Public comment: Thanks for voting to turn off Flock cameras; now cancel the contract

Presenter: At the City Council meeting Oct. 13, just days after a unanimous vote to turn off the Flock cameras, public comments thanked individual councilors, asked them to cancel the contract with Flock, and a few called for a new police chief. During public comment, Jacob Trewe:

Jacob Trewe: I want to give thanks to the unanimous City Council decision to pause slash turn off the Flock cameras pending a deeper discussion on public surveillance and data retention policy which I’m looking forward to at a future work session. But yeah, thank you, Sarah Medary. Thank you, City Council. Thank you, Mayor. Appreciate it very much.

[00:00:36] Presenter: Kamryn Stringfield:

[00:00:38] Kamryn Stringfield: I want to start by saying that for the last several months, I have not been happy with this city council: the budget nightmare earlier this year; the silence on ICE; kidnappings and DHS violence against people in the city; and the lack of a bold response to the Flock cameras has made me really disappointed in this council and caused me to not have much faith in it.

[00:00:57] But last Wednesday for the first time, I was actually proud of this city council. You took a bold, correct step and took urgent action to turn off the Flock cameras. I know some councilors expressed frustration that a motion was put on the table for this, but I think that’s the exact kind of courageous action we need from this council. When something is dangerous and urgent, we have to act fast to stop it, not spend months having conversations that go nowhere.

[00:01:27] The motion to pause the cameras was also still an 8-0 decision. City Manager Medary, thank you for supporting that decision and deciding to turn off the cameras.

[00:01:38] Learning from the saga out of Evanston, Illinois, though, when the city voted to remove the cameras, Flock wouldn’t do it, then did, then put them back up. They ended up having to cover them with black bags. I would also encourage fixing opaque plastic bags over the cameras to prevent Flock from keeping them on. However, let’s go further than that. Let’s end this whole AI mass surveillance nightmare.

[00:02:02] Council members, please move with courage and urgency to terminate the contract with Flock and remove the Flock cameras. As many of you stated, we just cannot trust Flock. You already know the abuses, the vulnerabilities, and the shady practices of Flock. What more is there to know?

[00:02:21] Chief Skinner recently said, quote, ‘I promise you we will have this technology here,’ end quote. Skinner, you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep. It’s not your decision to make. However, I can promise you that we will continue to fight the Flock cameras, drawing in as many allies as we can, until they are gone from our community. Let’s not drag this out. Let’s just make the right decision now. Get the Flock out.

[00:02:50] Presenter: Donovan Mallory:

[00:02:51] Donovan Mallory: I stand before you to urge this council to reject the continued deployment of Flock AI surveillance and move with progress past the steps they’ve already made and cancel the contract with these Flock AI cameras. These AI-driven license plate reader cameras are often sold as crime-fighting tools but their hidden costs to our privacy, safety, and public funds are simply too high.

[00:03:14] A Kansas officer has used the surveillance network to look for women (in August of last year) that he had recently broken up with. This is a violation of her rights and there’s nothing stopping our officers, not saying that any of our officers would do this, but there’s nothing stopping our officers from doing it as well.

[00:03:37] In April of this year, a Texas officer used the Flock database to track a woman seeking safe abortion, which is currently illegal in our neighboring state of Idaho. Access to free, access to safe health care is vital as is clear by Oregon residents that we still have access to safe abortion. It would pain me to see a woman seeking something that she feels right for herself be tracked down using these AI Flock cameras in our state of Oregon.

[00:04:13] A major concern that I have with these is that despite being marketed as a security camera, the cameras themselves are not all that secure. They broadcast both Bluetooth and WPA2 frequencies, which are very common in home Wi-Fi routers as well, and these frequencies that are used for two pieces of technology to communicate with one another, are very outdated, and their security infrastructure is easily exploitable. It’s easy for would-be hackers to teach themselves how to hack these cameras and track people. And I feel that it is very unsafe for us to continue to even have these cameras in our town. Black bags are removable and they can be used to track people against what is legal. 

[00:04:59] Presenter: Bailey Gilmore: 

[00:05:00] Bailey Gilmore: City Council, I want to thank you for taking action to pause the Flock cameras, the dangerous surveillance system. I am here to deliver a letter on behalf of 16 community organizations, calling on you to reject harmful surveillance, and end the contract with Flock.

[00:05:28] Those organizations include 50501 Eugene; Avelo Out of Eugene; Civil Liberties Defense Center, Conflict Artistry LLC; Cottage Grove Friends of Democracy; Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation; Kilgren Law LLC; Lane County Immigrant Defense Network, Oregon Community Asylum Network, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Planet Versus Pentagon; Queer Eugene; Springfield Eugene Showing Up for Racial Justice; SEIU 503 Local 085; Trans Alliance of Lane County; and UO student workers, UAW 8121. I’ll leave a copy of this letter here in the box, as well as send one to your email. 

[00:06:24] Presenter: Jeff Salata: 

[00:06:25] Jeff Salata: I first became aware of Flock cameras a couple months ago via a comprehensive exposition on youTube, and since then I’ve learned even more thanks to the help of many amazing community members. This issue deeply concerns me, as it should one. And while I’ve never spoken here before, this issue has made it unavoidable.

[00:06:47] I also come before you today as a victim of violence. In 2007, I was assaulted here in Eugene. I was punched and put into a chokehold by the ex of my then-girlfriend after he had stalked and jumped me in an alleyway. I only mention this because I know how it feels to burn and seethe with the desire for justice to be served to bring closure to victims.

[00:07:09] Chief Skinner has repeatedly couched his support and outright promotion of Flock as a means to help victims, and I get it. I really do. This is a very important consideration, but Flock is not the way to do it. I say this because in this very moment, we are all victims, victims of pervasive round-the-clock surveillance by a private company. 

[00:07:31] The nationwide abuse is committed by Flock itself and law enforcement using Flock should shock and appall everyone here. You can’t say you’ve helped the victim if in that process you’ve created a trail victims in their wake or, and has been the case, created new victims as a direct result of Flock usage, Flock Safety is an extraordinarily well-funded data broker.

[00:07:55] That has received vast sums of money from people both materially and ideologically aligned with the current administration. If you subscribe to any of the tenets of this community—openness, compassion, respect for dignity and diversity of humans and the environment—then a quick assessment would reveal the incompatibility of Flock Safety and Eugene. This year alone, Flock Safety has spent $460,000 lobbying the Office of Administration, an entity within the Executive Office of the President, according to opensecrets.org.

[00:08:28] Furthermore, and on a more granular level, the city of Eugene does not, will not, and has no ultimate authority over any of the data collected by Flock cameras. These cameras, their software, belong to Flock, period. 

[00:08:43] Ellie Urbancic: My name is Ellie Urbancic, and I would just like to express my sincere gratitude towards the City Council and city manager for making the decision to pause Flock cameras in the next 24 hours. I really appreciate that.

[00:08:55] And I would also like to express in the strongest way possible the importance of the City Council and city manager to end the contract with Flock as soon as possible. Thank you for your time.

[00:09:08] Willie Gibboney: Hello, my name is Willie Gibboney. And first off, I’d like to thank you all for pausing the Flock cameras. I think that was very good to you and courageous of all of you to vote like you did.

[00:09:22] Now, I’d please like to have you cancel the whole thing. Please, I don’t want to be surveilled. My friends don’t want to be surveilled. I don’t want my data sold by Flock to the highest bidder, and I know you guys are going to do the right thing. Thank you very much. 

[00:09:41] Presenter: Stan Taylor:

[00:09:43] Stan Taylor: I’m here tonight to talk again about the Flock cameras and urge you, first of all, I thank you for what you’ve already done to pause them, but I want to urge you to make the policy that will end this contract for Eugene.

[00:10:01] You know when you begin to look at this trade-off between liberty and security, the understanding is not quite as clear as many people think.

[00:10:13] For me, one of the ways I think about this came from an 18th-century philosopher named Jeremy Bentham, who created a prison called the panopticon. And the panopticon was a prison where it had a tower in the center and cells around the outside. And the whole philosophy about it was that the prisoners will think they are being watched and will conform their behavior to what the enforcement authorities want them to be.

[00:10:45] That power of being watched doesn’t just mean that criminals are caught through this process. It means that everybody in society is watched through this process and everybody in society then has constitutional behavior dampened by this effect. It has a chilling effect on constitutional rights for everyone in our community. And that trade-off is not a good trade-off.

[00:11:15] So again, I urge you to take the additional steps to hold the city manager’s feet to the fire and end these contracts. Thank you.

[00:11:25] Presenter: Rob Sheldon:

[00:11:26] Rob Sheldon: Hi, good evening. Most of all, I would like to say thank you. A lot of people were either tuned in and watching your work session on Oct. 8 or had joined a live chat. It was high drama. There were gasps and cheers.

[00:11:41] Thank you to Councilor Kashinsky for having the courage to make the motions to turn Flock off before the meeting ran out of time. Thank you to Councilor Keating for all of your efforts in hearing the community’s concerns and for clearly being on top of things during the work session. Thank you Councilor Yeh for also taking a lot of time to hear from the community, but also clearly doing a lot of your own homework. Thank you to Councilor Zelenka for your thoughtful, considered, and balanced treatment of the subject. 

Thank you to Councilor Evans for starting out with a story about socks, but getting there in the end. Thank you also to Councilor Leech, who didn’t really get a chance to speak, but I hope we’ll get to hear her thoughts too.

[00:12:20] And thank you to City Manager Medary for tonight’s welcome news. You are no doubt under a lot of pressure from Chief Skinner on the opposite side here. I’m sure you’ve heard him credit Flock with cracking one high-profile case or another. The thing is, our argument has never been that there aren’t benefits to using this particular surveillance system. There are also benefits to having the National Guard deployed in our community. Maybe they could rake some leaves.

[00:12:44] The question has been whether the risks outweigh the benefits, whether it creates the kind of society we want to live in. Some people like the idea of having troops patrolling in their neighborhood, but most recognize it as a society that they don’t want to live in, a more oppressive society.

[00:12:57] Chief Skinner is looking at only one side of the equation. We are advocating for balancing multiple concerns for community safety. Flock is a bad company to be partnered with. Axon, who makes the bodycams at so many police departments use already, along with a lot of other products, partnered with Flock. It should have been an easy match, but Axton found Flock to be so slimy that they dissolved the partnership earlier this year.

[00:13:19] Flock’s products are the wrong kind of solutions to the problems facing modern policing, and this is a system being pushed into communities at very much the wrong time. This issue extends far beyond Eugene.

[00:13:30] Other communities around the country are experiencing this same situation, a public that is broadly opposed to Flock having snuck into their neighborhoods. Other communities are also making the decision to terminate their contracts with Flock. So I hope you will be able to stay the course and let the many people in our neighborhoods that are upset by us breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you.

[00:13:49] Presenter: Scott Lambert: 

[00:13:50] Scott Lambert: My name is Scott Lambert. On Tuesday, around 4 p.m., Mayor Knudson and I both witnessed an unhoused man aggressively yelling at a runner on the river path. Mayor Knudson called Lane County Mobile Crisis Services. By the time the man left, at least 10 minutes later, they had not arrived. 

After I spoke with the man and attempted to calm him down, I could not help but wonder how much money Flock cost the city and how that money could have been kept CAHOOTS here, which might have been able to provide this man with assistance that could have prevented this entire situation.

[00:14:20] I appreciate that City Manager Medary has promised to turn the cameras off. However, if Chief Skinner and Manager Medary will not respect the will of the people of this city and the eight democratically elected members of the Flock Working Group, so if anything happens to interrupt that turning-off, they need to be terminated as city employees, as they cannot be trusted to execute the will of the people.

[00:14:48] Furthermore, turning off the cameras is not enough. The contract needs to be ended and the cameras removed. I fully expect Chief Skinner and Flock to drag their feet as much as possible when removing the cameras and ending this for us expensive for Flock lucrative contract. 

Defunding essential public services like CAHOOTS, supporting ICE, and funding militarized police and surveillance systems are characteristics of fascist governments. Do not expect us to take your opposition to the Trump administration seriously if your policies are fascist in nature.

[00:15:23] Presenter: Maia Burk:

[00:15:24] Maia Burk: I’m here to urge you yet again to take down those cameras. They’re a vile violation of our privacy. They are a negligent violation of sanctuary city policy, and there are a rip-off for the city. Flock does not just read license plates. It photographs and AI profiles every detail about a car, including bumper stickers and other markers of political opinion. That takes away my privacy, regardless of what any lawyer might say about implied consent because I’m driving a vehicle. Take them down.

[00:16:02] Second, ICE has already used Flock data to facilitate raids in other places. Flock can claim that they’re not going to let them do that, but as we’ve heard already tonight, their devices are extremely insecure. A 12-year-old can get that data. DHS can definitely get that data about your bumper stickers and your political opinions. Enough said there, I think.

[00:16:34] Lastly, they sold this to all of you, as if it’s going to make policing easier. Unfortunately, as we have seen both in police affairs and in less pleasant occupation situations, surveillance is not a substitute for the cooperation of the population. And Flock would do grievous and irreversible damage to the relationship between the police department and the general establishment with the public. Nothing gets solved if nobody talks to the police.

[00:17:06] And once people realize that Flock is an electronic boot on their neck, nobody is going to want to help the guy wearing the boot. It’s going to cost money, not save it, and in the long term, it’s not going to get more criminals caught, it’s going to get more cases abandoned for lack of information. So just take them down. Enough said.

[00:17:30] Ken Willis: My name’s Ken Willis. Thank you to all of you for the 8-0 vote. I was up here a couple weeks ago talking about my daughter and my wife and our evening walks and the damage that Flock has done to that, and to know that that damage can be corrected means a lot. 

To the city manager, it takes a lot to be in the position you’re in, and I respect the fact that it’s stressful, you’re not fun, you’re getting pulled in 1,000 different directions, but making the correct choice to pull these cameras puts trust back in you as an individual, you in the office. It’s just a good thing.

[00:18:03] But with all that said and done, I still can’t come to grips with the fact that Chris Skinner brought this into the town clandestinely. For me, that’s such a violation to trust. I just don’t trust or have respect for Chris Skinner anymore, and I’m going to be real frank about that. There was no excuse for this other than to get a product online as quickly as possible, apologize, but not fix the problem and move on.

[00:18:25] You’re all sick of talking about this. We’re sick of talking about it. This has been a nightmare for everybody. The contract has to be cancelled, the cameras have to be pulled down, that’s all there is to it. I would really like to see the contract completely done away with, no pauses, nothing like that. We need to move on as a city and do things better. And when this is all said and done, I think we need to have a real serious conversation as to whether Chris Skinner is the right man for the job in this town because I have no more trust or respect for the man. Thank you for your time. 

[00:18:55] Presenter: Beck Bentz:

[00:18:56] Beck Bentz: Members of City Council, thank you for voting unanimously during your work session for a motion to pause Flock. Thank you for listening and for your courage. You’ve made us proud. City Manager Sarah Medary, thank you for pausing the cameras for 24 hours. I recommend leaving them off. 

Yours is a difficult position, but the will of the public is pretty clear here. Members of City Council, we demand you go further and terminate the contract with Flock. It’s a trap. It promises security and on the other hand, funnels intimate data of our comings and goings to some of the most punitive and bloodthirsty elements of law enforcement across the country. 

It offers up Eugene residents on a golden platter to wolves. Can you imagine if the Nazis had access to something like Flock? Oh my God, they would have loved Flock. That is the gravity of our situation. We are further down the funnel than we think.

[00:19:53] ICE is racially profiling and disappearing not only undocumented immigrants, but American citizens who just happen to not be white. Every little thing we can do to make it harder for them will save lives.

[00:20:08] In conclusion, end the contract with Flock. And Council members, I don’t know what tools are available to you to hinder ICE and get them out of our community, but we urge you to use them. You have the opportunity to be remembered well in the history of our city, and please do that.

[00:20:32] Presenter: Sam Edwards:

[00:20:33] Sam Edwards: I’m Sam Edwards, speaking on Flock. I would like to first thank this council for calling for a pause in the use of the Flock technology until the ramifications can be better understood.

[00:20:43] I would particularly like to commend the leadership of Councilors Yeh and Keating. May your ongoing discretion and care be an example to us all. I also would like to congratulate Councilor Kashinsky and Zelenka for your successful motion to recommend the pause. 

[00:21:03] And Councilor Groves, I would also like to thank you personally for your affirming vote. I know it came with some great difficulty because of your misgivings about how the motion was brought and your general criticism of Flock’s opponents. Nonetheless, I believe your decision reflected good integrity, an openness to differing perspectives and a commendable willingness to pause and reflect. And I trust in the near future, you will begin to take great pride in your moment of prudence.

[00:21:36] Finally, I’d like to bring a word of warning to the full council. In Wednesday’s work session, EPD presented a slide that said that Flock is secured with ADF-256 encryption. I’m well-versed in encryption technology, and I can tell you that while there is no such thing, there is such a thing as AES-256, the advanced encryption standard.

[00:21:58] If I may infer, EPD probably misheard AES in a grainy phone call with their Flock representative, and then put that error directly into the slide uninspected. I’m alarmed by this because when such a basic detail goes unverified, despite all of this controversy, it raises serious questions about whether EPD may be acting out of greater deference to the Flock corporation than to the community that they have sworn to serve and protect.

[00:22:29] So I don’t make this charge lightly, but I do urge the council to apply due diligence to all statements that EPD makes regarding Flock in the future.

[00:22:41] Presenter: Aaron Anderson:

[00:22:42] Aaron Anderson: Hi, I’m Aaron Anderson, I would like to thank all of you for pausing the contract on the Flock cameras, and I would like to ask you to consider canceling it entirely. I believe that technology that could theoretically be abused by government or police to infringe on citizens’ rights eventually will be.

[00:23:00] The stated purpose of the Flock cameras is to identify violators of traffic laws. However, I believe that this will ultimately be a secondary purpose at best. It’s also been stated that the Flock cameras do not have facial recognition technology. I simply do not believe this is true.

[00:23:13] Ultimately, I believe that due to poor security and nebulous habits of the Flock corporation, Flock footage will ultimately wind up in the hands of the federal government, who will use that footage to track and identify, let’s see, union leaders, protest leaders, anybody who is involved in protest against the government, anybody who is exercising their constitutional rights.

[00:23:33] Consider, for example, the No Kings March this Saturday. While it’s my understanding the Flock cameras will not be active on that day, they may be active on similar days, and with footage from the Flock cameras, the federal government could identify individuals in the protest, and at a later date, use Flock footage to track their movement and potentially intercept them with federal agents.

[00:23:52] Federal agents may illegally threaten these people or possibly even disappear them, as ICE seems so fond of doing. I believe that if allowed to continue, these Flock cameras will be used to persecute the union leaders, LGBTQ individuals, people who are not citizens, and other similar individuals.

[00:24:11] So I would please ask you again to consider canceling the contract. Thank all of you.

[00:24:17] Presenter: Rob Fisette:

[00:24:18] Rob Fisette: Thanks for having us all tonight, and again, also appreciate your vote, 8-0, to pause the Flock cameras and the city manager’s announcement tonight that they will be paused. That said, again, the intention, I think, for all of us, for most of us speaking here, is that the contract ultimately be canceled.

[00:24:37] And thinking about, like, the all-star lineup of people who, like, over the course of the last several months have come up here, data security experts, AES-250, I don’t know what that is, but that, you know, like a lot of technical knowledge, a lot of legal knowledge, the nationally-renowned, iconic Civil Liberties Defense Center putting forward a legal argument that violates the First, violates the Fourth Amendment, and almost certainly violates Oregon Revised Statute.

[00:25:06] Like all of this extremely expert testimony, and the only response that seems to be coming is that we arrested another guy. There’s like a PR campaign that like there’s a press release about this arrest associated with Flock and this arrest associated with Flock. The data can’t be secured. Data security experts come up and saying the data can’t be secured, but we arrested another guy.

[00:25:29] And the Civil Liberties Defense Center saying it violates the First and Fourth Amendments, but we arrested another guy. That’s literally the only argument that’s been brought forward for why we should continue to use this. And I think we all understand that that’s just not a sufficient argument, that there are many things we could do that would result in the arrest of many additional guys, that we’re simply not willing to sacrifice for the purpose of all of our being under mass surveillance at all times.

[00:25:58] Presenter: Dr. Geoffrey Gordon:

[00:26:00] Geoffrey Gordon: Thank you, city manager, councilors, and mayor. I appreciate your integrity and accountability with your recent vote on Flock. Please go further in terminating the contract with Flock.

[00:26:13] So, the city of Eugene has a rogue police chief, and it’s time you put the collar back on. I watched the entirety of the most recent Police Commission meeting. During the meeting, Chief Skinner pressured the members of the commission to issue a policy position on the Flock’s surveillance dragnet, despite several members, including the new chair of the commission, expressing they had done absolutely no research on the technology.

[00:26:36] It took the intervention of Councilor (Jennifer) Yeh to be the voice of reason, pointing out that spending time to craft a proper policy was more important than rushing to issue bad policy in haste. Chief Skinner has done his best to avoid accountability to democratic public oversight. That’s how we ended up in this mess.

[00:26:55] Pete Goldlust: My name is Pete Goldlust. I live in Ward 1. I also watched on the Oct. 8 work session online and I wanted to express my sincere appreciation. I want to thank the entire council for your clear unanimous statement that the Flock cameras need to be turned off immediately, pending further discussion of data privacy issues. 

In particular, Council Member Kashinsky, thank you for your assertiveness in moving to take immediate action. Council Member Zelenka, thank you for your strong statements about the grave nature and urgency of the authoritarian threat we face today. Council Members Keating and Yeh, thank you for your commitment to engaging deeply with these concerns that have been raised by community members. Council Member Evans, thank you for sharing the story about the EPD of a not-too-distant past.

[00:27:51] You told a story in the work session about Eugene Police in the 1980s and their practice of sitting up at the top of the Atrium Building and taking surveillance photos of any Black men they spot walking around downtown Eugene, and maintained a logbook of these photos for future reference. 

It was a chilling and important story to share more broadly. It’s worth all of us remembering, I think how very intrusive and intimidating a police presence can be, even to law-abiding residents and visitors—even just using simple homespun folksy surveillance technologies like a Polaroid camera and a three-ring binder. It’s an important reminder, I think, to all of us to be extremely conservative in how we allow ourselves to be surveilled.

[00:28:52] To City Manager Medary, thank you also for respecting the will of Eugene residents and council in this matter. Like everyone else, I urge you to continue moving forward with the same urgency to end this terrible contract and welcome a deeper discussion of data privacy issues in the future. Thank you so much.

[00:29:15] Presenter: Danny Huffsmith: 

[00:29:17] Danny Huffsmith (singing): There’s going to be a lawsuit on your hands if you don’t cancel the contract, cancel the contract. Sarah Medary, please listen closely, please open your heart. The council has spoken. The people have spoken. Democracy has spoken.

There’s going to be a lawsuit on your hands if you don’t cancel the contract, cancel the contract. There’s going to be a lawsuit on your hands if you don’t cancel the contract, cancel the contract tonight. 

[00:30:15] Presenter: City Manager Sarah Medary:

[00:30:18] Sarah Medary: I know there’s a lot of folks there in person and also online that have been weighing in on the automatic license plate reader system and Council’s unanimous vote to recommend I consider pausing until we’ve had a further conversation on that.

[00:30:33] I’m not going to go deep into this today. We’re looking for a time we can have a work session as soon as possible, maybe in early November. But until that time, I have worked with Chris Skinner, our chief, on pausing the license plate readers until we can at least finalize contract language changes and have that work session with you.

[00:31:03] So I would expect in the next 24 hours that those cameras have been disabled. I know that’ll be too much for some and too little for many and I look forward to just hearing people’s comments on that. I am listening to you.

[00:31:08] Presenter: A spokesperson for  EPD said Flock informed the city that the cameras were turned off Oct. 14 at about 9:15 a.m.