Hello reader. 

NELA Alliance for Democracy is test-driving this new blog. If it drives smoothly, we intend for it to be a regular feature of our website.

Entry #1  –  JULY 1, 2025  |  Smile, you’re on camera (Take Action below)

Whether you’re driving to work, morning Joe in hand, or wheeling into a hardware store, people you don’t know are watching. That’s right. Your local tax dollars have built an increasingly all-encompassing surveillance apparatus for police to fight crime that’s now unwittingly being turned over to a renegade federal government to use in violently rounding up immigrants without due process and to arrest U.S. citizens who document their takedowns. The network your friendly city council members and county board of supervisors spent your money on is even being used by some local police in California to track your attendance to perfectly peaceful protests.

Police are busy spending your money to build centralized surveillance systems that can produce an instant dossier on you and almost anybody. AI is being used to integrate facial recognition cameras, automated license plate readers, sweeps of social media posts, body cam feeds from police, cell site simulators (sometimes called stingrays) that can sweep data off your phone, and other devices and databases. And while ICE is purchasing Palantir’s gold-plated version of surveillance integration, your local police department likely is getting the Ford Explorer version from Peregrine Technologies, an offshoot of Peter Thiel’s company.

Not surprisingly, news has been breaking almost daily of misuses of automatic license plate reader data across the nation, particularly data gathered through Flock Safety’s network of cameras mounted on street light poles, and yes, even in Home Depot parking lots, a hot spot for ICE raids. Flock boasts it has cameras in more than 5,000 communities nationwide and has more than 1,000 companies using the devices in their parking lots. Meanwhile, ICE itself has a secretive contract with Vigilant Systems to tap the company’s automated license plate reader database fed by a competing automatic license plate reader system used by LACSD, LAPD, and other local departments, such as Alhambra. Many communities use both Vigilant and Flock.

In California, police departments have given automatic license plate reader data to ICE since the raids began, a potential violation of the 2017 California Values Act. Lawmakers passed the act to prevent police in our state from working with ICE to enforce federal immigration laws during the reign of Trump 1.0. Meanwhile, the Escondido PD in San Diego County used license plate readers to track who attended a protest against Trump’s immigration policy. Then in Texas, police tapped Flock’s national database in an investigation of a woman who traveled out of the Lone Star state in search of an abortion. Texas police secured data from Flock cameras in Illinois, prompting the Illinois Secretary of State to launch an inquiry of automated license plate readers.

Meanwhile, other communities are beginning to push back too, with Denver (discussion begins at minute 29 of the meeting) recently suspending an expansion and extension of its Flock contract by unanimous vote of the city council. Austin has done the same and in Virginia, Republican Gov. Glen Youngkin recently signed state legislation that restricts how the automatic license plate readers can be used by local police, requiring the technology to be used only to help solve the most heinous crimes. Also in Virginia, a federal district court has agreed to hear a lawsuit challenging use of the Flock system as an unconstitutional search prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.

So what can you do to fight back and stop the growing assault on civil liberties? Get organized and get down to your city and county halls to give ‘em hell. Your local elected officials lavished your money on surveillance equipment year after year, ignoring warnings by privacy advocates that eventually, one day, the system would be used against ordinary people.  Now that day has come. 

TAKE ACTION

The SGV Progressive Alliance is partnering with Alhambrans to tell  City of Alhambra to adopt this resolution at a special meeting, which is likely set for  Mon. July 7, 2 pm. Can you come?

Please sign and share the link with like-minded people

Huntington Park did it, Alhambra's next - what about the rest of our cities?!

Use it as a template for your own city to adopt clear language on directing the police department to SERVE the community in the face of fascist Gestapo tactics against our community.