Flock cameras

Thanked the committee for removing the Flock cameras and offered critiques of the county AI policy and the ACLU's CCOPS model bill, suggesting improvements for privacy protections.

Supported ending the Flock contract and urged wholesale opposition to any replacement surveillance company; backed ACLU CCOPS oversight legislation.

Opposed ending Flock, arguing vulnerable people benefit from the technology and urging the legislature to stick with the working group rather than pander to a vocal minority.

Urged removal of Flock cameras and passage of both state immigration bills, citing data misuse risks.

Thanked legislators for the step toward ending Flock, acknowledged community members who feel a loss, and urged support for the state immigration bills.

Questioned the need for dense camera coverage given Ithaca's low crime rate and criticized Flock's associations.

A pastor concerned about warrantless data collection and privacy of congregants; urged safeguards in any future contract and support for the immigration bills.

Cited her church's history and a Flock camera pointed at St. James AME Zion Church, praising the county's sanctuary community values.

Urged CCOPS legislation and a non-surveillance use for GIV grant funds; also objected to a foreign flag displayed in the chamber.

Happy to see Flock go but warned the underlying technology is the real problem; posed four questions about data handling for any replacement.

Cornell ACLU representative formally denounced Flock, detailing data-sharing with the NY Crime Analysis Center network and ICE access risks.

Demanded immediate removal of Flock cameras and no replacement mass surveillance technology.

Flock Off organizer urging CCOPS legislation and stronger data protections; also voiced support for Good Food NY.

Spoke on Flock cameras per the minutes; transcript segment not individually detailed.

Speaking by phone from Puerto Rico, she mourned the resident who died, raised safety concerns in West Village with cameras down, and asked for a solution that works for everyone.

Opposed FLOCK and surveillance broadly, and called for a moratorium on tax abatements, arguing tax-exempt apartment complexes are draining the tax base while the county loses population.

The Presbyterian Church pastor, whose church hosts immigrant-support groups, urged the county to disable the cameras and end the contract, arguing warrants and subpoenas for Flock data happen at a national level with no local control.

An MIT-trained physicist who works with machine learning, he called Flock a 'technological Trojan horse' — explaining how AI can infer relationships, politics, religion, and habits from the camera data, and that Flock keeps data even after the contract ends.

Said he's seen no evidence Flock has solved crimes that otherwise couldn't be solved, and doesn't feel safer knowing a database tracks who visits churches, dispensaries, or protests.

Asked the working group to get an on-the-record answer from Albany on whether the GIVE grant — and the roughly $700,000 in youth funding tied to it — can be renewed without Flock.

Wants the cameras removed and said she doesn't feel safer with them, comparing official safety claims about Flock to federal promises that turned out to be lies.

A Mohawk Nation resident invoking the seven-generations principle, she described growing up on a border-split reservation and witnessing surveillance violence, saying 'we need a consent culture, not a surveillance culture.'

Cited a shooting at his former residence that Flock neither prevented nor helped solve, called Flock 'a terrible company' tied to abuses including ICE collaboration, and urged adoption of ACLU model surveillance legislation.

Laid out a timeline showing gun violence fell before the cameras arrived — crediting DA prosecutions — and questioned claims of local data control, noting county data still flows to state police networks.

A retired county DSS worker and former city police-oversight chair who offered the lone mixed take: she backed the GIVE program's benefits but suggested looking for an ethical alternative vendor rather than shutting everything down.

A retired sociology and criminology instructor who called Flock 'a solution in search of a problem' and argued community policing — officers walking beats and talking to people — beats cameras for public safety.

A librarian who submitted an 80-page bibliography on Flock, he recounted a case of a father arrested at his son's baseball game over an old warrant surfaced by a Flock hit, and asked the county to deactivate the cameras while legal questions are sorted out.

A 30-year Ithaca resident who wants the whole Flock program ended, saying true safety comes from neighbors, walking-beat police, and functioning agencies — not technology concentrating power.

The lone clear supporter of the working-group approach — she said public safety and civil liberties can coexist with thoughtful design, offered to connect the county with Cornell surveillance and AI experts, and urged renegotiated contract terms with independent oversight.

The former committee chair urged caution rather than a binary shutdown, noting Flock offers local control other surveillance lacks, and warned that eliminating it could harm vulnerable residents — recalling how the GIVE grant helped during the gun-violence spike.

Argued hidden cameras can't deter crime the way visible ones do, and cited contract clauses letting Flock share data with DHS and use it worldwide — urging the county to 'break up with Flock.'

A Brooktondale resident who said his town just got a Flock camera, he argued tech policy should assume the worst actors — including federal agencies — and called the camera network 'our own Panopticon.'

A lifelong county resident, she distributed a draft resolution urging Governor Hochul to authorize Flock license plate reader technology to document and monitor law enforcement activity, including ICE operations, framing it as transparency and constitutional accountability rather than enforcement.