Hate cameras that read your plates? How Weston residents got rid of theirs | Porter
Weston is a small, historic town located about 15 minutes north of Kansas City International Airport. Known for its bevy of distilleries, breweries, wineries and other tourist attractions, the small town of about 1,900 people attracts visitors from all over our six-county Missouri region here and other neighboring states.
When local residents Katie Currid and Hilary Buford learned that Flock Safety planned to install four automated license plate reader cameras in this idyllic rural suburb in Platte County, the pair organized to have the cameras known as ALPRs — automated license plate recognition cameras — shut down and removed. In April, in a truly stunning development that illustrates the power regular everyday folks hold when it comes to local matters, the four-person Weston Board of Aldermen reversed its own decision and voted to terminate its contract with Flock Safety thanks to the advocacy work of Currid and Buford.
What started last winter as a monthslong campaign to educate public officials and residents about the dangers of mass surveillance in Weston ended with a celebratory toast at a local pub this spring, Currid and Buford told me in recent phone interviews.
“It was great,” Currid said of the process to engage the community. “I’ve been able to meet people in town (who) will come up to me and talk to me about stuff like, ‘Thank you for doing this.’ Just engaging with my neighbors that I’ve maybe never talked to was a really cool part of it as well.”
In a town full of wineries and breweries, Buford said the pair had to settle for a local bar because the meeting that night ended late.
“It was slim pickings on a Monday night,” she said. “I think that meeting adjourned around 10 or 10:30 p.m. and we went to have one drink at our local O’Malley’s pub because it was our only option. But we stayed humble. We were just happy — we were shocked at the outcome and it just reaffirmed that we do have voices. And it sounds so cliched, but there’s power where there’s people gathering and organizing and staying grounded.”
As I’ve written before, multiple police agencies in the region use ALPR cameras to collect vehicle information including license plate numbers, a vehicle’s make and model and time and date the vehicle is on the road. They include but are not limited to agencies in Blue Springs, Gladstone, Grain Valley, Lee’s Summit, Kansas City and other jurisdictions in Clay, Jackson and Platte counties. Several agencies in Kansas use them, too, including Overland Park, Merriam, Olathe and others, as well as the Johnson County sheriff’s department.
Seriously, folks. Our everyday movements are being tracked from pillar to post, and that is not OK.
Many of the agencies listed above contract with Flock, which is considered an industry leader — there are other companies out there as well — but none of them have raised the level of concern that Flock has. In recent months, we’ve seen way too many instances of law enforcement officials using Flock data for nefarious reasons.
Kansas police chief tracked ex, her new boyfriend
In Kansas, a Sedgwick police chief used Flock license plate readers to track his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend’s vehicles 228 times over four-plus months, The Wichita Eagle reported. In Sedgwick County, a lieutenant in Kechi used Wichita police’s Flock cameras to stalk his estranged wife, according to The Eagle.
Nationwide, Flock ALPRs have gained the attention of bloggers such as musician and technologist Benn Jordan, independent media company 404 Media and Steven Keener, an assistant professor of criminology and director and co-founder of the Center for Crime, Equity, and Justice at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, among other privacy advocates.
Simply put, automated license plate readers violate our Fourth Amendment rights of unreasonable search and seizure, Keener told me in a recent phone interview.
“We have yet to see where there is a version of these cameras that doesn’t end up becoming more harmful than helpful,” Keener said. “I would make the argument that as long as these cameras exist in your communities, they’re actually making you less safe because you’re more at risk of the abuse and the misuse.”
Keener said local residents like Buford and Currid must be on the front line of the battle between public safety and privacy.
“I think the future of this is at the local level,” Keener said. “I think that is where if you want to see actual change and actual guardrails, or in some cases, canceling contracts, it’s the local level.”
While I believe that there is a need for enhanced policing tools such as ALPRs and drones, I am equally concerned that our data is being collected and our everyday moves are being tracked — and so should you.
‘Living in a surveillance state’
So how exactly did Currid, a stay-at-home mother of three and freelance photographer, and Buford, a musician and married mother of three, get their local leaders to have Flock cameras removed? Over the course of a few months, the pair told me that they met with each member of the four-person board to convince them that Flock cameras were not needed in Weston. Mayor Kim Kirby is also on the board and only casts votes when needed to break a tie as was the case last winter when a three-year, $45,000 deal with Flock Safety was approved.
From there, Currid and Buford went to work on their outreach and advocacy which included detailing to each board member the privacy concerns the two of them had with Flock cameras. Some of the issues they raised with their elected officials and other residents were some of the same concerns all of us should have with these types of surveillance cameras and other modern-day investigative tools law enforcement officials swear by.
Some of the nightmare scenarios Currid and Buford shared about ALPRs were similar to the ones that I mentioned above about police officials in the Wichita area. They even started a Facebook group called Deflock Weston: Citizens for Responsible Public Safety to keep other residents abreast of the situation.
“My biggest concern was government overreach and just a massive feeling of living in a surveillance state,” Buford said of why she got involved in the ALPRs discussion in Weston. “I’m a very logical person and I like to understand why something is needed. It was making no logical sense why our police force needed this. It seemed like there was motivation to help other agencies more than there was to really use it internally.”
In an email, Kirby wrote that although she personally does not support the removal of the cameras, residents and visitors should still feel safe in Weston.
“We have at least one officer on duty 24 hours per day,” Kirby wrote. “In some cases, there are two on duty, and the Platte County Sheriff’s Department also responds if requested by our police. We have several officers who live in the Weston area or within a 5-mile radius that would be able to respond if needed.”
According to Paris Lewbel, a spokesperson for Flock, the company’s technology has privacy safeguards built in at its core — a selling point we’ve heard used each time a privacy issue is raised.
Yet, those safety parameters haven’t stopped some law enforcement officials from abusing the system.
“Every agency using Flock owns and controls its own data, and every search of the system requires a documented reason and creates a permanent audit trail that agencies can review,” Lewbel wrote in an email. “Flock’s ALPR cameras capture objective, point-in-time images of vehicles on public roadways and do not collect confidential personal information such as names, phone numbers, or home addresses. We remain committed to working closely with local communities to ensure the laws and protections they decide are transparently built and implemented.”
‘Shining light on the government’
Weston is home to several distilleries, brewing companies, wineries, historic hotels and other small businesses that draw visitors from all over. It has a reputation of being relatively safe, according to Currid and Buford. During their research, they found data to prove ALPRs were unnecessary there and ripe for abuse.
“It’s one of the reasons I think that our residents were upset about Flock because primarily we think Weston is a safe place,” Currid said. “When we were speaking to different people who made the decision about the Flock cameras in Weston, it didn’t even seem like Weston needed it.”
I asked Buford what advice she would give to people in other cities that have concerns about ALPRs or other intrusive surveillance devices. Understanding the structure of the local government is huge, Buford said.
“Understanding the power the people hold in shining light on the government was also powerful in our journey to success,” she said.
Weston’s Buford and Currid set the template on how to get Flock cameras peacefully removed from city streets. Others in nearby jurisdictions should follow their lead.
