City council member speaks out against Flock camera invasion

All right, so we have a big discussion. And as we've seen in several communities across Metro Detroit, flock security. There's been different city leaders, elected leaders who've been having to deal with, should we have them in our community? Do our residents, will they feel safe? What are their concerns? What do we need to do about flock and its security and its use of its technology? Well, Lauren Edwards, she was in Sterling Heights yesterday as some people spoke to city council and voiced their concerns. Here's what she found out. It's data about successes, actual scientific data. It usually takes a hit and run or kidnapping. You know, it usually takes us five days to solve it. And with flock, we've been able to solve it in a matter of a day or less. Does flock collect that type of data? How do they sell their product? You know, I think right now, flock is under such a microscope that they would be foolish to do anything because everybody's watching. And quite frankly, I personally am more afraid of AI than I am of flock. City officials in Sterling Heights with lots of questions about flock cameras. Police Chief Andy Satterfield says it's a tool to help investigators fight crime and solve cases. But council members say they're concerned about the surveillance aspect. Even some who were for it. How much is too much? Who collects the data and who else has access to the data? Do other police departments have access to that data? Those were just some of the questions asked and the police chief responded saying it's simply not invasive. All it is is a still shot. It's your vehicle, it's a plate. I understand the concerns of privacy concerns and balancing that with public safety, but it's really no different than having an officer on the side of the road take photos of cars passing by. There's no expectation of privacy on public roadways. I'm Lauren Edwards, Fox 2 News. All right, so to continue the conversation, we have brought in council member Michael Radke. How you doing? I'm well, thank you for having me. Look, you don't have to look at that camera. It's just you and me, man. Let's have this conversation here. The note on it. I know, yeah. So we probably need to take that off at some point. We'll remember to take that off. But we appreciate you coming in and having this discussion. How late were you at this meeting yesterday? We got out about 10, I want to say 10.30. That standard? Sometimes a little bit longer, sometimes a little earlier. We don't jinx it, though. If we say we're getting out early, you're always gonna be late. That's the way it works. So look, you all have a big discussion. Should it come to, should this come up again? And you were explaining to me what the next step would be when this would have this discussion continue. So where does this decision stand now and fall upon the Sterling Heights City Council? So as it stands right now, the contract will automatically renew in December unless the council takes action. I don't like contracts like this. I don't like when they automatically renew. I lost this vote 6-1 two years ago to the expansion. I lost it 6-1 four years ago when we first contracted with Flock. I don't believe in the technology. What is it about Flock that you disagree with? I think it's a highly effective tool for crime fighting. But part of the problem is it's also a virtual panoptic on a drag net that essentially captures data about every resident in our city who drives past a Flock camera. We have 28 of them. I'm sure that you've read reports of the surveillance technology being used for other purposes by law enforcement in those communities. Was that also a concern that you had? You read the Washington Post this week. Over 50 women have come forward and said that officers have stalked them, harassed them, used Flock to essentially track them to their healthcare office, track them to their houses. It's a very scary scenario. That's why I oppose it, because I think it's creating a mass surveillance state that, while effective at solving some crime, leads to possibilities of it being used for ill. I just can't think of anything else. So police have had this technology in Sterling Heights for quite a while. What are the discussions that you have had with the police chief and other officers about how they're using it and whether or not they like it or they have concerns of their own? So Flock, and even their corporate materials, they wanna turn from, is this a mass surveillance technology that's bad, to anecdotes about effectiveness. If you look at actual crime rates, both pre-Flock and post-Flock, there's almost no change in both crimes committed and crimes being solved. But they'll tell you by anecdote, we caught a bank robber, we did one thing. And I believe it to be true, but I wonder how much the technology, the efficacy of the technology is versus how much they wanna sell you, because they're commoditizing every individual in the city who drives past one. Look, you said the council voted six to one in favor. I was alone, no vote. So how do you go about if this conversation comes up again? How do you go about either convincing your fellow city council members, or at least trying to show the voters out there that there's a real problem here or your concerns are at least valid? I think the residents are doing that themselves. There was at least, I wanna say, 10 to 15 people at the meeting yesterday who expressed their concerns with Flock, their concerns with mass surveillance, their concerns with how the technology could be misused, their concerns with Flock's changing of the contracts and data privacy. Because right now, Flock wants to commoditize us. The network only works if everyone's in. I asked the chief of police and the department yesterday several questions. How many organizations have access to our data? 1,800. Have we ever expelled an organization who's using our data? Yes, because they got hacked and that data fell into other hands. That's the fear the residents have, is that our data isn't our data. Our data's up in the cloud, which is not an actual cloud. It's in a data center someplace. But our data is being used without us even knowing. And one of the concerns I have is that I trust our department. We have one of the safest cities in the state for a reason. What I don't trust is other departments who have access to our data following the same ethical standards that we do. Because I believe that we will hold our people accountable. I can't speak for 1,800 other organizations across the country. So bottom line, you just don't want Sterling Heights to be looked at as a target. I don't know about a target. I just think that when you have an officer in Plano, Texas who can search 1,800 municipalities, thousands and thousands of cameras, they can create a heat map of your movements over 30 days. I can lay over you, where you live, where you're going. And after that, you get patterns. So if I was to stalk you or if I wanted to harm you, I would know, maybe you go to this place to get coffee every morning. Maybe you go to your kid's daycare. It reveals a tremendous amount of data about you. It's not one camera. It's all the cameras nationwide which can follow you around, essentially, with AI. Do you feel like, and I'm sorry to cut you off. I think it is, and I think that they speak for a much larger segment. Look at what happened in the election on Tuesday. I think people are concerned about technology companies having their data. I think they're concerned about AI. They're concerned about data centers. And they're concerned about mass surveillance because all these things tie together. They don't see their lives improving. They see tech companies making money off of them. So what is, what would you like to see happen next after, based on what happened last night's discussion? So personally, I'd like the contract to be placed on the agenda, which will require a vote of my colleagues. I'd like it to be canceled. If it isn't canceled, I proposed a couple things last night. One, right now, if you misuse FLOC, it's a departmental policy problem, but it's not a crime. So we're gonna make it a crime in Sterling Heights, a misdemeanor, nightly misdemeanor to misuse FLOC, much like the lien system. That's one thing I proposed last night. I also proposed, and the council agreed through unanimous consent, that we remove any organization that's currently in the 1800 of access that have signed an agreement with ICE, a 287G, I believe it's called, agreement with ICE, to essentially do local law enforcement immigration control. Because I think that those organizations, on their own, are possibly sharing our data with ICE. I don't want to see that happen. And my council unanimously agreed to that request yesterday. Have you spoken with any other communities or any other elected leaders in other communities who are faced with this same kind of conflict? Yes. How have those conversations gone? You know, I think a lot of people are afraid when the police come to you and say, this technology is effective, it is useful, we want it, it's gonna save lives. It's always the, what do you call it, like the burning building defense. Like, we gotta rush in there, we don't have time. But you know, in a constitutional society, we should have limits on surveillance tech. And I think that the technology always outruns the limits. I propose making it a misdemeanor. I don't know of any other community state that does that. But that's my limit I want to place on this if we're going to have it. I don't want it, but I'm gonna do what I can to put guardrails on it if we have it. But the technology's already there. So essentially, there are people who are going about who don't have any monitoring. Now, we audit in Sterling Heights, but does every community across the country do that? No. No, we require a police number, like an investigation number and a reason. And we don't allow certain searches to be done. But not every department across the country requires that. And when you read those articles about misuse, it's because they're not really monitoring what's being done in the system. If blocked, if the contract's not renewed, you said Sterling Heights is one of the safest communities in Metro Detroit. But if FLOC is taken out of the equation, is there an alternative? Is there a replacement that you have in mind? I don't believe in mass surveillance. I would not want a replacement. I think replacing FLOC with Motorola or one of the other companies that does this is just replacing one with another. At the end of the day, we were the safest community in the state before FLOC. I'm sure we'll be the safest community in the state after FLOC because we have one of the best police departments in the state. But I believe that the surveillance tech, while it can be used for good, just as easily could be used for evil. I mean, it can search bumper stickers. Pro-life, pro-choice, Biden, Trump. That's scary to me. I feel like this conversation kind of just sparked from nowhere. And all of a sudden, similar with data centers. We weren't really talking about data centers and then all of a sudden we're talking about data centers. We weren't really talking about FLOC security and then all of a sudden we're talking about FLOC security. So have you, are you surprised at this ground, this grassroots movement of people who are now speaking up? Or are you saying, well, it's kind of about time? Well, I actually, it's kind of about time. I've been against this tech for a long time. When I was in college, I read philosophy of different things. There's an idea of the panopticon. I think the philosopher was Sir Jeremy Bentham. It was the idea of a prison where a guard could be in a central tower through one-way glass and observe all the inmates without being observed yourself. So the inmates were always being monitored. That's now moving to the present day where it's the virtual panopticon. With AI, you don't need a guard in a tower. You just need the AI running in the background all the time, checking plates and monitoring people. And there's a series of books by John 12 Hawks that talks about the future of surveillance tech. I read all this when I was in college at the University of Michigan. And this struck me as like, this is bad. This is the future. And he predicted the future because he didn't predict flock, but flock is here and flock is exactly what he was talking about. I got you. Councilman, we appreciate it. I appreciate you having me.