Community members bring Flock concerns to Board of Supervisors
Speakers at the meeting expressed their opposition to being constantly surveilled and tracked via the Flock cameras throughout the county.
Floyd County residents brought their concerns about local Flock Safety’s License Plate Recognition (LPR) cameras to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, June 23.
Floyd County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO) Chief Deputy Chad Harris explained that the Flock cameras in Floyd County were awarded via a grant on Nov. 3, 2023, and FCSO does not have the capability for facial recognition through Flock.
The cameras, according to the Virginia Tech Police Department, are designed to support law enforcement in cases such as Silver/Amber Alerts, stolen vehicles, threat assessments, and active warrants; however, Harris noted, they are not used for traffic enforcement. Data is stored on the cameras in Floyd County for 21 days, Harris said.
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There are four currently installed throughout the county: one at the stoplight, Harris said; one at Simmons Grocery on Route 8, one past Outer Space on the south side of town, one near the Floyd Laundromat, and one near G.J. Ingram and Sons.
At the beginning of the Board of Supervisors meeting on June 23, Chairman Joe Turman (Burks Fork) said that the Board of Supervisors has “no control whatsoever over those cameras” since they were awarded through FCSO. “...We don’t authorize them; we can’t make them move them,” he said. He noted that he’s “heard a rumor” that Sheriff Brian Craig “is going to have them removed” because “they are not serving the purpose for us that they intended.”
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Speakers during the public comment period of the meeting expressed their opposition to being constantly surveilled and tracked via the Flock cameras throughout the county. Many noted the significance of having this conversation while celebrating the 250th anniversary of the nation’s independence from Great Britain.
Annie Ellis said she is concerned about the “risk of misuse” of the data collected from the Flock cameras. She said misuse could lead to “wrongful arrests, profiling, stalking ex-partners by police officers… It’s a privacy violation, tracks your movements, and stores your data for long periods of time.” Additionally, she said there is no strong evidence that using these cameras prevent a crime “despite the unethical attempts to prove otherwise.”
Jacey Clay, who said she works as a director for a national data analytics company, said her concerns “are not rooted in a fear of technology — they are rooted in a firm understanding of what modern data systems are capable of doing.” She said that while Flock cameras are often described as License Plate Readers, they create a log of where, when, how often people travel, and more, continuously tracking and storing “intimate details” of citizens that are not suspected of any crime.
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“Surveillance systems rarely remain limited to their original purpose,” she said. “What begins as a tool to locate stolen vehicles will eventually be used to monitor political activity, religious participation, protests, healthcare visits, and other lawful activities by our citizens. This issue is not whether today's officials will misuse these systems; it's when.”
On social media after the meeting, Clay said the meeting was “an embarrassment.”
“The Board of Supervisors repeatedly claimed their hands are tied when it comes to Flock surveillance cameras. That claim is either born from ignorance of their own authority or a deliberate attempt to avoid accountability. Neither explanation inspires confidence,” Clay said. “... What we witnessed tonight was the weaponization of incompetence.”
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Brandon Decker said he first learned about Flock cameras when the system was used to catch a wanted person in Montgomery County about two years ago. Since then, he said, he’s seen “communities across the nation embrace the system,” which itself “violates our civil liberties by removing the requirement of probable cause and reasonable suspicion to conduct said surveillance.”
Decker said the Founding Fathers would be “mollified to learn of this system and its implementation within the nation that they strove so hard to forge. They would call this intolerable, at the very least…. For every criminal or suspected criminal that it reports, there are hundreds if not thousands of us that it's reporting continuously.”
Deanna Carr said she feels like grants would be better used in the Floyd County Public School System to help monitor the “severe bullying” in both the school hallways and the school buses. “It would be nice if we could allot some of those funds to possibly having a parent or a paid officer to supervise – or even have the cameras on the school buses – to see what’s happening with our children and make sure they’re safe.”
David Grimsley said he’s brought the matter of Flock cameras to the attention of many in Floyd County. He explained that one was set up at Ingram’s and pointed down his road, which he said felt like a "personal insult.”
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Grimsley, who is a member of the Floyd County Planning Commission, said, “Floyd residents should have been aware that this grant was awarded and that these cameras were being installed around our county… These cameras are not making Floyd a safer place. They tread on our Fourth Amendment right to privacy and this issue has bipartisan support for removal.”
Blake Carr, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps and completed two combat deployments, said the situation created by Flock cameras is not what he was trying to protect. “I don’t like the Flock,” he said.
Bryan Paczynski said that “quiet decisions made in back rooms have turned our open roads into a digital dragnet, and it’s time we take our county back.” He said the installation of the Flock cameras was done “without a single public vote, without notice, and without the consent of the people who live here.”
While the Board points at Sheriff Brian Craig as the decision-maker in regard to the cameras, and the grant that made them possible, Craig, Paczynski said, points at the state police. “Meanwhile, a private, Silicon Valley company holds a detailed record of where every one of us drives, when we drive, and who we drive with. This is not leadership, this is abdication,” he added. “... If the Board truly didn’t know this was happening, that failure of oversight alone demands accountability today.”
About a dozen total Floyd County residents spoke during the public comment period of the meeting. Not all of them are summarized here. See the meeting recording for every statement.
After closing the public comment period, Board Chairman Turman thanked everyone for coming and voicing their concerns. He said, “The Board can’t voice their concerns, but we hear you.”
Sheriff Brian Craig said this week that FCSO does not use the cameras for surveillance of residents. He referenced Virginia Code 2.2-5517, “Use of automatic license plate recognition systems by law-enforcement agencies,” for acceptable and prohibited uses.
“System data and audit trail data shall not be subject to disclosure under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A law-enforcement agency shall not sell any system data or audit trail data. A law-enforcement agency shall not share system data or audit trail data with, or disseminate such data to, any database of any other state, federal, private, or commercial entity,” the Code states. It also says, “A law-enforcement agency that uses a system shall establish a policy governing such use that is consistent with this section (H).”
This documentation has been circulating on social media in regard to Flock camera conversations. The photo shows record of a $12,000 payment to Flock Safety from Floyd County, and it includes the signatures of then-Deputy County Administrator Kim Chiddo and Chairman Joe Turman. Chiddo explained this week that the 2023 grant included a 100% reimbursement of county funds.
Learn more about the DeFlock movement at www.deflock.org.
Flock Safety is an operating system “that exists to help communities and law enforcement in 1,500-plus cities work together to fight crime, protect privacy, and mitigate bias,” according to its website. See www.flocksafety.com for more information.
