Who Is
Watching?

My name is [your name], I'm a resident of Grass Valley, and I'm not here as a lawyer or a policy expert but as someone who lives here, drives here, and is raising [my family / my kids] here, which is why I want to talk about what it means that Grass Valley PD's Flock cameras went up without ever asking the people of this city.

There was no town hall, no ballot measure, and no public hearing where the question of whether our city should be plugged into a national surveillance network was put to the people who would actually be surveilled by it; instead, the contract was signed, the cameras went up, and most of us only found out about any of it because someone filed a public records request.

The bigger issue, though, isn't even how the decision was made, but what these cameras actually do, because every time I drive past one I am photographed and my plate, my vehicle, my route, and the time and date of my trip are all logged into a private company's database, not because I am suspected of any crime but simply because I drove down a public road, and that is the literal definition of a general warrant that the Fourth Amendment was written to forbid.

Some will say "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide," and I would ask them whether they lock their front door at night or close their curtains, not because they are hiding crimes but because protecting a private life is a basic right that license plate readers strip away from every resident, without consent, without a warrant, and without any real chance to object.

None of this is theoretical, either, because ALPR data has been used elsewhere to track domestic violence victims to safe houses, to misidentify innocent drivers in ways that have led to guns-drawn traffic stops, and here in Grass Valley it has been handed over to federal agencies, including immigration enforcement, that California law specifically forbids from receiving it, all of which is to say that this technology has not made our city safer but has only made us watched.

I am asking the council to undo a decision that was made on our behalf without our voice, to end the contract, and to restore the basic principle that in this country the government cannot follow you everywhere unless it has a specific reason to. Thank you.

My name is [your name], I'm a resident of Grass Valley, and I'm here tonight because over the past year our city has been quietly plugged into a national surveillance network operated by a private company called Flock Safety, which is something most residents have no idea happened, and I am asking the council to look at the public records yourselves and end this contract.

Since installation, the Flock cameras owned by Grass Valley PD have been searched over 7.5 million times by outside agencies, with more than five million of those searches coming from agencies outside California, which is a direct violation of California Civil Code Section 1798.90.55(b), the state law that prohibits sharing automated license plate reader data with any non-California entity.

The agencies querying our cameras include over 264,000 searches by NCRIC, a federal fusion center based in San Francisco, more than three thousand searches by the United States Postal Inspection Service, and queries from federal Air Force bases, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the National Park Service, none of which are California agencies and none of which have any clear jurisdiction over Grass Valley.

Most significantly, the data also includes 1,175 searches of Grass Valley cameras by Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, and the Border Patrol, every one of which happened after October 2023, when the California Attorney General issued Bulletin 2023-DLE-06 explicitly prohibiting California agencies from sharing ALPR data with federal immigration enforcement, meaning that the law was clear and the data was shared anyway.

The records also show more than 54,000 searches with no valid reason given, and every "reason" field in the audit logs the public requested was stripped before release, even though Flock's own portal claims those reasons are stored indefinitely.

More than 80 communities have ended their Flock contracts in the past year, including Santa Cruz, which became the first city in California to do so by a 6-to-1 council vote, Mountain View, which followed unanimously in February, and South Pasadena, Cambridge, Denver, Austin, and Eugene, all of which have walked away.

I am asking the council to do three things: terminate Grass Valley PD's contract with Flock Safety, publicly disclose the reason fields and search logs that were withheld from our public records requests, and commit that no ALPR data collected by Grass Valley PD will ever again be shared with any non-California entity. Thank you.

My name is [your name], I'm a resident of Nevada County, and I'm here to ask the Board to use its budget authority to defund the Sheriff's contract with Flock Safety.

Public records obtained through the California Public Records Act show that the Flock cameras owned by the Nevada County Sheriff's Office have been searched over 13 million times by 4,654 different outside agencies, with more than five million of those searches coming from agencies outside California, which directly violates California Civil Code Section 1798.90.55(b).

Flock also publishes a "transparency portal" that the Sheriff's Office points residents to, which claims about 130 searches happen in a 30-day window, while our records covering the same window show 271,577 searches, an undercount of two thousand times.

More than 80 communities have already ended their Flock contracts, with Santa Cruz becoming the first city in California to do so, and we are asking Nevada County to be the next. Thank you.

My name is [your name], I'm a resident of Nevada County, and I'm not here as a lawyer or a policy expert but as someone who lives here, drives here, and is raising [my family / my kids] here, which is why I want to talk about what it means that the Sheriff's Flock cameras went up without ever asking the people of this county.

There was no town hall, no ballot measure, and no public hearing where the question of whether our county should be plugged into a national surveillance network was put to the people who would actually be surveilled by it; instead, the contract was signed, the cameras went up, and most of us only found out about any of it because someone filed a public records request.

The bigger issue, though, isn't even how the decision was made, but what these cameras actually do, because every time I drive past one I am photographed and my plate, my vehicle, my route, and the time and date of my trip are all logged into a private company's database, not because I am suspected of any crime but simply because I drove down a public road, and that is the literal definition of a general warrant that the Fourth Amendment was written to forbid.

Some will say "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide," and I would ask them whether they lock their front door at night or close their curtains, not because they are hiding crimes but because protecting a private life is a basic right that license plate readers strip away from every resident, without consent, without a warrant, and without any real chance to object.

None of this is theoretical, either, because ALPR data has been used elsewhere to track domestic violence victims to safe houses, to misidentify innocent drivers in ways that have led to guns-drawn traffic stops, and here in Nevada County it has been handed over to dozens of federal and out-of-state agencies that California law specifically forbids from receiving it, all of which is to say that this technology has not made our county safer but has only made us watched.

I am asking the Board to use the authority you do have, which is your control over this office's budget, to defund the Flock contract, and to restore the basic principle that in this country the government cannot follow you everywhere unless it has a specific reason to. Thank you.

My name is [your name], I'm a resident of Nevada County, and I'm here this morning because over the past year our county has been quietly plugged into a national surveillance network operated by a private company called Flock Safety, which is something most residents have no idea happened, and I am asking this Board to look at the public records yourselves and use your budget authority to end this contract.

Since installation, the Flock cameras owned by the Nevada County Sheriff's Office have been searched over 13 million times by 4,654 different outside agencies, with more than five million of those searches coming from agencies outside California, which is a direct violation of California Civil Code Section 1798.90.55(b), the state law that prohibits sharing automated license plate reader data with any non-California entity.

The agencies in our data include over eight thousand searches by the ATF in Nashville and Louisville, hundreds of searches by the FBI, more than three thousand searches by the United States Postal Inspection Service, and queries from Langley Air Force Base, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the National Park Service, none of which are California agencies and none of which have any clear jurisdiction over Nevada County.

Flock also publishes what it calls a "transparency portal" that the Sheriff's Office points residents to, and that portal claims roughly 130 searches happened in a typical 30-day window, while our public records covering the exact same 30-day window show 271,577 searches, an undercount of roughly two thousand times, with every "reason" field in the released audit logs stripped before they ever reached the public.

More than 80 communities have ended their Flock contracts in the past year, including Santa Cruz, which became the first city in California to do so by a 6-to-1 council vote, Mountain View, which followed unanimously in February, and South Pasadena, Cambridge, Denver, Austin, and Eugene, all of which have walked away.

The Sheriff is independently elected and this Board cannot order her to do anything, but you control her budget, and I am asking you to do three things: defund the Flock Safety line item in the next budget cycle, pass a resolution publicly calling on the Sheriff to terminate the contract, and demand the public disclosure of every reason field and search log that was withheld from our public records requests. Thank you.