Renton City Council Public Comment (August 17)

Draft testimony for public comment tonight.

I'm Jon Pincus of Bellevue, and I run the Nexus of Privacy newsletter. My comments today are also about ALPRs, and why it's so critical to keep the Flock and Axon cameras off. Please listen to your constituents – they've done an amazing job of highlighting the issues, with criminalizing homelessness as well as ALPRs. And I really want to emphasize a point so many others have made: surveillance isn't safety. These cameras don't prevent crime or keep people safe.

As you’ve heard, Flock is scrambling to save their business with a bunch of PR including claims that they’re putting in new “safeguards” (haha). But none of the “safeguards“ (haha) address the threat of federal law enforcement agencies like ICE, CBP, and DHS getting this data and using it against immigrants, protestors, trans and queer people, and anybody else the administration decides to target.

• If they get a warrant from a Trump-appointed federal judge, there’s absolutely nothing Renton PD can do to protect the data at that point.
• And they’re already using administrative subpoenas to target protesters, and combining them with gag orders. For all we know they’ve already done this with Flock. Encryption won’t help here; Flock could put in a back door — and the gag order would mean they wouldn’t have to reveal it to RPD or anybody else. So again, there's nothing RPD can do at that point.

The only safe option is not to collect the data.

Also, as another speaker mentioned, it's worth understanding why so many other places are turning off ALPRs. Two examples:

• In Los Angeles, LAPD cited "serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues,“ particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras. And this is LAPD, who isn't known for being great with civil liberties and civil rights! How bad does it have to be for them to reach that conclusion?
• In North Texas, here's what Hood County Constable John Shirley said “These cameras were constantly scanning and recording regular folks just going about their day. That kind of permanent, warrantless tracking doesn’t belong in a free society."

So, please keep the cameras off in Renton. Surveillance isn't safety. There is no way to keep the data from AI-enabled surveillance systems like Flock, Axon and other ALPRs from getting to the federal government. Turning the cameras back on would put your constituents and anybody who visits Renton at risk.