Newburgh residents are calling on the City Council to cancel its contract with Flock Safety, as some worry about a possible loophole that could allow data to be shared with federal immigration agents.
“I would like to bring Flock as a resolution, and I'm going to bring it up every City Council meeting until we vote on it, so I'm bringing it up as a resolution again,” said Council Member Omari Shakur.
Shakur said he has brought forward a resolution to cancel Newburgh’s two-year contract with the Flock surveillance company three times. And three times the council did not vote on it – including this week.
Shakur said Flock operates over 80 license-plate-reader cameras in the city.
Ann Sullivan, who resides in Ellenville and works in Newburgh, said she was disappointed with the council’s lack of action Monday.
“Again and again, I hear council members say that they want to protect immigrants in this community, that they want to stand up for low-income people in this community, and yet, when it comes to Flock, you are perfectly happy to allow this malicious, invasive surveillance system to continue in this city,” Sullivan said.
She shared with WAMC the results of a Freedom of Information Law request that included the master services agreement, which shows the city paid Flock $274,400 in 2024 to operate the cameras.
She said her big concern is language in the contract that describes use of the footage. Under the Data Use and Licensing section of the agreement, it said, “Flock does not own and shall not sell customer data.” But it also said Flock can disclose footage to law enforcement if legally required to or if Flock has “a good faith belief” that it’s “necessary to comply with a legal process” or “emergency situations.”
Sullivan said she is skeptical of this loophole.
“If a judge in Texas thinks that it can be used to prosecute somebody who came to New York for an abortion or find somebody whose immigrant status doesn't agree with the current president's immigrant status, that they can, that Flock can keep that data and pass that data along to them,” Sullivan said.
Corbin Laedlein, a Newburgh resident, has raised concerns during City Council meetings about the possibility of federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, accessing Flock camera data if Newburgh shares its data with other communities that don’t have sanctuary policies.
Newburgh reaffirmed its “Safe and Welcoming City” sanctuary policy in 2026, which limits city employees and Newburgh police from working with federal immigration enforcement except in criminal investigations.
Laedlein said he’s confused.
“I'm not fully understanding why that is, why some City Council members who I expected would be more continuously outspoken and trying to push this forward are just silence,” he said.
Some council members, like Ronald Zorrilla, raised concerns about breaking the contract with Flock at a council meeting in May.
“I do not want a surveillance state,” he said. “On the other side of that token, as council person with a fiduciary responsibility for our funding, I would hate to just hand over it's actually $390,000 to a contract.”
Newburgh Police Chief Brandon Rola said in a June council work session that the funding for Flock came from a New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services grant.
He suggested, instead of cancelling the contract and losing over $400,000, Newburgh Police could implement more safeguards on license plate readers and provide “documentation showing that no outside agency can access, view, or search our city of Newburgh LPRs.”
Shakur said all the public attention and anger has pushed him to keep advocating to end the Flock contract.
“Being a child of the 60s and 70s, Big Brother, I've been aware of Big Brother for the longest time," Shakur said. "And now, we're seeing Big Brother being implemented under different disguises, but it's the same thing. It's an eye on the people.”
He said that it’s better to end the contract now even with the high price tag.
“If we have to go to court for something Flock did later on, it might cost us even more ... and because, like I said, the community doesn't want it,” Shakur said.
Neither Flock Safety nor Newburgh police nor the city responded to WAMC’s request for comment.
