| Submit your comments on this article |
| Science & Technology |
| Democrat-run hellhole set to invest $2million in high-tech surveillance... and it'll be a major boost to ICE |
| 2025-12-17 |
| [Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A crime-ridden California city is set to invest $2 million in high-tech surveillance cameras - but locals are concerned the information they collect could be used by ICE agents. Flock Safety, is in the works to secure a deal with Oakland city officials to host surveillance cameras designed for road safety and aiding police. While the company has insisted it won't provide data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), locals worry that the collected data will still be shared by law enforcement agencies. Flock Safety says their cameras collect information reaching beyond license plates, including the make, model or color of a car as well as other details that identify its owner. Last month in Washington state, the Supreme Court ruled that license plate data collected by Flock Safety was in the public record and available to anyone, the East Bay Times reported. Flock representatives have said that the company would follow Oakland's sanctuary city policies. In Oakland, those policies include restrictions on vendors with ties to ICE that the city may look to work with. Earlier this year, the company said that it would stop publishing a 'national lookup' that would allow federal agencies to access local camera data, the Times reported. Flock Safety already has 300 cameras installed along the city's busiest roads and highways, the Times reported. Yet until now, those were operated by California Highway Patrol under an order from Governor Gavin Newsom. An Oakland City Council committee voted against the deal last month after local lobbying against the company arose. But last week, another committee moved to bypass the city's legislative process pushing the deal to a final vote which will take place on Tuesday before the full council, the outlet reported. Should the deal be rejected, all existing cameras with Flock would be removed. Now, opposers are even more outraged with one Councilmember, Carroll Fife, saying that she is 'in full support of the community's desire to have cameras as a support system for our safety efforts - and I do not believe that this is the vendor to go with,' according to the outlet. Fife was the sole opposer in a 4-1 vote to fast-track the vote to Tuesday's meeting. Abuses of the camera systems have been recorded in lawsuits, such as one filed by anti-surveillance advocate Brian Hofer in Oakland. Hofer filed the suit against the city last month, claiming that the Oakland Police Department shared license plate information with ICE - a violation of California law SB 34 which restricts how the data can be used, according to the Times. 'Flock is a shady vendor,' Hofer declared. 'This is not a good corporate partner.' Hofer even resigned from his position on the city's Privacy Advisory Commission after the council ignored his recommendation to find an alternative vendor, the outlet reported. He told KTVU: 'Oakland cannot claim to be a sanctuary city when it fails at such a large scale to protect the data privacy interests of its residents and visitors, especially in the face of the Trump administration’s attacks directly targeting Oakland.' Former Oakland Vice-Mayor Desley Brooks shared a lengthy message on Facebook urging others to question the company and implement 'enforceable safeguards.' 'Oakland is hurting. We have lost teachers, students and neighbors to violence. People want solutions now. That urgency is real. But urgency cannot replace judgment,' she wrote. 'Flock Safety cameras may help solve crimes, but they also open the door to a level of surveillance that Oakland has not fully debated. Flock cameras do not just take photos. They scan license plates, track vehicles across cities and store data. 'Oakland already has a history of technology being introduced for one purpose and later used for another. That is exactly what happened with federal “anti-terror” tools that eventually became routine police databases. Once data exists, it rarely stays controlled.' Brooks pointed out that the company being private means the city doesn't own the data, and questioned how much power Oakland would have to refuse the data from being shared. Further concerns from Brooks pointed to the pattern recognition and profile building that such technology can present, including where residents travel when heading to friends, family, places of work or schools. 'Crime is real. Fear is real. But Oakland must decide if it wants to trade privacy for a sense of safety without iron-clad guarantees of protection against abuse of power. Once surveillance infrastructure is built, it does not go away. It expands quietly,' she added. Even the California Highway Patrol wrote a letter to the company warning Flock not to share collected data from its cameras to federal law enforcement, including ICE, KTVU reported. 'It's really a proactive approach by us to get ahead of the issues that could exist out there,' Deputy Commissioner Ezery Beauchamp told the outlet. 'Nothing within our contract or nothing within the State Law of California allows that, nor would we stand for allowing that to be utilized for the purposes of immigration enforcement.' Beauchamp said that as ICE doesn't involve itself with writing speeding tickets or arresting drunk drivers, 'by the same token' CHP doesn't involve itself with immigration enforcement. Flock responded to say, in part, that the company is 'aligned with CHP's commitment to responsible, privacy-first public safety technology... The Flock system does not allow California agencies to access national lookup or otherwise initiate out of state sharing relationships.' |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2025-12-17 09:52 |