OPINION: LETTER TO THE EDITOR
To the editor: I was disappointed when the San Marcos City Council could not agree on entering a new agreement with Flock Safety. The vote was 3 to 3, so the motion on a new contract failed to receive a majority of votes. I, along with most people, want the police to have the tools needed to solve crimes. But Flock cameras are not used just for that purpose. They are used for surveillance, rather than mere crimesolving. The difference is important.
If a person commits a robbery and the license for the car he escaped in is known, Flock cameras, as well as others that read license plates, can help locate the car if there are enough cameras in the right locations. This is a legitimate use of the cameras. Police have been using license plate readers for about 25 years in this country. But Flock cameras, first produced in 2017, and their counterparts are being used to surveil parts of our population who have not committed any crime.
The Associated Press reported in 2012, after it obtained hundreds of pages of secret NYPD documents that revealed the license plate readers were used to collect the license plates of devout Muslims when they attended prayer at their mosque. This was a case of cameras being used as a tool of mass surveillance against an out-offavor group – at least, out of favor with the NYPD.
In 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that ICE agents in California captured license plate information of people attending gun shows without any information that a crime was being committed by any of the attendees.
Today, Flock surveillance cameras are far more sophisticated than the older license plate readers. They record the date, time, and location of every vehicle that their camera record, as well as the make, model and color of each vehicle, along with vehicle characteristics, such as roof racks, dents, and bumper stickers. The Flock cameras can also link cars that might be traveling together in what Flock calls a convoy search. More than 80,000 Flock cameras are in use now and linked in a centralized data base that can be used to track vehicles traveling from state to state, whether on vacation or business. Crime data do not show that communities with Flock cameras have crime rates any different from those communities without Flock cameras. Flock Safety sells a subscription service that enable users to perform the kinds of searches mentioned above.
Recently, I noticed that the San Marcos Lowe’s store has installed five Flock cameras in a way that makes it impossible to enter or leave the Lowe’s parking lot without being recorded. From my discussion with a legal immigrant, I learned that many immigrants, both legal and those undocumented, have stopped going to Lowe’s out of fear that they will be targeted, lawfully or unlawfully, by ICE.
The problem with Flock cameras in communities and at stores is compounded by the fact that Flock’s data collection system has been used unethically by those with access to the data. This year, a police chief in Braselton, Georgia, was accused of computer crime and stalking using the Flock data base. He resigned from his position. Another community in Oak Park, Illinois, found that ICE agents had accessed the Flock data base through its contract, after which the contract was cancelled. Elsewhere, police officers with access to the Flock data base have shared their login credentials, intentionally or inadvertently, with others to give them access to the data base.
Several computer hackers have reported at least three ways to easily hack into the Flock data base, showing that it is not secure from those outside the police community. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden has been investigating reports that Flock data is being sold on the dark web because the cameras are easily hackable and the data is not encrypted. Wyden wrote in a public letter in October that Flock “cannot live up to its commitment to protect the privacy and security” of those traveling in communities that use the technology.
A policy analyst for a constitutional rights organization noted, “Once this level of surveillance is normalized, it becomes incredibly hard to roll back. Today it’s license plates — tomorrow it could be forced search and seizure or checkpoints on the road. We need to draw the line somewhere. Flock cameras track the movement of millions of cars, often without a warrant or your knowledge. That’s a profound erosion of your right to move freely and privately in your own community. Flock cameras aren’t targeted at individuals but mass surveils the movement of all residents.”
I have barely touched on the information now available about the use and abuse of Flock cameras and its data base. I hope that the three council members who support the use of Flock surveillance cameras will do their own research and reconsider their thinking that we need the cameras in San Marcos to effectively fight crime. We should be able to solve crimes without such an invasive system that is reminiscent of the dystopia that George Orwell warned us about nearly 80 years ago.
Lamar Hankins San Marcos, Texas
