Should National City keep its contract with Flock cameras? What mayor, council candidates say

Yes, I am fully against Flock. And not just Flock, but other automatic license plate readers which facilitate and gather data because as you all know, the AIs that power these cameras and these systems, they collect every bit of data they can. It’s not just looking at license plates. They look at their car model, they look at the make, look at the color, look at who’s driving it, and they all categorize that so that they catch you driving multiple different cars. 

I think it has no place here in National City because we do not need spyware here to, in the name of public safety, if it’s not really gonna help our public in anything, facilitate our federal government, you know, coming in and, and taking people off our streets and taking our community members, regardless of their documentation. They take American citizens as well. They don’t care. If you’re brown, if you’re someone who looks like you’re of an ethnic descent or of immigrant descent, they’ll nab you. They don’t care. They’re racist. And leading into that too, making sure that our police don’t facilitate and help like pull people over because ICE can’t pull people over, but if the police, they can pull someone over, and then ICE will come in and take that person. So ensuring that our police department does not work with ICE.

I definitely am in favor of them, if anything, maybe even deterring ICE a little bit, but I know that kind of steps into a weird area where we can be a little seditious and then the federal government can really come down on us. So definitely being a little careful with that. But just doing our utmost to make sure that spyware isn’t available here in National City so that the federal government can’t track our people and ensuring that National City police does not facilitate and help ICE with their kidnapping.

I’m opposed to Flock. Now, there’s nuance because from what I’ve heard from our city police department, Flock cameras have been used to solve some crimes … theft, kidnappings, so that part is good, but what is bad is if they’re using that to spy on residents or people. And there’s been cases of that around the country of Flock cameras being abused by individuals in PD or even in the government to spy on people. That I’m aware of, we don’t have any policy on that, and so there needs to be more transparency and accountability in our city with that to make sure, again, it doesn’t matter if it’s Republican, Democrat, police or whoever it is, we need to protect our people from spying and especially with AI and technology. It really can fall into the wrong hands and be abused. So we need policies on that, and we need some nuance there.

When it comes to ICE, I’m absolutely opposed to any cooperation of our PD with ICE. There is state law prohibiting that. But at the same time, I think we need to do a better job making sure that our PD isn’t working with ICE. We’ve heard of instances where there has been masked agents and ICE coming into the community, and I’ve been concerned that our PDhasn’t responded or has been late. And I will say that it is our PD’s responsibility. They swore an oath to protect our citizens against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And if we have any kind of masked agent, we don’t know if they’re terrorists, we don’t know who they are. So it is our PD’s responsibility. It is my expectation as, as mayor, as a council member, it is my expectation that our PDis protecting our citizens and that we are also working to protect each other. We need to work together and, and make sure that we’re educating each other, that we’re watching out for our neighbors and we’re protecting each other from ICE and masked agents.

I really like this MLK quote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And I love the passion about something that occurs in South America, in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East, and anywhere around the world, I would love that passion with our own neighbors. Because this is what I experience on a daily basis. I speak to somebody that is terrified about getting detained or somebody whose parents are terrified of getting detained. This is a daily occurrence in our neighborhood, and I want that passion to also extend to our neighbors because they’re going through it every single day.

This president not only lobbied the Supreme Court to actually change the law so that ICE agents can detain anybody based on the color of their skin, based on the language they speak, and if they work a low-wage job.

In National City, that means a lot of our community, a lot of Spanish speakers, a lot of brown people. And so these are the laws, the rules that are set up against our own communities, and I want that passion to extend to our own neighbors that are struggling every single day to just hope to not get detained and separated from their family. This is the struggle we’re living with right now. Parents, teachers, kids, students, all going through it. I extended this earlier in the video: Flock must go. This is an agency that has worked with ICE in other states. We cannot trust it. 

We do get the benefit as council members to receive detailed reports from National City PD in regards to the actions that happen around crime in the city. And many times, these reports include the use of Flock cameras and how it was valuable, that information was valuable, in deterring the crime, or if a crime happened, in deterring the individual, catching the individual. Or, if there was a crime committed at some other point, suddenly this individual drives on National City Streets and then is identified.

So I have seen the value that this technology has facilitated for National City PD and for crime fighting. Now, we are, we must be very careful. We should not fall into a surveillance state, not at all. That is absolutely against our principles as Americans.

And so the pressure that is happening upon the company that operates the cameras, I believe that that pressure is going to rise to the point where Flock, if it wants to remain in business, at least in the business with National City, it must address these issues regarding improper surveillance or improper communication of information with agencies that should not be having that information.

So I would be very in support, very much in support, of some type of policy within the city of National City that allows us to understand fully the technology that Flock has and how we are able to protect our folks, our residents and citizens, from a surveillance state.

Law enforcement in National City should not affect how students and parents feel when they leave their child at school. That’s abuse, that’s injustice. That’s something that we should be outraged about. 

But I think the issue here, too, also, is about Flock cameras. We’ve talked about this and show me where the abuses have occurred in the National City police. If it has, we have policies in place to prevent that. And if that abuse occurs and is documented, heads are going to roll.

Now the question is, “Where is that evidence?” I haven’t seen it. If it has been, come forth, and let’s see it. Let’s hold the city people and chiefs and police and the whole city government to an accountability level that we haven’t seen before.

If there have been instances, let’s see it. Come forth. How do you know it’s happening and it’s just not being recorded? We don’t know, but that’s the analysis that I think our council needs to get into and dive and ask for more information. I’m not one to react on a national level. I want to see evidence, and I want to see clear guidance on what we should be doing and measure our performance against those guidelines. And if we don’t have those guidelines or we’re not reinforcing them, then that’s a weak city system that needs to be corrected.

It is a resource. Flock is a resource system, 99 cameras in the entire city, citywide, 99. And so it’s a grant from Flock system that the National City Police Department has taken advantage and presented it to us. This is a resource, a tool that the National City Police Department is using to protect us, our public safety. There’s a crime recently that happened at Kimball Park and Flock was the one that helped the police department solve the situation. I am for that use of the system, for public safety, for our constituents, for our businesses.

However, the abuse of the youth is what I have to double check. We have SB 54, California Values Act. I will make a recommendation to put another layer of accountability in how that Flock system is being used in our city. For now, there are laws that we have to follow. There are policies that are in place, and I will make sure that another set of layers will be put in place to make sure that our citizens, living here, whatever status they are safe within our city.