2/23/2022
As the City of Bloomington & Bloomington Police Department continue to discuss the purchase of ten Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPR) from Flock Safety, several local organizations have released statements opposing their purchase.
The Afro-Socialists of Color of Bloomington-Normal released the following statement:
We stand against this violation of our rights to privacy. We feel that allowing these Flock cameras in our community takes away our freedom to be ourselves, and violates our freedom of movement. We should be free to move about without having to provide our data to law enforcement without our knowledge and consent. We are also concerned about the trustworthiness of this vendor. They are claiming a 70% reduction in crime online, but in reality that was confirmed offline to be specific to one category and only a 19% reduction in another category. So we feel Flock as a vendor is being very misleading.
They also claim their cameras are only collecting license plate information but an investigation by the Washington Post into Flock cameras confirmed this is a lie. In fact, Flock’s cameras are motion sensored. So every time a pedestrian walks by, a picture is taken. Every time a bicyclist passes by, a picture is taken. And every time a vehicle passes by, a picture is taken. Although they claim they are only collecting vehicle info, in their own search portal they actually let you search by persons, and by cyclists.
The largest vendor of these cameras has already in the past sold their data to ICE. As Flock grows and as their data centers grow, we strongly feel that ICE or other similar government agencies could very well do the same thing with Flock. We believe that because Flock is a private company in existence to make money, they will do the same thing as their competitor – they WILL accept the money and sell our data, even if it means tearing apart families or terrorizing our communities.
We are asking the board and city council to postpone any vote on these cameras to allow our city the appropriate time to develop policies that will allow us to more safely implement this technology in the future. With what we know today, we are not ready to safely install these cameras. Please postpone any vote or pass a measure to allow a 12 month extension so we can conduct community forums, identify all the concerns, and deploy stop gap solutions for each risk.
AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color of Bloomington-Normal
Several other organizations signed on to the Afro-Soc statement including Black Lives Matter Bloomington-Normal (BLM BloNo), the Illinois State University chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA ISU), and Conexiones Latinas de McLean County.
The Bloomington-Normal Communist Party signed on to the Afro-Soc statement, but also released their own condemnation of the surveillance technology:
The Bloomington-Normal Communist Party stands wholly against the city of Bloomington’s proposal for the purchase and implementation of the Flock camera system. The city of Bloomington continues to invest in reactive and wasteful systems on behalf of the Bloomington Police Department (BPD) rather than preventive and critical community services that have been proven time and again to reduce and eliminate crime at its source – poverty. The deplorable action of first trying to sneak by a $59,000 contract in a consent agenda is offensive to every Bloomington resident – to not give a single consideration to the working people of Bloomington. Further, BPD had no policy to share or communicate until active community members, and the ACLU, showed up to protest such an underhanded maneuver. This only further undermines our trust that they will honor the policies they have created for themselves.
State surveillance has been on the rise in recent years. We see the writing on the wall – what starts as ten cameras that act like a trial run soon will turn into 20, then 50, and soon they’ll be at every major intersection in the city. This erodes our privacy for simply existing. The current agreement for these ten cameras also intends to be heavy handed on the west side’s working class communities. Five of the ten camera locations proposed will be placed in the west side and downtown areas, while one lowly camera will be forced into wealthy east side neighborhoods. This is yet another attack on not only the working class, but Bloomington’s Black and Hispanic communities that call the west side their home who already suffer from over-policing.
The $59,000 the city is looking to spend on these cameras could help provide additional funding and resources for existing services. We can attempt to sneak by $59,000 for these cameras but we can’t put in the effort to hire additional public works staff for the roads? We cannot purchase extra or better materials for the city to use? We cannot help establish a publicly owned grocery store on the west side? We cannot help supplement departments that could actually use the cash like the Bloomington Housing Authority? The City of Bloomington can always find money for police, can always find time to harass its citizens, but the city cannot seem to find the want or the will to help the actual working class of the city. This should come to no surprise given the recent payoffs council members have received from the Police Benevolent and Protective Association Unit 21 (which represents Bloomington officers) – council members Motney and Becker each receiving $12,000 dollars to bend a knee to the BPD.
This clear neglect of Bloomington’s working class is sadly nothing new. Time and time again city councils have had the opportunity to make good, healthy, long term decisions that would help its residents in both the short and long term. However, they have chosen to spend these tax dollars on wasteful pet projects that never return what is promised. We give over bloated salaries to city managers at the expense of city workers who actually make this town run. Bloomington’s city council passes off the shortcomings to the everyday resident of Bloomington – filling in gaps to help the community where the city has failed.
The choice is clear – we call upon the city council to vote down the Flock contract in its entirety. The police do not need these surveillance tools as they claim. We do not need the capitalist state, partnered with private business, to watch us. The working class suffers enough from police harassment and an underfunding of community services that actually help people. The BPD will play on people’s fears, they will sensationalize what these cameras can help solve, while minimizing their opportunity for abuse. They will tell heartfelt stories how someone or something was saved, or someone apprehended because of one of these cameras, yet they will never tell you how many crimes actually go unsolved. They will never tell you how incompetatnt and ineffective their own methods are. They will never tell you how many people they harass based on no real evidence whatsoever. Contact your council member, inform them of your opposition to such unnecessary spending, needless surveillance, and to vote no.
Bloomington-Normal Communist Party Demands – No to Flock!
Regarding the CP statement, BPD was granted $32,500 in private monies to pay for the cameras. The contract under consideration is for two years. The first year will cost $31,500, and the second year $27,500. After the first year, all expenditures will come directly out of the police budget.
The above groups are encouraging people to give public comment at the Public Safety & Civilian Review Board (PSCRB) meeting and the next City Council meeting. The next PSCRB meeting is Wednesday, February 23, 2022 at 3:30 PM. The next Bloomington City Council meeting is Monday, February 28th, 2022 at 6:00 PM.
Register to Give Public Comment:
Please register to give public comment (either virtually or in person) at this url below. You can register up to 15 minutes before the meeting on Thur 2/23 at 3:30pm. If you’re going in person, please note the meeting is at the Government Center Chambers, 4th floor, 115 E. Washington St. NOT City Hall: https://cityblm.seamlessdocs.com/f/PSCRB)
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