council voted on October 27 to stop using its 20 and cover them. On November 9, WSAW reported that Public Works crews were covering them. On November 10 the County Board voted 30 to 5 to hold the $6,300 for the sheriff’s cameras in contingency until there are rules on sharing, access, audits, and retention. A motion to take the money out entirely failed 17 to 18. We were there, and we haven’t seen a published report of the votes yet. The county’s cameras are still running.

One car among 464,012: an illustration

In 30 days the county’s cameras recorded 464,012 different vehicles and were searched 132 times. Felix built an illustrated page that follows one invented driver through the system: what a single camera read stores, what a registration lookup adds, who can search it, and what has gone wrong elsewhere when a login, a government, a leak, or a plain mistake meets this kind of data. The person, car, and scenarios are invented. The cases in the later sections are real and linked.

It’s interactive. Use the Next and Back buttons, or the arrow keys, to step through it. It works in current browsers on a computer or a phone.

What the sheriff says, and what the record shows

The Wausau Pilot & Review covered the board’s November 2 budget hearing under the headline “Flock debate reaches Marathon County Board as sheriff defends cameras shared with agencies in 40 states.” The Pilot counted 1,410 agencies with access to the county’s data on the sheriff’s portal that week, 1,223 of them outside Wisconsin; our own reading of the portal on October 21 counted about 1,580 organizations, because the list changes and the two counts group entries differently. Either way, most of the searching can be done from outside the state. Read the Pilot’s story

At the hearing, Sheriff Chad Billeb said the data belongs to the county alone:

His office’s own transparency portal, read October 21, listed 2,165 sharing entries, about 1,580 organizations in roughly 40 states, including 275 agencies in Illinois, 228 in Ohio, and 194 in Wisconsin. The list includes the FBI, two federal drug task forces, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, an Air Force base, two National Park Service sites, and the prison systems of five other states. Sharing means direct access: officers at those organizations search the county’s reads themselves, under their own rules. Earlier in the same hearing the sheriff confirmed sharing “outside of the state of Wisconsin,” because a federal narcotics task force works from his office.

He also said the data “isn’t shared with any other private entity, company, you name it.” Flock is a private company. It hosts the data, and Section 4.3 of the 2022 agreement gives it a perpetual license to use the county’s reads in “de-identified” form for its other products. The agreement says Flock “shall not sell” the data, and doesn’t define sell.

On audits, the sheriff said there is a “misconception that we don’t do audits. That’s because our policy says we may.” Policy 423.5(e) does say command staff “may” audit searches. The sentence saying audits “should be conducted on a regular basis” was removed from the policy in September 2023. A captain told the Public Safety Committee in August that he checks the audit tab “at least twice a month” but “not at a set date and time,” and the office has turned down records requests for audit reports. The portal shows 132 searches in 30 days. Audit logs USA TODAY obtained show about 23,400 searches from 2023 to 2026, and one plate searched 133 times over 48 days with “drugs” as the reason.

The sheriff said the office doesn’t use the cameras for immigration enforcement, which we don’t doubt. Partner agencies follow their own rules, and elsewhere local officers have run searches for federal agents as a favor. He also said he’s open to having others take part in audits if the logs stay confidential, which is the opening we hope the board takes.

Supervisors were split. Stacey Morache called the concerns “very legitimate” and asked what the board’s options are. Matthew Krembs said there are “a lot of misconceptions” and that the board should hold abusers accountable rather than “take the tool itself away.” Of seven known Wisconsin misuse cases, one officer was arrested and one was fired; in several, the victim found out first. Tim Sondelski raised wrongful stops.

On November 4 the Pilot set the sheriff’s statements beside his office’s own records, including Policy 423, the portal’s sharing list, and the audit logs, and described our November 3 response. Read the Pilot’s November 4 story

On November 11 the Pilot reported that the sheriff told the Public Safety Committee the camera data is gone after 30 days, citing Flock’s website as his proof. The Pilot notes that Flock’s page doesn’t address the de-identified data the contract lets Flock keep and use. Read the Pilot’s November 11 story

What we’re asking the County Board to do

These are the seven requests in the written response we sent supervisors on November 3. Every fact in it is footnoted, and every quotation from the hearing links to that moment in the county’s video. Read the response (PDF, 10 pages)

Key dates

1. Tuesday, November 10The County Board voted 30 to 5 to hold the $6,300 in contingency until there are rules on sharing, access, audits, and retention. A motion to cut it outright failed 17 to 18.
2. July 26, 2027The first five cameras’ term ends and renews for 24 months unless either side gives at least 30 days’ notice, so notice has to arrive by June 26. The sheriff said November 10 that none has been sent. Wausau Pilot & Review
3. March 2029The order for the three newest cameras runs out.

What you can do