‘Eyes Off Eugene’ petitions to cancel Flock contract

Presenter: Cities like Austin and Denver are rejecting the Flock camera surveillance system. Can Eugene be next? From the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Kamryn Stringfield:

Kamryn Stringfield: The Eyes Off Eugene group is a community group. It’s not a thing of any one organization. It’s a lot of really passionate and well-educated people that are pushing against these Flock cameras.

[00:00:20] And they started a petition to get the city to cancel the Flock contract. I believe that petition’s approaching 1,000 signatures now. And of course we’re going to help push that petition out as well.

[00:00:32] This was something that came onto our radar when they first announced that the Flock cameras were going up. The city of Eugene, that being the city manager and Eugene Police Department, signed a contract back in March of this year with Flock Safety for 57 Flock automated license plate reader cameras throughout Eugene.

[00:00:53] And Springfield announced that they would be putting 25 in Springfield, although they haven’t done that yet. And there’s a bit of a difference between how Eugene Police Department and Springfield Police Department has been handling the implementation.

[00:01:04] So, EPD signs this contract for Flock. In the months since they got this grant, and in the months since they signed this contract, not once have they solicited any public input from the community. They’ve not had a public hearing, they’ve not had meetings with stakeholders.

[00:01:21] They’ve not even had enough communication with the Police Commission about it. There were multiple people on the Police Commission that said that they had not even heard of these Flock cameras being installed until EPD basically put a resolution about regulating them on the table for the Police Commission—which is just insane to think about as well, that the Eugene Police Department installs these cameras and then are like, ‘Oh, here, here’s a proposal for some guardrails around this.’

[00:01:48] They’re already rolling. They’re already, data’s being shared with Idaho, which doesn’t have the same laws as Oregon on a lot of things like this. This information is already compromised, but don’t worry, we’re looking to shore things up by September. So they installed all of this.

[00:02:06] It was like a $300,000 grant. This is tax money from the state. People like to say, ‘Oh, this isn’t tax dollars, this is grant money.’ But it comes from the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, so it’s composed of tax dollars and maybe some charity money from whatever law and order people in Oregon that want to donate to that. So this is still Oregonian money that’s going into this project.

[00:02:29] And these cameras are going to have to be maintained over time. And it also seems like they’re leasing them, which seems like they’ll have to continually pay for these cameras and to be on this nationwide system as they go forward.

[00:02:43] Presenter: Members of the Police Commission said they had never seen so many people attending to offer public comment as at their July 10 meeting. Kamryn Stringfield:

[00:02:52] Kamryn Stringfield: So, of course the Police Commission meeting happened. A lot of people came to talk about Flock cameras.

[00:02:57] They had Capt. Jake Burke there, giving the EPD position on them saying, ‘Oh, it’s okay. We had a phone call with Flock Safety, and they pinky-promised us that they wouldn’t share that information with ICE or outside agencies. And we own the data,’ we being EPD.

[00:03:14] And of course that’s false. They don’t own the data at all. And the Eyes Off Eugene group that has formed to oppose these Flock cameras, from just individual activists in the community, has been able to debunk that, false narrative.

[00:03:29] But, a lot of people came and spoke. There were cybersecurity experts. There were people that were former EPD police dispatchers that talked about how their narratives were wrong.

[00:03:39] Other activists from the community came and confronted EPD about, like before they had talked about building public trust and trying to build bridges with the community and talking about the hypocrisy of saying that and then installing this massive surveillance system—the biggest surveillance system in Eugene history—without even telling everybody. And then basically just asking for forgiveness instead of permission. That doesn’t help to build trust in any way, shape, or form.

[00:04:06] And as there’s been opposition to this, there’s been the mainstream media in Eugene basically running away with all of these stories almost every day, about ‘Flock cameras help catch repeat offender. Flock cameras help catch this out-of-state criminal, Flock cameras catch this, catch that, they help in this, helping that, missing people, Amber Alerts,’ etc. etc.

[00:04:27] And so they use these handful of criminals caught to justify surveilling literally everybody in Eugene—visitors, residents, it doesn’t matter—all the time just to catch a few criminals and saying, ‘Oh, it helps to fight crime.’

[00:04:42] But of course we know that surveilling everybody is not worth it. Like, it’s not worth surveilling everybody just to catch a few criminals. Surveillance doesn’t actually reduce crime. We’ve had mass surveillance since before even 9/11, but especially post-9/11 and it never reduced crime since then. So why would it now?

[00:05:05] There’s a common like talking point of, ‘Oh, well, we already have mass surveillance, so you know, what’s the problem with adding another system?’ And you know, I would point out, ‘Well, if we already have mass surveillance, why do we need more?’ Like there’s cameras on every block damn near, but of course they’re not plugged into a nationwide database.

[00:05:23] This is just an escalation in terms of mass surveillance. And so, we really want to like combat the narratives that are being put out by the media and also point out that when people talk about these cameras solving crimes and catching criminals, keep in mind that not all of these crimes are things like murder or sexual assault or physical assault.

[00:05:47] Some of these crimes are disorderly conduct, which you can get by walking in the street at a protest. I would know—I got that recently. A crime can be vandalism, whether that be putting a flyer up or putting chalk on the sidewalk.

[00:06:02] There’s also been some articles recently about Flock cameras just tagging people that drive suspiciously. So, like, think about: Even if you’re not an activist, say you’re a DoorDasher, and you’re going and bebopping around the city and it tags you ’cause it thinks you’re drug dealing. Like, this is a real danger.

[00:06:21] So this whole narrative about solving crime actually just helps EPD and the state more than it does the community.

[00:06:29] But if you want information about the contract with the city of Eugene on these Flock cameras, some talking points, and frequently asked questions and whatnot about Flock cameras, I point people towards the Eyes Off Eugene website, EyesOffEugene.org.

[00:06:46] You can also find the petition there, which we want as many people to sign and share as possible.

[00:06:51] And you can also find all of these cameras on a site called DeFlock. I’ve been going around doing my own reconnaissance and finding some of these cameras. EPD probably knows, but I don’t really care. They’re out in public, so if they won’t put out the information, we will find them ourselves.

[00:07:08] And then of course, see our posts on social media. We’ll be sharing more as this campaign goes on. And we really hope that everybody, all orgs, all progressive people across this city, really put forth some, effort in this campaign to get these Flock cameras took down.

[00:07:25] ‘Cause if we really mobilize as the Eugene activist community, we can win on this. We won in Denver. We won in Austin. And there are many communities that have banned or restricted or canceled their contract with Flock, and we can too.

[00:07:40] Presenter: You can sign the petition and join members of the new group, Eyes Off Eugene, as they lobby the city to cancel its contract for an AI surveillance system.