Civil Rights Lawyers Challenge Surveillance Camera System Just Like Clay's
'Not Just Creepy. It's Unconstitutional'
Last year, Clay News & Views discovered a surveillance network installed by the Clay County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO). Without warning or notification to the citizens, the CCSO began tracking the movements of everyone traveling in the county.
The company contracted to install the cameras and collect the data is Flock Safety. Flock tracks vehicles via its proprietary cameras and feeds the data into its artificial intelligence models to track people and predict where they will travel in the future. CCSO stores the data collected from its cameras for one year.
Earlier this week, a federal lawsuit was filed against the city of Norfolk, Virginia, alleging their use of Flock cameras amounts to an “unconstitutional dragnet surveillance program.”
The suit was filed by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm with a mission to “end widespread abuses of government power and secure the constitutional rights that allow all Americans to pursue their dreams.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of two residents of Norfolk, alleges that the constant collection and storage of data violates the citizens' Fourth Amendment rights. One of them is Lee Schmidt, a 42-year-old Norfolk husband and father who recently retired from the Navy.
“I don’t like the government following my every movement and treating me like a criminal suspect, when they have no reason to believe I’ve done anything wrong,” Schmidt said.
Here’s what the Institute for Justice said when it announced the lawsuit:
Unlike traditional traffic cameras—which capture an image only when they sense speeding or someone running a red light—Flock’s cameras capture images of every car driving by, which it retains for at least 30 days. Artificial intelligence then uses those images to create a “vehicle fingerprint” that enables any Flock subscriber to both track where that vehicle has gone and identify what other vehicles it has been seen nearby.
“Norfolk has created a dragnet that allows the government to monitor everyone’s day-to-day movements without a warrant or probable cause. This type of mass surveillance is a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment,” said Attorney Michael Soyfer of the Institute for Justice.
“This type of intrusive, ongoing monitoring of someone’s life is not just creepy, it’s unconstitutional,” said another, Robert Frommer.
While Norfolk stores the data for 30 days, CCSO stores the data collected by their cameras for an entire year. Prominent rights activist and lawyer Steve Lehto discussed the details of the case in a recent video:
The original Clay News & Views story about installing the Flock cameras generated pressure on Sheriff Michelle Cook and a veiled threat of legal action against us from Flock Safety itself.
When pressed about the cameras, Sheriff Cook has attempted to obfuscate the concerns by lumping the Flock Safety cameras in with live-feed cameras of traffic and intersections and mobile license plate readers. Neither of those stores data for extended periods or uses artificial intelligence to predict citizens' behavior. Cook also claims her predecessor, Darryl Daniels, started the surveillance network.
Neither Cook nor CCSO has published any policies or guidelines used by the department to protect the data collected from internal misuse or external data breaches. Cook has also asserted her belief that the citizens being monitored by the cameras have no right to examine or access the data being collected about them.
It remains to be seen if any citizens in Clay County or other Florida communities will be brave enough to challenge the use of Flock Cameras here in the Sunshine State. You can read the full court filing for the case in Virginia below.
Why are people for the most part running the lights? What has the driver so distracted? Phones. In our hand. Text. Maps…. These wonderful damn phones that are becoming our 2nd brain have definitely caused loads of run red lights and loads of rear ending at lights….
Let’s go after that massive bigger problem, if we have all these cameras.
Damn we could have the top class of everything with all that revenue!
Wells road in orange park is a massive (in my opinion) “training ground” for law enforcement and security cameras. The law enforcement agency has a massive room full of round the clock law enforcement observing us. All the time. Everywhere on Wells rd.
The red light cameras need to go. I believe they cause more accidents. I just do. My family received a ticket once from a camera, turned out our car was on the back of a tow truck. Yep!
If we have the capability of busting a car running a light than we for sure have the capability of getting all the texting and driving fools like me.
One last thing that concerns me. One day an extremely dangerous group may have control of all the cameras our government is setting up. Some things that help can end up in the wrong hands and destroy the good. It happens all the time.
Take the cameras down.
One more thing. My friend asked a security installer if you can hear people talking while on a walk. The fella stated “Lady, you can hear a cat walking in the grass across the street.”