As Watsonville weighs renewing its Flock Safety camera contract, a new coalition is urging local cities to cut ties with the surveillance vendor, citing immigration risks and civil liberties concerns.
Flock Safety cameras
Lookout news and Community Voices opinion coverage of Flock Safety automated license plate readers in Santa Cruz County.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Santa Cruz, Capitola and Watsonville pledged not to cooperate with ICE. A controversial license plate reader may be undermining that promise.
Police in Santa Cruz, Capitola and Watsonville scan thousands of license plates daily thanks to a surveillance network that is used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the state, including at least one that has been found to be searching on behalf of federal authorities.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
License plate readers, primary endorsements, Felton pump track among final local political votes of 2023
Last week, local governments took some big votes they had pushed off to the final meetings of the year, a state agency made an unprecedented decision in a decades-old Santa Cruz County controversy, and the county’s Democratic machine picked the people and measures it wants to see succeed in the March 5 primary.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Santa Cruz City Council delays vote on installing license plate readers over privacy concerns
The Santa Cruz Police Department asked the city council if it could lease automated license plate readers that would record each license plate that crosses the cameras’ lenses. Many residents and some organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, urged caution, saying they don’t want anything resembling an Orwellian surveillance state in the community. Faced […]
