Texas Voters Rejected Flock Plate Readers, but the Mayor Wanted Them Covered Immediately

Nick Long could’ve waited for the official count. Instead, the League City mayor asked city staff Wednesday to cover the Flock license plate cameras along public roads. The Houston suburb’s unofficial returns showed 54.01% of voters wanted the city to stop using them. The cameras were still scheduled for removal after the November 17 canvass.

Long wanted them covered now.

Voters answered a narrow question. Should the League City Police Department keep using automated Flock cameras at fixed spots on public roads? Proposition A was advisory; the council had already approved a plan to act if voters rejected the cameras. Under the city’s plan, crews have 72 hours after the official canvass to remove them.

The council gave people a choice and committed itself to doing something with the answer. A council could’ve kept the whole decision at City Hall. League City put the question to the people whose daily trips filled the database. It also spelled out the consequences before the votes came in, so residents could see what would happen if they told their city to stop collecting plate records.

From League City’s website:

The resolution calls for the removal of the cameras within 72 hours of the official canvassing of election results at the Council’s November 17 meeting. However, League City Mayor Nick Long has asked City staff to immediately cover or bag any of the City' s ALPR cameras at fixed locations along public roadways. Once the ALPR cameras are “bagged,” LCPD will no longer be able to collect data or share information with outside agencies. Any data previously collected is automatically purged from the LCPD system after 30 days unless it has been retained as evidence for an active case. Similarly, data previously shared with outside agencies is retained for 30 days unless it has been preserved as evidence in an existing case.
As part of the resolution, the League City Manager is directed to review the City's agreements with Flock Safety and pursue amendments, partial termination, nonrenewal, or other adjustments as appropriate to implement the camera-removal requirements of the resolution. These actions shall include reviewing applicable agreements, providing required notices, exercising available termination or nonrenewal rights, pursuing negotiated termination where appropriate, and coordinating equipment return, account closure, and final contractual obligations. Any termination agreement, expenditure, or other action requiring Council approval shall be promptly submitted for consideration.

League City police made a case for keeping the Flock cameras. In July, the department said the system had aided 305 investigations over the previous 12 months, including homicides, robberies, burglaries, and thefts.

Police said the cameras also alerted officers when vehicles associated with known suspects entered the city. “Aided” covers a lot of ground, from giving a detective a lead to helping officers locate a suspect. A lead can make a real difference to someone waiting for police to recover a stolen car.

Every passing driver supplied information that made those searches possible. The city’s 55 Flock cameras collected plate numbers and vehicle details, including color and distinguishing marks. A record of one car at one intersection might tell you very little. A series of records can show where the same car goes, when it goes there, and how often it returns.

People going to work or taking a parent to the doctor supplied those records simply by driving down a public road.

From the Texas Tribune:

The ballot item, initially intended as a way to gauge public sentiment about the cameras, describes Proposition A as nonbinding. But the City Council approved a second resolution in mid-October that pledged to remove the cameras if voters rejected them.
The referendum is the first of its kind in Texas, allowing voters to decide whether the increasingly controversial devices can be used by law enforcement. Kyle and Laredo voters will have the chance to weigh in next May, but those votes will be nonbinding.

A cover stops the Flock camera from seeing the next car. The records it already collected have their own clock. The city says its police system automatically purges data after 30 days unless officers keep it as evidence in an active case. The city says the same 30-day period applies to records it shared with outside agencies, except for evidence preserved in an existing case.

So a driver can pass a covered camera and still have a trip from last week in the system.

Then there’s the bill. The city manager must review the Flock agreements and determine what the city can end, amend, or let expire. Staff will recommend where to put any money left after the city meets its obligations.

I’d like to see the council put those figures in front of voters, along with a plain account of what police expect to lose and what another use of the money could buy. The people who made the call will also live with the results.

I wrote in October about a court fight over how police searched a plate-reader database.

From my October Column:

Those arguments have weight; Hill’s order doesn’t suddenly make every Flock camera unconstitutional, nor does it erase decades of law recognizing that people generally have fewer expectations of privacy when traveling on public roads.
Still, technology changes what an old rule means in practice.
One police officer watching one highway is surveillance, while tens of thousands of networked cameras that can search a person’s past movements are something qualitatively different. The constitutional problem isn’t necessarily the photograph. It’s the database created from millions of photographs and the ability to search backward through someone’s life.

League City asked the question one step earlier. Should the city pay to collect those records in the first place? Police had a number worth hearing, and residents had a ballot worth casting, while the cameras may come down in November.

The part I hope other city councils pay attention to is what happened before Election Day, when League City agreed to act on the answer even if it meant taking down equipment it had already installed.

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