In recent weeks and months, municipalities around the region have protested - and in some cases, restricted - the use of Flock automated license plate readers - commonly referred to as Flock cameras. Most recently, Columbia County's Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday night to place a moratorium on the use of the cameras. Sonja Okun represents the city of Hudson, New York on the Board of Supervisors, and voted in favor of the moratorium. She spoke with WAMC’s Sam Dingman:
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:
Editor’s note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Sonja Okun: We voted as a board to put a three-month moratorium on the use of Flock cameras. That's the vote. It was a huge pivot from where we were three weeks ago. Of 23 supervisors, there's really only a couple of us that are actively trying to advance, ultimately, a ban that we believe there should be on not just Flock but all ALPRs in the county. One of those, including myself, is our Democratic caucus leader, the minority leader Tistrya Houghtling. She let the caucus know, she let the Board of Supervisors know, that she intended to bring a resolution for a six-month moratorium to the Public Safety Committee last month. She couldn't even get someone to second the vote. The sheriff was there…nobody on the committee was willing to vote for it at all.
Sam Dingman: Was there any discussion at the time about why that was? Why people felt like it was important to continue the presence of Flock cameras?
Okun: I think supervisors' line was that they felt to do that would be somehow to undermine the sheriff or demonstrate a lack of trust in her leadership. Tistrya and myself at another point later on in that meeting tried to share that, “No, two things can be true at the same time. We have trust in our sheriff, and we can disagree with a policy or a use of a tool or technology that the sheriff wants to use.”
Dingman: And, do I understand correctly, that the current sheriff, Jacqueline Salvatore, the contract that the county has with Flock currently was actually signed by her predecessor. Is that right?
Okun: The predecessor, yeah, Sheriff Kraft entered into this agreement. She (Salvatore) technically signed it as the undersheriff, but that was obviously under his leadership.
Dingman: And had Sheriff Salvatore given you or any of the other supervisors any rationale for why she felt it was important to have Flock cameras?
Okun: Yes, I mean her points were very much standard law enforcement points of why they would want to have this kind of technology. I think it was a combination of just why law enforcement would generally want a tool that they think would make their work easier, faster, better, without fully understanding the degree to which the public thinks that it actually violates public safety in a lot of ways by violating our rights to privacy and a host of other things.
Dingman: And would it be fair to say, Sonja, that your objection to Flock cameras, along with Tistrya and the other supervisors who are against this, has to do with those privacy concerns, or are there other issues as well?
Okun: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, everyday there are more examples of this technology being used in ways that it's not supposed to be used, and so I think there are numerous risks, from my perspective, that do not in any way, shape, or form…I don't think the sort of public safety on the ‘what it can help us do in terms of our jobs as law enforcement’ remotely outweigh the risks.
Dingman: One thing that is notable to me about this is, if I'm not mistaken, Sheriff Salvatore has come out and said that she is supportive of the moratorium, correct?
Okun: Yes, she's been very open to conversation. She's been very adamant that she supports using Flock, but at the same time, she's been also very open to conversations across the county, and to listening with people on a one-on-one basis in groups in different areas. If more supervisors had said, "Yeah, this is a problem." I think she might have, maybe even earlier, said, "Yeah, I think we should at least take a pause on this." But I think the fact that almost none of the supervisors wanted to even consider pausing it, right? It was sort of like this chicken and egg, where, “Why should I be the one to kind of go out on a limb and say that, when I don't seem to have any sort of legislative, if you will, support for that.”
Dingman: You mentioned at the beginning of the conversation that your hope, along with some other supervisors, is to move eventually towards a permanent ban of Flock cameras. This three-month moratorium is obviously a step in that direction. What, from your perspective, should happen during this three-month period, and were your preferred outcome to advance, how would the supervisors get there?
Okun: I think the best path forward would be to adopt, from my perspective, the resolution that Tistrya had put forth in Public Safety. One of the things that it specifies that I think we definitely need to do, and I hope that will happen, is the formation of some kind of work group or task force on the Board, right? Which should be: researching, you know, learning more, digging in, and relatedly, engaging with the public in a discussion about what should happen.
Dingman: As a last question for you, Sonja, one of the things we have been talking about on our show recently, that I'd be curious to get your feedback on, is some frustration amongst activists and public officials who have been vocal on the question of ALPRs wanting some sort of clear state-level policy to be established. Because as our conversation is evidence of, and many of the other conversations we've had here on our show, this is playing out in a variety of different ways at the local level. We've seen moratoriums enacted in Dutchess County. We've seen this right now fairly short moratorium enacted in Columbia County. We've seen, you know, different outcomes all over the region, and it's resulting in a fairly patchwork set of policies around this type of surveillance. Do you share the hope that the state will make some kind of formal policy, or do you like the fact that these things can be decided at the county level?
Okun: I absolutely hope that there will be some legislation at the state level. A couple things: one, Michelle Hinchey, our State Representative, has drafted legislation that would put significant guardrails on the use of ALPRs. It's not a bill to ban them, but you know, better guardrails are a necessary baseline again. And then it also makes it then easier for localities or counties or whatever it is to then make more restrictive laws on the use of ALPRs. So, the funding itself, which is state funding, is part of how a lot of these loopholes have been able to be essentially utilized, or in some cases, not saying in our county, but in other places in the country, manipulated very overtly. So that's one place, at the very least, that the state needs to put in some tighter, proactive, guidelines in funding to make sure that we, even if you're purchasing this kind of technology with state funding, there are already protections built into what you can do with it and how you can utilize it.
