MORGANTOWN – “We take pictures of license plates. We use those for crimes.”
That, Monongalia County Sheriff Todd Forbes said Wednesday, is the extent of the function and use of the Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras in Monongalia County.
In November, the Monongaila County Commission approved Forbes’ request to use up to $180,000 in directly allocated opioid settlement funds over three years to place as many as 20 of the cameras at locations across the county.
Just as it has in political jurisdictions across the country, the county’s decision to implement the controversial automated cameras has come under increased scrutiny of late.
A change.org petition to stop the county’s use of Flock cameras has garnered more than 1,400 signatures.
Ten or so individuals showed up at Wednesday’s commission meeting to voice their concerns in person.
Those concerns include infringements on civil liberties, vulnerabilities within the hardware and software utilized by the cameras, the potential for abuse within and between agencies, the collection of personal data by a private company, the overall “Big Brother” nature of automated surveillance, and the county’s use of opioid settlement money to finance the installation of the cameras.
Justin Musser, the IT administrator for WVU’s PRT system, first brought his concerns about the Flock agreement to the commission late last year.
He returned Wednesday to say he’s disappointed with the amount of information being shared publicly about what data is being collected, how it’s being used and who it’s being shared with.
“The same people that have said throughout this whole process that if you have nothing to hide, you don’t have anything to worry about, have definitely been pretty good at hiding for the past couple months when it comes to getting any answers about anything related to this project,” Musser said, adding, “If you want your constituents to trust what you are giving them in terms of safety with a camera system, they need to be able to trust you, that you’re handling their data safely.”
The commission also heard from Paige Reiring, the organizer behind Wednesday’s turnout.
She said spending $180,000 in opioid settlement funds on surveillance cameras is “an obvious misuse.”
“These ALPRs create a de facto dragnet that tracks and logs the movements of vehicles and individuals without law enforcement needing to obtain a warrant, in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” Reiring said, citing ACLU statistics indicating less than 1% of vehicles scanned by ALPRs are connected to crime, and one in 10 plates scanned are misread, leading to unwarranted and potentially dangerous interactions between law enforcement and citizens.
“I think we need to think about what kind of society that we’re creating,” Theodore Webb added. “We see a context here. There’s more and more surveillance, more and more surveillance. There’s all this data that’s being collected. You guys are intelligent folks. I’m sure you’re aware of all this data that’s being collected. Most of it, really, without people’s awareness and without their consent. What’s the point? … Just think about what can be done with this data. There are serious consequences. If you just read 1984. It’s common sense. It’s just common sense. We’re building something that the worst dictators in history would have been thrilled to have. It’s just not a good idea.”
Both Forbes and members of the commission pushed back on several of the talking points.
In terms of the funding, the commissioners noted, one, that opioid settlement funds are not tax dollars, but money collected from opioid manufacturers and distributors through legal action; and, two, law enforcement initiatives to address the flow of illicit drugs is an approved use of the funds per the Memorandum of Understanding created by the West Virginia First Foundation.
Commissioner Jeff Arnett said that of the opioid settlement funds spent thus far, 96% has supported treatment and prevention efforts while 4% has been used to finance placement of the cameras.
It was also explained that the cameras, as implemented in Monongalia County, are not surveillance cameras fishing for offenses, but “finding cameras,” that are flagging specific plates entered into the system in connection with criminal investigations, active warrants, Amber alerts and Silver alerts.
“I want it very clear. The cameras in Monongalia County do not have facial recognition. They do have surveillance. They do not follow children in parks. They do not stalk individuals. They are on public roads to only capture license plates,” Commission President Tom Bloom said.
Bloom later said he believes misinformation and instances cherrypicked from other locations are ‘scare tactics’ being used to create a ‘mob mentality,’ while nobody beyond Musser has reached out to the commission or the sheriff to have their concerns addressed.
According to information provided to The Dominion Post, two cameras recently identified in social media posts have already been damaged or disabled.
Forbes said the amount of data collected by the Flock cameras is “almost laughable” in comparison to the amount and type of data being collected and shared by cellphones.
He went on to say that there are cameras with facial recognition software being utilized within the county, but they are not the county’s Flock cameras.
According to Forbes, regular audits of the system provide detailed logs of who is accessing it and what information is being collected. Those audits, he said, are shared with the commission.
“We have a society where we don’t have to agree, but this decision was made for the betterment of the community. We wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think this made our county safer,” he said.
“An example I will give is, a couple weeks ago, a triple murder was committed in Ohio, and approximately six hours later those people in that car were in our county, and we made an arrest. I would like anybody to stand up to the family of those victims and say, ‘Flock cameras are bad.’ I don’t think they will agree with that. That’s the purpose and the spirit that we have for those cameras, and that’s how they will be used as long as I’m overseeing that.”
