Full transcript
Hey guys, uh my name is John McKini. I
am president of the East Kfax
Neighborhood Association. And wow, when
when I ran for president of our
neighborhood association, I was going to
advocate for some sidewalks.
Yeah. Clean up a few alleys and
afterward I was going to have a few
bruskies with my neighbors. I I never
could have imagined that it involved
trying to stand up for our Fourth
Amendment right as an American. And
[cheering]
And I want to thank everybody here
for standing up for my neighborhood and
the citizens within it. Uh I'm a
technology consultant mainly related to
broadband. I take complex technology
issues and I break them down into simple
terms. And so what I wanted to do is
break down what this flock technology
does in simple terms. So let's talk
about what flock is. It's two things.
Number one, it's a series of cameras.
And we we're used to cameras all over
the town. These cameras work off a solar
panel. They can be mounted on a street
light. They can be mounted on a post.
They've obviously been in our community
for just a few months now. But they have
a sensor that as you drive by with a
vehicle, it takes a video and a photo of
the car. Now, with that, it takes that
photo um does a little bit of magic uh
inside of the camera, but not very
complicated magic. these um and then it
uses the uh the cellular system to send
that technology to a back-end server, a
database. It used to be uh back in the
day that a picture is worth a thousand
words. In Flux's case, a picture is
worth a thousand search terms. So, what
it does is it creates what they refer to
as a vehicle fingerprint. It takes
different features about that car. So,
you can't just take off your license
plate to get around it. We don't
recommend that either way. That includes
the color of your car, the style of your
car, features about your car. It also is
intelligent enough to start to figure
out what the make and model of that car
is, all through machine learning. It's
always good to read a patent to find out
where this technology is going because
that is the true intent. You want to
defend that intent. That's the purpose
of a patent. And this patent for Flock
actually talks about the back-end
database and how it can determine race.
It can determine the clothes that
somebody's wearing and other features,
height, weight. Um, so many features
about an individual that are actually
very personal information. And with
that, I [clears throat] think it it it's
not hard to see where that can lead
beyond cars. So, it's not just cars.
Eventually, this can definitely lead to
bicycles and pedestrians. Meaning that
anytime we leave our house, we'd be
under constant surveillance. Now, the
other part of Flock that is really
interesting is they didn't necessarily
start out marketing to police
departments. They actually mar market to
large companies like Target, Walmart.
There was one as I was going into Bies
the other day, I saw a Flock camera. And
when they're marketing to these
companies, they don't talk about data
security. They talk about a 60,000
camera network with 6,000 agencies and
how they're creating a data net. But
what they also sell with that is
predictive technology, crime prevention,
thinking about what you're doing before
you're doing it.
Yeah. Just alone in Denver, it's
capturing 2 million images a day.
They're tracking us as we're going. Oh,
I'm sorry. 2 million a month. Thank you.
In the press releases that you're going
to read about the contract the mayor
signed this morning, it's going to be
presented that he's taking care of this
data security. And um what what he's
done is he's requiring a memorandum of
understanding with other agencies. I
don't know that a memorandum of over
understanding can override somebody's
religious conviction if they're trying
to get information out of our database.
This data is not being stored
on the hard drive of a computer under
Commander Herrera's desk. This is data
that's being held off site by a private
company, right? It'd be nice if it was
under your desk. We could kick the
machine and unplug it, right? When if we
felt like somebody's going to get to it,
but we can't do that. And then really
the only way to prevent the sharing of
this data in any manner is to not create
the data in the first place. And that's
[applause]
And the other thing about it is
we've all worked with that bonehead
co-orker
whose password is password using the A
as an at sign,
right? That somehow got his bank account
taken twice, clicks on every link that's
sent to him.
And
while that's probably a little bit lower
percentage of officers that take an
oath, I can [laughter]
I I can guarantee there's definitely
boneheads in that organization, too.
We're not talking about one or two users
that have access to the data. We're
talking about in the police department,
hundreds of users. How many users,
Commander Hera? So, 7,800 users in 6,000
agencies. Well, that's just that's our
Well, no, but yeah, your your police
Yeah, the Denver Police 7 800 users. But
if we take that average among larger
departments and smaller departments,
that means that
we may have 30,000 passwords out there
for this system,
we're going to hit a bone head. We're
we're going to hit a bone head. They're
going to lose the password or they're
going to make a bad decision and share
data even though they maybe the mayors
between the two cities have signed a
memorandum of understanding with each
other. So, also want to talk about
additional data that is surveilling us.
There's a technology called DFR or drone
first responder. Simply put, what that
is is it's a a box maybe about the
dimensions of this podium that stands
about that tall that you would put in a
public place. Plug it in and then uh
when the police are dispatched to a
scene, it hovers above the scene and can
read license plates and that. Now, on
the surface, that actually sounds like a
really cool technology. I'd like an
officer that's going into the scene to
maybe have a little guidance. Anybody
that plays a video game knows that
sometimes it's kind of good to go to
that third person view. So, we can
definitely understand why they would
want that technology. On the other hand,
if you're not willing to be open and
transparent about all the technology
that we're using, how can we be sure
that you're not going to take that drone
and uh fly over a protest and find out
all the cars that are around that
protest and maybe not uh go arrest them
tomorrow, but just throw the name on a
list, right? Start keeping a little bit
of a social credit score. While we don't
believe that that's the intention of
Mayor Johnston or the Denver police, I
would question why would you want to
build the infrastructure that makes it
possible.
Um,
in addition, one of the other
technologies is a technology called Shot
Spotter, and it's [laughter]
it waits for something that has a sound
signature of a gunshot. and it pinpoints
where that occurs using microphones
throughout the city. However, as people
have uh started exploring the limits of
this technology, we're starting to hear
about it being turned on just to kind of
record for maybe a fight going on or
possibly even conversations. We don't
believe that's the current intent for
this technology, but why are we putting
in infrastructure that makes it
possible? And why are we doing it with
our tax dollars, right?
So with that, we've developed a question
on behalf of the East KFax Neighborhood
Association, and that is Tim of the
Mayor's office. What are your concerns
about potential city liability from the
use of flock technology and the loss of
that data to outside sources?
My name is Tim Hoffman. I'm in the
mayor's office. I serve as his director
of policy. I appreciate the question.
And I think one of the uh topics that
we've been talking about with council
members, I know that this has been a
concern that's been brought up a couple
of times um in some of these RNO
meetings are around uh some of the
potential Fourth Amendment implications
around uh whether or not this uh would
be a violation, this type of data
protection. Is that the the genesis of
the question or is it something else?
I think there's an open disagreement
about whether this is a Fourth Amendment
violation. Uh as a neighborhood, we 100%
believe it is. Um the mayor's office
[cheering]
um
the the mayor's office has stated that
there's no expectation of privacy once
you enter the public rightway. And my
feeling is that kind of surveillance. It
it erodess our right to religion. It
erodess our right to travel freely. and
it erodess our right to explore life
without experiencing consequences for
every little mistake.
Just
a a first quick correction. You said
that the mayor's office position is that
we believe that there is no expectation
of privacy when you enter a roadway.
That Okay, [clears throat]
is that better? You guys can hear me
now? Okay. Um, I just want to be very
clear that it is not the position of the
mayor or the mayor's office that you
have no expectation of privacy when you
enter a roadway. What he is referring to
what what that is referring to.
Excu
Let him talk.
Excuse me. Excuse me. if folks like
invited, you know, council members and
people from the mayor's office, can we
if if we're trying to engage in a
dialogue and conversation, which I'm
here to do tonight. I'm here to listen
to all of you as well. And a lot of us
have been really working really hard
trying to address this concern, these
concerns, and these issues. And so if we
could just try to have, you know, some
some respectful dialogue and allow
people to speak. You may not dis you may
not agree with what they have to say and
that's fine. We don't have to agree, but
I would like to allow people to speak.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez
Gutierrez. What I was saying is that
what the reference is to the legal
standard around whether or not there's a
fourth amendment violation when it comes
to these type of surveillance
technologies and what the courts have
for decades looked at is whether an
individual has a reasonable expectation
of privacy in the thing that is being
searched. There are courts that have
looked at this as it relates to license
plate reader uh systems in other
jurisdictions and some courts have found
that yes it is uh that you do have a
reasonable expectation of privacy of
your license plate when you are on a
public roadway. There are also many
other courts that have looked at it who
have found that uh no you do not have a
reasonable expectation of privacy of
your license plate number when you are
on a roadway. So uh as it relates to the
first question that is an unsettled area
of law right now. But I think to the
larger point around the question of is
this a technology that is tracking
everyone in this room around the city
right now. I think that there, as we
were talking about, there is a
fundamental disagreement in that yes,
there are pictures being taken at these
111 locations um of the cameras, but
they are not being searched by anybody
unless your car is suspected of being
either stolen or involved in another
crime. Um and so there is a difference
between the mass surveillance where
everyone is uh being watched all the
time and the data being passively
collected. Um and it is then only looked
at and this is one of the new features
that we included um as we roll out these
new uh these new technological features.
DPD as of now is the only agency in the
country who has access to Denver's data.
Period. Full stop.
for now until until there areus
negotiated with other local
jurisdictions. But as part of the new
data system that we are rolling out when
a DPD officer it please stop.
When a DPD officer is going to search
for a license plate, there will be an
enumerated list of crimes that they will
have to select that will then enable
them to search for that vehicle. So, it
is not as though they can type into an
open box any reason um for why they are
doing it. It will be an enumerated list
of either Colorado or uh uh Denver based
crimes that would then enable them to
search for it. So I think again there is
simply a disagreement over whether or
not um the passive collection of these
license plate images that is then held
on this system but is not accessed or
looked at by anyone um constitutes the
mass surveillance that it's being
portrayed as or if it's only when you or
it's not even you when your vehicle is
suspected of being involved in a crime
or has been stolen or otherwise it would
then be queried into the system and if
it exists from the last 30 days then it
would pop up into the flock system.
So the question is actually about
liability. Um what
[laughter]
um is what response like how do you feel
about the city having liability for
creating this data that could possibly
use be used against it citizens?
Can you say a little bit more about what
you mean by used against the citizens?
Well, let's say that a um a citizen from
the state of Texas was seeking abortion
care and coming to Colorado and their
data had been released through Flock and
it was identified that they had come to
Colorado to get an abortion. Maybe they
get picked up by a bounty hunter and
they get brought back for justice or the
Texas version thereof.
Now, that person has experienced damage
because of data that was collected by
the city of Denver.
Um, I believe that would cause a great
liability for the city.
Uh, yeah. So, a couple things. Um,
number one, we have shut off access to
every jurisdiction outside the state of
Colorado. That's been the case for
several months now. We now have shut off
access to every jurisdiction outside of
Denver. So, a Texas jurisdiction simply
does not have access to Denver's data.
They cannot get it. Secondly, there are
state laws and there are Denver
ordinances around whether or not we can
comply with either civil immigration
enforcement or reproductive healthcare.
When someone is coming, there's a shield
law now um statewide. And so Flock has
um set in parameters that there's
absolutely in the state of Colorado no
searching for any sort of terms that
have um any sort of implication around
immigration enforcement, civil
immigration enforcement or reproductive
healthcare. It's just not something that
in the current system that we have built
in this Denver model. Okay. Yeah. For
the sake of time, we'd like to just get
a quick response if anybody from city
council Oh, and thank you uh
Councilwoman Lewis for being here. We
always appreciate your support for East
KFax. We love you.
All right. Thank you all for inviting me
here so much and for coming and spending
your time. I'm Sarah Perry. I'm one of
your council members at large. A few
responses to that. I think it's missing
the forest for the trees a little bit to
say that now that we've locked out
everyone other than Denver police as of
this morning, by the way, which the
mayor could have done at any time. Now
that we've done that, we're thinking
about letting access back in. And John
is actually hitting the nail on the head
here because in addition to this large
searchable database which officers can
access without any kind of reasonable
suspicion or warrant. So I do take
objection to the mayor's office saying
that you have to be suspected of a
crime. You only have to be suspected of
a crime in the mind of an officer doing
a search. There's no legal standard
that's applied and it can be totally
investigatory.
Um, and I also, and in addition to that,
if you meet that kind of legal standard,
so if someone in Texas where abortion is
a crime does get a warrant and we have
created these images, and so then at
that point, we may be in a legal
situation where we're handing them over
and we're helping people who came here
to get reproductive healthcare be
prosecuted for it back home. And I'm not
okay with that under any circumstances.
I'm just not. The other thing,
the other thing I want to respond to
really quickly is I just want to be
really clear about how we got on the
national network because the primary
presentation today about um the way that
we're tightening this up so much is we
got off this national network in April.
We're going to get off the state
network. We're going to remove the login
for the two FBI officers who we gave
login to through DPD itself. Any of
which we could have done at any time.
But the way we got on the national
network was we signed an agreement to
get these cameras and to create a
searchable database for ourselves. It
said nothing about a national network.
It said nothing about a state network.
And DPD did not know. The mayor's office
did not know. Certainly council did not
know. Certainly you all did not know
that we were on that national network
until city council started asking
questions after we had been on it for a
year. Flock put us on it without any
permission and without telling us. and
we've decided that this company is so
trustworthy that we can do a little
handshake deal with them. I am not okay
with it.
[cheering]
Lastly,
I need to
deliver one clear message to the mayor.
Please share this with him on behalf of
the citizens of East Kfax. And we're
going to say this in a really East Kfax
kind of way.
Quit doing this behind closed doors and
come out and debate this in the public
forum, you [ __ ] [ __ ]
[cheering]
[applause]
[cheering]
[applause]
Thank you, John. Um,