City Council - workshop

Seems like it kind of boils down to whether it's a camera shot or, you know, it's the ability to aggregate all that stuff and the point where the aggregation and the ability to track a person reaches that level. And I'm interested in finding out what these guys say about everything.

Hold on a second. Oh, gotcha, okay. Signing.

I don't know. Oh, maybe.

Maybe. This is all our chairs.

Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's flock study session on this Monday, August the 10th.

Ms. Derry, would you mind calling the roll for us, please?

Sure. A.C. Brown? Here. Ralph Meeker? Here. Tim Terry is absent. Roger Rainroder?

Here.

Steve Tedford?

Here.

Rod Powell is absent. And a quorum is not necessary, but we're here.

Thank you. Ronnie Deal, unable to be here tonight. We were going to have him open us with some prayer, but I've asked Bob Purvis, our chamber director. Where's Bob? There you are.

Thank you for our savior, your son. And in his name, we ask you up here.

Amen. Amen. If you would please stand for our Pledge of Allegiance. I'd ask Chief Hobbs to lead us, please. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. First of all, thank you all for being here tonight. It's very important to us, myself and the city council, and all those here to hear what you have to say in regard to the flock camera system. Flock is a brand, say that right off the bat. These are license plate reader cameras, so we wanna hear from you tonight. This is a non-voting meeting, so there will be no vote taken at the end of the meeting. Doesn't mean in the near or distant future that the council would want to do a vote on this topic, but it will not happen tonight since it's just a study session. We talked last meeting about the process of tonight's meeting. Typically at a council, any council meeting, their citizen forum is five minutes per citizen to speak what you would like to speak to the council. You come to the microphone, you say what you wanna say, I'm sorry, you come to the microphone, you state your name and address for the record, and then you have that five minutes. I have asked the council to consider giving two more minutes per citizen tonight since it's such an important topic. So with council's approval tonight, I would move, or we don't have to vote, but if you guys are okay with seven minutes, we talked about this a little bit before. Does that sound good?

Good.

Okay, so when you're called, I have the sign-up sheet, and if you came in late, we left a couple of sheets back there. You're still welcome to sign up. We have no cut-off time for tonight's meeting. If we need to stay until tomorrow, we can. I think probably people have jobs and don't necessarily want to do that, but we're here to listen to you and see what you have to say about this topic. So if you haven't signed up, please do so in the back, and when I call your name at the appropriate time, you'll come up. state your name, your address, and ask questions, comments, however you want to do it, and the council is not required to answer necessarily or give feedback, but they can at that time. Okay, everybody kind of on the same page. I want to keep it very orderly. I don't typically use my gavel much at all with council meetings, hardly ever, but tonight I would be inclined to do that. If so, what you'll see on the, on the screen from all angles will be your seven minute clock. And so when that runs out, I would ask that you be wrapped up by that seven minutes. If you're answering a question or finishing a thought, I would allow that for sure. But I'll have to give a little wrap of the gavel so we can keep things moving so we can all go home at some time. I think that's it as far as that. Is council good with those? Comments? Okay. It has been asked of me too a couple of times today or once this afternoon or this evening about citizens giving up. If you didn't speak for seven minutes, can you pass it on? We're not gonna do that. I know sometimes that happens on a Senate floor. This is obviously not that. But newly revised Roberts Rules of Order says members of citizens cannot yield or transfer any unused portion of their speaking time to another person. Speaking times rights are not transferable and if the speaker stops early, the remaining time is lost. So just make sure everybody agrees or is okay with that and we can move on. I wanna make one quick comment just as the mayor and then we'll get right into the introduction of the flock rep who's here tonight. Thank you, sir, for coming. We've invited, I'm kind of going out of the lines here, I always do this, we've invited other representatives from other systems to be here, and I think so far the flock's the only one here tonight, but I'll let the chief talk about that. I just wanna make a statement real quick and I'll hush because this is about you, the citizens. I wanna say that these systems may provide meaningful public safety benefits. Residents are also entitled to clear answers about how their information is collected, retained, assessed, and shared. Tonight's purpose is to examine both sides carefully and to make sure Greenwood's policies protect the public as well as individual rights. So with that being said, I would, Chief, do you want to introduce? Yes, sir. This is Chief Brad Hobbs.

Mayor, council, thank y'all for having this special study session on this such an important discussion. As y'all know that I've invited Axon, I've invited Motorola and Flock Camera that we currently use. I have heard nothing back from Axon. I've received a quote from Motorola for a system that is similar to what we have now. That quote is in your packets for you to review. They could not provide a rep

on tonight's date, but they could on August 18th.

And then, of course, flock safety. Ian with flock safety is here in person, and he's got a presentation to give you. So with that, Mr. Ian. Thank you. Appreciate you coming.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Council. Great to be here in Greenwood today. I don't think I've been in Greenwood, so first time for me. Honored to be here in front of you. My name is Ian Leslie. I am the Regional Public Affairs Manager for Flock Safety. And a large core part of my role is going around and educating elected officials such as yourself, business leaders, and other municipal leaders across the country on Flock and our technology, how it works so that way that you guys can feel educated in the foundation of the technology so that way you can implement proper policy behind it. So I have about a 20, 30 minute presentation that will thoroughly go through how the Flock system works and our approach to different trust and compliance features and hopefully that'll answer all of your questions. And then after I finish up, happy to answer any questions that you guys have. So to start out, Flock is different than a lot of other public safety companies, in my opinion, because we actually started out selling specifically to small HOAs and small neighborhoods dealing with crime. We are Atlanta-based company, have been around since 2017, and are about nine years old. And our whole memo, our whole mission is to not only eliminate crime, but help you shape a safer future that reflects your community values. And so at the end of the day, at the end of this presentation, I want to reemphasize how we want everyone to feel safe, regardless of their religion, regardless of their zip code, race, gender, we want everyone to feel safe. Now I realize that feeling safe is subjective in and of itself, right? There's a lot of other nuances that go into what makes a community safe. But from a public safety vendor perspective, we wanna make sure that we're not only building technology responsibly, but allowing elected officials such as yourself to responsibly allow your community to adopt that technology. I'd like to start out grounded in a real-life scenario. I know there's a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of concerns that can kind of get into the hypothetical lane, but I want to ground it in this case study here that I think that we can all relate with. Pictured here is a young lady with her daughter. And so I'm just going to walk you through in plain terms how the flock system works in practice. This young lady right here had her child abducted. I think we all either have a daughter, we have a sister, we have a cousin, and we can all relate to how we would feel in that moment if we had a loved one, especially as young as this child here, if they were abducted. The first thing that goes through your mind is, what can I do? How much time do I have until they're gone, right? And so I like to start my presentation because it's kind of a grounding element. The flock system in practice. At 12.33, an Amber Alert was issued for that missing child. By 1.01, a search was conducted of the flock system to find the perpetrator that abducted this child. By 2.30, that vehicle was located. By 5.03, that suspect was arrested. And by six o'clock, that baby was reunited with her mother. Now, situations like that don't always happen in that quick of a time. There's some cases that go unsolved. There's children that are still missing. And so when seconds matter, when minutes matter, when hours matter, we want to allow and empower our police department to have the most effective, efficient technology that they can to solve crime like this. Now, it's unfortunate that we live in a world where crime like this happens, where an infant can be stolen and abducted from her mother. But at the end of the day, that's the reality we live in. And we need to be just as innovative as those people doing those heinous crimes to make sure that we are combating and deterring crime. And so I like to just kind of start with grounding in real life impact there. As I said, flock safety started out in Atlanta, Georgia in 2017, first selling to HOA small neighborhoods dealing with crime, particularly car break-ins and car thefts. ALPRs are not a new technology, and I know that's what we're here talking today, but LPRs have actually been around since the 1970s and have evolved to what we call ALPRs, so automated license plate reader. With that evolution takes evolution of communities' expectation into how, you know, their police departments are dealing with and combating with crime. And so we've gone from selling strictly to those small HOAs and neighborhoods dealing with crime to having over 12,000 customers represented of 6,000 communities across the country, encompassing of small HOAs, businesses, schools, and law enforcement at the city, county, and state level. That doesn't happen by accident. Trust is a very, very hard thing to get, but it's also a very, very hard thing to keep. And so we're proud of those numbers. To date, as of 2025, where FLOC is implemented, we are solving about 20% of crime nationwide in the US. Again, that's another thing that doesn't happen by accident. And so on average, that's about 2,500 crimes per day where a flock-comber is involved, whether it's solving a murder, whether it's a car theft, whether it's more heinous crimes, whether it's petty theft. There's a wide scale here. It's no secret that police departments across the country are dealing with budget constraints. They're dealing with personnel constraints. They're dealing with legacy systems that operate in a silo or don't operate together. They're dealing with the expectation of technology and responding quick and fast. And so we implement what we call collaborative policing technology. That allows for all of our ecosystem to work together, again, to allow for your police department to respond efficiently, effectively, and most importantly, responsibly in that end. I know for today we're talking about LPRs. I want to be transparent, again, because a lot of people get misconstrued. LPRs is not the only product that Flock sells. We have a whole ecosystem that works together encompassing of LPRs, live video cameras, security trailers, drones. And so there's a whole ecosystem that works together. And I like to specifically state that because there's a general narrative of a Flock camera, but there's different cameras, right? And so even from the jump, we're kind of misconstruing what the purpose of a camera is today. For an LPR, and I want to take my time and thoroughly explain this. An ALPR stands for automated license plate reader. Flock LPRs first and foremost do not utilize facial recognition. I want to be very clear with that. And L and AL at a flock LPR takes a point in time, still image of the back of a vehicle, capturing the license plate, the make the model in any other objective vehicle characteristics. It does not capture any personal identifiable information. It is not building a personal profile on anybody that is driving by. What do I mean by personal identifiable information or P P I I. It's not capturing your race. It's not capturing your gender, weight, religion. You are not identified in the still image that is captured from the point-in-time image. I'm going to keep reemphasizing point-in-time image because it's not continuously recording like a CCTV camera that's looking at me now or maybe outside of a gas station. There's a difference in the functionality between an ALPR, which is used to capture, like I said, the back of the vehicle and capture the license plate, and a live video camera. which we have two products. So I just want to make sure I'm clear in articulating the difference between both. And ALPR uses AI and machine learning to identify that make, model, and type of vehicle. That is the only element that AI is built into the camera. It's just to identify quicker what type of vehicle that is. How the system works in practice. Our system integrates with hot list. So most notably NCIC. NCIC stands for National Crime Information Center. When a crime happens, your police department will enter in that crime into the NCIC database. Saying, I'm investigating a murder, I'm investigating a kidnapping. That is through the NCIC. Certain states have Other hot lists, you also have amber alerts, you have silver alerts, so there's a plethora of different hot lists that our system integrates with. Through that integration, your police department is alerted in real time within 20 seconds that this vehicle that passed the camera at this point in time was linked to a crime. Outside of that, that is it. It's just alerting the police department that this license plate matched an NCIC list. but FLOC does not have access to what we call CJIS information, criminal justice information systems. So once that alert is received by the police department, they then have to go into that CJIS system and further the investigation. A FLOC alert is not judge and executioner. Why? Because we don't know who's driving the vehicle. Those personal information that needs to be completed for that further investigation is not yet complete. We just know, hey, this car was linked to a crime. With that alert, you are given a confidence level, whether it's 75%, whether it's 99%. In plain terms, explain that. Say I have an incomplete license plate. Say I have 40 Dodge Ram 1500s with a toolbox in the back. Right, speaking to accuracy, I wanna make sure that I'm being alerted for the right vehicle. This is also where we come into play where we allow for the human elements of how the system works to come into play. So again, the flock alert is not the judge and executioner. We are expecting a human to still facilitate the process and verify one that is the license plate, that is the vehicle, and then I need to take that information that I've gotten from that alert to further that investigation. So I just wanted to make sure that I'm clearly articulating that. And then lastly with it, your agencies are able to collaborate with other agencies that they deem that they have control over. As we all know, crime does not stay in one city, does not stay in one jurisdiction. Crime happens somewhere else until it happens to you, right? And so we wanna allow your agencies to efficiently and effectively, if they choose to do so, collaborate with those other agencies. And so I'll go more into depth on sharing parameters as well, but that is in plain terms how an ALPR works in function. This here just kind of just goes through those custom hotlets. Like I said, there's NCIC, there's Amber Alerts, there's Silver Alerts, there's an FBI hotlist. Your agency has full control over what alerts they receive from what hotlist. They are also able to make their own hotlist. And so this is where local control starts to come in within the flock system. Vehicle signature. What if we don't have a license plate? What if a license plate is switched out? How are we making sure and ensuring that we have the right vehicle? Going back to that AI machine learning, we have what we call vehicle signature, which that is what's identifying those other objective features such as the make, the model, if it's a bike rack, if there's a bumper sticker, if there's damage to the right side of that. Again, that just speaks to the accuracy to make sure that we are finding the right vehicle that is linked to the crime. I personally drive a Ram 1500. I see about 20 of those everywhere that I go, right? And so we want to allow our agency to be precise when they're investigating crime. All in all, we want you guys to understand that the system is built with privacy in mind. I know there's a lot of concerns in addition to a lot of misinformation that's turning into disinformation about access to the system. A lot of people think it's just unrestricted access. You can do anything that you want in the system. That is not true. From design and by design, the system is built with privacy in mind. First and foremost, 100% of the data is owned by you, the customer. And we do not sell data, full stop. Secondly, private customers such as HOAs or Lowe's or any other private entity do not have access to CGIS or government information that your law enforcement does. So it's not a one-to-one sharing relationship. Also, the data is automatically deleted by default after 30 days. Hard deleted and sanitized. It is gone. The only thing, let me clarify, the image that is captured is gone. The search, whatever is searched in the system, will always remain in the audit. So that way, if you need to go back two years from now and see what was searched in the system, that's gonna be in the audit log. And I'll get to some of that earlier. is hard deleted and desanitized. The difference between hard delete and desanitize, hard delete, you're deleting it in full. Desanitize, you're stripping those identifiers from the agency from that image. Time, location, that type of stuff that would connect the image back to your agency. That is desanitized. Flock cameras, again, only take images of publicly available information. It does not collect personal identifiable information, race, gender, weight, religion. It's not building personal profiles. A flock camera is no different than you having 10 officers out on the street, on the street corners, and seeing cars go by. A case could be made that if you had the capacity and budget to do that, that officers on the street would actually be able to see more, because I'm actually being able to identify who's in the car. OK? Your agency decides, FLOC does not decide, your agency decides who your agency shares with if they decide to share at all. We allow you to have that local control. Whether you just want to share with agencies in a 20 mile radius of Greenwood, whether you want to share with every agency in the state, you have the local control to be able to do that. And you can also change that at any time. FLOC does not make that decision for you. And to rearticulate again, FLOC cameras do not utilize facial recognition and we do not capture personal identifiable data. Moving on to data storage. Here we have listed here some of our industry-leading data security certifications, such as we're CJIS certified, NDAA certified, SOC 2 Type 2 certified. The list goes on. The key thing about a lot of these certifications is a lot of these require, if not quarterly, biannually, or annual offensive penetration tests. That means a third party is constantly trying to attack our system to report vulnerabilities to see if we had it. And if we do not uphold that standard, we do not get that certification. So even though we are not taking in personal identifiable information, we are still making sure that your data is stored at the topmost priority. Additionally, all data is housed in AWS GovCloud. AWS GovCloud is the highest upper echelon that the federal government, all of the high entities use to store their data. There's no higher level than AWS GovCloud. There's AWS Corporate Cloud, which a lot of enterprise entities use. We use GovCloud again because we're going the extra mile to make sure that that data is secure. And to reiterate, data is automatically deleted by default after 30 days or per whatever you guys decide what that retention limit is. Some agencies, such as agencies in Virginia, do 21 days. I've seen agencies extend it to 45 days. Again, re-articulating local control. We want you guys to have a public safety system that you guys can stand behind. I am confident in saying that Flock LPRs are the most transparent public safety tool out there right now, hands down. A lot of people try and use it as a catch-all moment. We understand that we are in the news, there's officers abusing the system, and it's not a catch-all moment, guys. Those principles, those design features that I just put in the system, or told you about the system, is working how it's supposed to. We want to catch abuse in a public safety tool. We want to be transparent about how the system is being utilized. And so when people see things in the news, you shouldn't be scared necessarily. Obviously, we don't want any type of abuse. And every single officer that is abusing the system gets caught and is now in jail. But you want your public safety tools being that transparent and that effective with catching abuse. Going more into some of our built-in controls in terms of transparency, auditability, oversight. Again, your agency controls who, if at all, that they share with. Again, whether that's regionally, whether that's five agencies, you have that local control. Transparency portals. Again, Flock has the most transparent public safety tool. Every agency has the ability to have a customized transparency portal Where they can, again, transparently showcase how the system is being utilized. They can link their policy. They can link who they're sharing with. They can link how many cameras they have. Mark out prohibited uses. Put in myths versus facts on how the system is being used. Again, being completely transparent on how that system is being used and it's upgraded or improved. updated regularly by the flock system so that it doesn't take a toll on administrators. I want to be clear with this as well. Every use of the flock system requires a mandatory offense type that is NIBRS coded. NIBRS stands for National Incident Reporting Based Systems. So NIBRS code can be murder, assault, sexual abuse. There's tons of NIBRS code. Every search of the system has to have an offense type and search reason before the system is even utilized. You can even go a step further and require a case number before the search of the system can even be utilized. But I want to be imperative on that, that you cannot utilize the system without a criminal justice reason, which leads to audits. Everything done in the system is auditable and immutable. What do I mean by immutable? There's no deleting it. Everything done into that system shows up in that audit record. Also, you have role-based permissions within the system via MFA. Agencies set those role-based permissions. In some agencies, only the investigators have access to the system. Some only command staff. Again, reemphasizing local control. You're gonna keep hearing me rearticulate that over and over and over again. We also have additional features within the system called audit assist. Audit assist will automatically flag any atypical activity done in the system. What do I mean by atypical activity? Say a specific license plate is typed in abnormally within a weird period of time. It's going to automatically be flagged to administrators to review this, to review whatever role is typing that in. Those are how we are not only just saying, you know, that audits are a good thing. We're actually helping our administrators on the back end be able to implement that because audits take a lot of time for administrators. And so we're proud of that audit assistant tool that, again, automatically flags any atypical things done in the system. And then, again, by default, that data retention limit is 30 days or whatever is reflective of your local policy. Here is what I mean when I said that every use of the system requires an offense type, a case number, and a search reason. So you can kind of see some of the NIBRS codes listed out here. Animal cruelty, arson, assault, offense, by default. Again, there's a lot of different NIBRS codes. versus sit here and tell you how the system works. I'd love to give you a visual so that you guys can see what an investigator is seeing when they type into the system. As you can see, there is no option in there or no space in there to search for a person. It's simply make, model, license plate, time of date and location. This is an example of the transparency portal. I know it's kind of hard to see on the screen here. But again, every agency has the ability to have this customized so that way they are transparently communicating to not only their elected officials, but their community members on the use of the system and answering a lot of questions that are out there right now. I wonder if it's going to play. It's going to be kind of hard to see because the screen's a little. And again, this is just a video, again, kind of seeing the audit assist in real time. When you do audits, we allow for agencies to have a network audit and an organizational audit. An organizational audit is representative of what they're auditing within their system. And then the network audit will allow, if they're sharing on another network or sharing with another agency, they're able to audit what agencies are searching their systems as well. So two forms of audits there. Again, I like to sit here and talk to people. I love to give people a visual. I'm not going to play this whole video just for the sake of time. I know we have a lot to go through. But again, I want you guys to be able to see visually the system in use. So I'm going to play about half of this video. Hi.

I'm Ashley. I build software at . You've probably heard of license plate readers and thought surveillance. I understand why it feels that way. But that's not what we built. crime happens. Things like stolen cars, hit and run, a missing person. An officer can search for a specific vehicle tied to that case. The LPR system doesn't track people and it doesn't predict when crime will happen. You can only search for vehicles on our LPR panel. License plates, name, model, color, and other unique identifiers like bike racks, trailers, and toolboxes. There's no facial recognition In most communities, the data automatically deletes after 30 days unless local laws require something different. The data collected doesn't live forever. Glock is built to help solve crimes faster and protect people's privacy. When you hear Glock LPR search, you may imagine some open, unrestricted data. Here's a look at what the Glock system does. Based on their own policies, when an investigator is working on a specific case, say a kidnapping, they enter the offense type, case number, why they're searching, and narrow it down to a time and a place. Block requires users to log why they're running an LPR search. If there's a match, the LPR search helps them figure out which car was there.

Moving on to bipartisan support. Again, so we understand and we are listening very closely to the concerns, privacy concerns and civil liberty concerns that citizens, you know, are bringing to attention across the country. People are just wanting answers to questions. People are wanting foundational understanding of how public safety technology is not only being implemented, but how is it being evolved? Has it changed so quickly over time when we think of this AI boom? And so that is why meetings in public forums like this where we can transparently share information and educate folks are important. And so I just have two quotes on here, one from two bipartisan organizations, one for the Center for Individual Freedom and one for the Center for American Progress that kind of reemphasizes not only the legality of using LPR, but also kind of directly addressing a lot of those privacy concerns, Fourth Amendment concerns of technology. Again, all technology should be challenged, but there should also be proper guardrails and safeguards in place to make sure that the system cannot be abused, and if it is abused, that you're able to catch it as soon as possible. So there's a lot of myths going out there. Again, there's a ton of stuff on social media. And there are valid concerns. There are valid privacy concerns. There are valid just concerns in general. But there's also a lot of misinformation out there that is turning into disinformation. So let's just quickly go through some myths that are out there. One myth out there is that LPRs can track people and show police everywhere they go. That is not true. An LPR, again, takes a point in time still image of the back of your vehicle, but does not track the whole of your movements. That would be impossible. Impossible unless you had a cell phone that goes with you every single day. And so a lot of the court cases that I show you later on that kind of reemphasize the legality of LPR. Again, the main difference there is it's not capturing the whole of your movements. It's only taking a point in time. You take your cell phone everywhere, whether it's to the bathroom, whether it's to work. And so Google is literally tracking your every movement. So that's a lot of the difference in a lot of this case law that is out there. Another myth out there is that LPRs violate the Fourth Amendment. I think we are up to 58 cases that unanimously state the same thing that reinforce the legality of LPRs. Again, because it is not tracking you in the whole of your movements and it is not capturing any personal identifiable information. It's only capturing the back of the vehicle and allowing that agency to know if that vehicle was tied to a crime. Another myth out there is that Flock sells customer data and is compiling it all into a national database. We do not sell data full stop. And your data is deleted by default after 30 days. All of your data does not go into one big national database. You guys are the owners of your data. So if you do not want other agencies to have access to your data, then they do not have access to your data. Now, there are some agencies that do want to work with agencies across the country, out of state, and we have a system that allows for them to do so. But that is at their discretion and at their decision of who they want to share their data with and who has access to their system. Another myth out there is that Fox private customers can access law enforcement. Again, private customers being like Lowe's, HOAs. Again, there's not a one-to-one sharing. HOAs can purchase LPRs. Lowe's can purchase LPRs to increase the network and share with their agency, but they do not have access to CJIS information, criminal justice information system. Another myth out there, flock LPRs use facial recognition. Again, flock LPRs do not use facial recognition and do not capture their personal identifiable information. And LPRs do not collect private information. It is not scanning your cell phone as you pass by. It's not scanning anything that you have in the car, any devices, your Wi-Fi, none of that. It is solely capturing vehicle information. Another myth out there is that LPR cameras negatively impact communities of color. We are actually seeing an overwhelming support of once different communities are educated on factual information of how the system works. It allows for more objective policing and non-biased policing rather than subjective and biased policing, again, because we're relying on data and we're relying on objective information. And then another myth out there is that LPRs don't have an impact in crime. Flock as of 2025 was involved in over a million crimes last year. And as I stated earlier, it's solving about 20% of crime across the country. Those numbers do not happen by accident. So through this slide in here, again, a lot of the main questions we're getting is around data. Per our contractual obligation, we do not sell data. And I'm going to go through that. It's section 4.1 in your contract. I just want to make sure that I'm thorough. And then a lot of questions also that we're getting is why are cities removing flock? Again, Flock has 12,000 customers and 6,000 communities. Now, while there are about 50 or so cities that have decided for whether it was budget constraints, whether it was what they're seeing in the media and reacting to it, which they have the decision to do so, what's not being told is actually seven times the amount of cities that have decided to end their contract Seven times the amount of cities have opted in or have went into a flock contract. And 16 of those 50 cities have turned their cameras back on after proper dialogue and education on how the flock system works, responsibly going over the guardrails and addressing those privacy and civil liberties concerns. Again, those aren't things that you're seeing in the headlines, and it's unfortunate, but we're strong and firm in our foundation that we have the support of our customers, and we're building responsible technology. In addition to our law enforcement partners, we also have community partners such as NECMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. FLOC was documented to have supported 10,000 missing people last year. Again, going back to the beginning of my presentation when we saw the abduction of that little girl. These are real crimes, real impact, and real crime that's happening every day that FLOC is impacting communities. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, again, heavily utilizes our technology to solve hit and runs. or drunk driving incidents. And so we have more of an impact versus just our law enforcement partners. Our community partners are also heavily relying on our technology as well. This right here is a quote from the legacy NAACP chapter of Oakland, California, just reemphasizing and advocating for technology, again, because it allows for a more objective approach to modern policing versus subjective. And so I'll read it here just for the sake of time here. In a moment when our communities are demanding both public safety and equitable justice, Flock Safety's LPR technology offers a powerful tool to reduce bias in policing. These cameras are designed to detect only vehicles associated with crime, removing the subjective judgment that too often leads to disproportionate stops and harmful interactions with black and brown residents. It is a clear example of how technology can support fair policing. And so a lot of the conversation and a lot of the narrative out there is communities are feeling like they have to pick one, whether it's public safety, whether it's privacy. Here at Flock, we believe with the proper guardrails, with the proper education, that they can coexist to make sure that our communities are still safe and our privacies are still protected. Earlier I mentioned thoroughly going through the contract. So in 4.1 of your contract is where it specifically outlines where we do not sell your customer data. I think it's 4.1 for 4.3. Do we have access to your data? We have a very limited capacity per your approval to your data to provide maintenance. and improve the system. So if you're a customer success team or if you need IT help, whatever the case, we have to be able to access your system, but you have to give us permission to do that. So we do not just have open access to your data. Again, that is per contractual obligations, and that is what is outlined in that perpetual license. Again, as your vendor, as a technological provider, we need to be able to provide updates to your system and maintenance to your system to make sure that you're getting what your tax dollars are paying for. Going over some of our recent court cases challenges, like I said, there's about 60 unanimous case laws that are uniform in supporting the use of LPR. And so most notably, the one everybody talks about is City of Norfolk v. Smith. The list kind of goes on.

Sir, gentlemen, if we would just be quiet for a little bit and let this gentleman finish. He's a vendor, so we need to hear the story so you guys can ask questions. Okay? Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor. And then listed here is, again, just some additional case law. Rearticulating, again, there's a difference between what an LPR captures as a point-in-time image on a public roadway, capturing a public document, and cell phone tracking, such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, that tracks your location everywhere that you go. So I'd just like to use this for a reference. But again, I know there's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of questions. So I always want to ground our conversation in real impact and real things that are happening in communities. across the country. It's sad that we live in an age where crime happens and crime continues to increase. But at the end of the day, we have to continue to stay innovative to respond to that crime efficiently, effectively, and most importantly, responsibly. And so within, this is my last slide here, we know that communities have questions. We know that elected officials have questions. And we're not shying away from the moment. We're not shying away from answering your questions. That's why I came here in person today. And so this QR code takes you to what we call our Flock Trust Hub, which directly answers a lot of the questions out there and provides you the information that you need in terms of Fox's approach to protecting civil liberties, privacy, and data security. And so with that, I will end my presentation and be open up for questions.

Thank you, sir. Council, do you have any questions, comments from gentlemen? Thank you.

I'm sorry. I do have a question. Is there, what would be... if there is a problem with housing the data locally.

So I wouldn't, I mean, it's subjective in saying if it was a problem. We paid AWS millions and millions and millions of dollars to store the data. And so if you think about how much even downloading multiple images are, how long an investigation takes, that takes a lot of space, a lot of infrastructure, a lot of monitoring. So we ourselves, that's why we use and go through AWS and we don't even house the data. So that's a monetary problem there.

I'm just trying to think of, you know, average JPEG image is five to 10 K Meg and take 18,000 cars a day. You're talking about terabytes of information just, and I'm just looking basic numbers. I don't know exactly, but that can be housed on local server. So just, just wanted to say, why would that be an issue if it made people feel better about having their data? housed locally rather than just owned locally?

Absolutely, and I think it's a fair question. I think it's way more than terabytes. There is a reason why we have everything in the cloud now. Even think about your Apple phone. Everything's in the cloud. I get a message every single day saying that I need to buy more space on my phone that I just bought and it's brand new, right? And so I think you can even buy a terabyte on that, right? And so again, that's a very technical question as to how much data that is, but I think it supersedes a terabyte or even a word that I can pronounce.

I'm inclined to go right into the citizen forum comments, but if anybody here wants to ask this gentleman a question, if you're okay with it, sir, I don't want to take too much time because several have signed up and we need to give them time. Does anybody want to ask him a specific question? A specific question? If not, oh, okay. So if you'll come to the podium, sir. No, sir, I need you to be on the record. Thank you. And this is not cut into your time, but we just one question.

If you thank you, Joey run from Crawford County. Uh, question was, you mentioned that you, your cameras do not capture, uh, images, facial images, but you didn't say they could not.

Our cameras cannot capture facial images cause it does not have facial recognition.

Yes, sir.

So. How does it even know when there's a vehicle passing in front of the camera itself if it's not constantly looking and monitoring?

Do you want me to talk in the mic?

Yes, sir.

Okay. So fair question. So it is motion activated. So on the public roadway, as the vehicle goes by, it's motion activating to take the image of the vehicle. So if there's no vehicle passing by, it's not capturing images.

Either one. Yes, sir.

In his name.

Yeah, I need your name too, please, and your address. David Greenwood. Thank you. David, your last name we need for the record. Dust, D-U-S-T. Address, not just Greenwood.

For Easily Loop. Thank you. How does it know the difference between a car and a bird and a tumbleweed and anything else passing in front of the camera?

Great question. So that's where the AI and machine learning comes into where we're not. your agency isn't getting alert because a Tweety bird passed it and it was blue and they're looking for a blue Mustang. So that just speaks to our AI and machine learning and how we're building the technology to function as it's supposed to.

Okay, one question per. Yes, sir.

So Brian Pritchard, 180 Juniper Drive here in Greenwood. Flock does understand that vehicles are not ghost ships, correct? OK, so they do have individuals that are tied to those license plates, usually with the registration. So even though we do not do facial recognition, it is somewhat given us a path of where that vehicle has been, or at least the owners of that vehicle. Is that correct?

No. So for instance, I took a rental to get here. I am not the owner of that vehicle. So if I go commit a crime and I'm not the owner of that vehicle, or if I borrowed my mom's car, that would take an investigative process to figure that out. So your DMV records, I mean, it's a fair question.

What if I'm driving my vehicle?

If you're driving your vehicle, what is captured, again, is the back of the license plate, but it's not tied to your DMV records. Now, what an officer can do as part of the investigation is open up that CJIS system and go and access your DMV records, but that is not through FLOC.

And that's for up to 30 days, anywhere and everywhere that that vehicle has been.

Per whatever policy that you guys implement, whether it's 30 days by default.

I need to limit you to one question because we've got lots of folks to speak. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.

William Gouge, 625 East Houston Street here in Greenwood. You can make the comparison to Apple tracking us and everything, cell phones in our pockets. I can leave my cell phone at home. Also, when the government goes to Apple and says, hey, I need this information on this guy, they need a warrant to get that information. Do they need a warrant to get the information from Flock?

They do not because it's not capital.

Why don't you go ahead and answer the question?

Again, it's a fair question, and this isn't Ian saying this. This is 60 federal and district court judges that are articulating this. The difference between is your cell phone is constantly on, constantly capturing personal identifiable data on you, whether it's health, whether it's when you work out, whether it's where you work. A still image of the back of your vehicle that we don't even know if you're driving is not considered, especially on a public roadway, is not considered personal identifiable information. So that is the main difference in that.

Thank you. I'll add one more question, then we'll get to the comment. Yes, sir, in the back. I'm not trying to cut anybody off. We just got a lot of folks signed up.

Rob Tool, Jenny Lynn. Data security. I understand you've got software, no problem at all. But the data is being collected offsite. What secures it there?

So these data certifications out to the right, I'll list them out again, CJIS certified, NDAA certified, SOC 2 Type 2 certified, ISO 2701 data security certified, ISO 2701 data privacy certified, ISO 4201 AI certified, higher education community vendor certified. And so those are the certifications in which we can articulate that we are protecting the data both at rest and in transit.

Thank you. All right, we'll go right into the citizen forum. We'll have Mr. Wade Dunn sign up first. Mr. Dunn, if you'll state your name and address, please.

My name's Wade Dunn. I live at 2734 Old Chisholmville Road in Greenwood, Arkansas. I've been here for 62 of my 63 years. I was a salesman for 25 years. You got a tough job. I have no doubt that LPRs help solve crime. But I have no doubt that the Fourth Amendment keeps us free. It's part of the Bill of Rights, part of the Constitution. So I'm here to talk about flock cameras and how I believe they are a violation of my constitutional protected liberty in the Fourth Amendment. I'm going to pretty much read this because I wrote it with a lot of thought today. You're going to hear a sales pitch about how your license plate is public information. You're going to hear a sales pitch on how you have no expectations of privacy in public. You're going to hear if you have nothing to hide, it's no big deal. We already have cameras in our cars and our phones and our doorbells. But their mistake is this. They and most people do not understand the Constitution, who wrote it, and who it was written to. The Constitution was written to protect the citizens from the government. It's plain and simple. It's not written to protect you from my doorbell. A private business, whether they install a camera in a product that we purchase, or monitor their business like I did at Eastside Convenience Store, really doesn't have anything to do with the Fourth Amendment. The Constitution was written explicitly to protect the people from the government, and again, not my doorbell. The no expectation of privacy in public falls apart When they can track your movements based on multiple cameras, I suppose if you had one flock camera or two or three, I don't know what that number is, you're gonna have to figure this out, that it might not be a Fourth Amendment violation, but the gradual erosion of our liberties will be what slowly takes America from the exceptional country that it is unlike any other country in this world. And it's because of this Constitution. This flock debate, when it gets to the Supreme Court, when it gets to the Senate and House floor this next session in Little Rock, and it's going to, Mr. Wayne Long's going to introduce it, it will be decided on the theory that's called the mosaic theory. I'm going to try to explain that to people that don't know what that means. Maybe everybody does. But it's like when you're putting together pieces of a mosaic pattern on a wall and you put one up there, you can't tell what it is. But if you put enough of them up there, you start to see this picture. So that's what the Supreme Court has warned us and judges have warned us, that the more of these flock cameras that are out there this mosaic theory starts filling in. That's when it becomes searching by tracking. He's told you that they have AI software. That ability to say, I need to see this particular truck or this particular license, eventually you have enough cameras out there that this draws a picture of where that vehicle's traveling. There's another step. There's a lot of things he talked about. that he didn't go into a lot of detail on. And I get it. I was a salesman, too. I mean, you don't disclose everything. But the next step is called Flock and Leonardo. I don't know if anyone knows what that is, but it's the next step. And somebody can tell me that O'Greenwood won't do that, but I don't buy that. It features signal trays. to log into every wireless device that drives by it. It works in coordination with Flock. Did you know that according to section 4.1 of the Flock contract, just making sure I'm on time. I think I'm good. Section 4.1 in the Flock contract, it says this. It says, customer, that would be us, Greenwood, hereby grants to Flock a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, forever, can't pull it back, worldwide license to use and disclose the customer's data. So our data may belong to us, but they can use it forever. So everyone says we own the data, but we have given Flock all the rats to use that data forever. There are alternatives out there. We talked the other day. I didn't know the name of them then. I do now. A couple of them. ReCore and SightHound. And I'm assuming Flock is working on some kind of system that doesn't record data and store data. Because if you think about this mosaic theory, The more successful they are, the more at risk they are. So they've got to be working on something that doesn't store this data. But anyway, ReCore and SideHound, they take pictures. And then they would send alerts to the police department for alerts, warrants, and BOLOs. But they don't track people. They don't track license plate. They don't even store that data unless it hits that computer that's in that camera. I don't know why we wouldn't be using that instead. I don't know what the benefit to FLOC versus that would be. I sent a FOIA to the Greenwood Police Department asking for all data and records with FLOC, all contracts and memos with third parties, and all access logs. What I got back was just a little bit. There was 442 flock accesses in Greenwood Department in June of 2026 by 12 employees. I was told that only two employees had access to flock in Greenwood. Mr. Dunn, your time's up.

Thank you, sir. Next on the list is Mr. Jarrett Martin. Name and address, sir.

Jared Martin, 3103 Pinnacle Ridge Lane here in Greenwood. Thank you, Mr. Dunn, for coming out. When I came in to sign up, I noticed that your name was first, and yet again, I was going to be second. Thank you very much, Mayor and Council, for being here. When it comes to the flock debate, this is going to be a very one-sided debate. I know this. But I'm on the other side, surprisingly enough. I've had the side of this to see behind the curtain. I'm one of those very few people that can actually see where this is a success, because it's happened to me. It's happened to my family. Where most of the problems is with online right now is that intersection right down the road here. When my family's business, which was less than 300 feet away, had a trailer stolen, it was those cameras that, within a matter of an hour, tracked the stolen trailer that was leaving town. And within 24 hours, that trailer was back in my family's possession. So those cameras work. More importantly, when you have family members that are sometimes mentally not there, when you want them to be safe, you have to take actions. Like with our own family, I disabled my grandparents' vehicle so they couldn't go anywhere because they were not mentally stable to go anywhere in a vehicle. So that's the reason why flock cameras and other ALPRs are great assets, as they do for civil alerts. I get those all the time as I travel all over the United States. but also when it comes to those Amber Alerts. You know, when you sign up for Greenwood Public Schools, that last page, it asks you about, do you want somebody not to pick up your kid? Well, what if you have an active court case and you don't have it finished, but you have a case against somebody that could possibly take your kid and it's not fully done yet? Well, if you don't fill that out right, somebody can come pick up your kid that is a legal person. And guess what? If that's done and you now need to put out an Amber Alert, what's the fastest way to find that person? Flock cameras or another ALPR system. So if you want to do that in the most efficient way, I'm sorry to say, ALPR is the fastest way. Now, one thing about here in Greenwood that I trust more than anything else is Chief Hopps. Now, yes, you can hear about police officers all over the United States misusing ALPRs, different systems, Axiom, you name it, all these other systems. But I trust Chief Oswald, my life, because of the administration and how you see it. When you look at the news and all these police departments that misuse it and the police officers that do, It is because the administration that chooses to put those people in place and does not look at them individually. Even in our own state, we have those penalties under 130.01.24 Arkansas Code R002. It is a Class D misdemeanor or a Class A misdemeanor or Class D felony or misuse of that information. And it also listed there, if that data is not immediately deleted after that 30-day period, if it's put in some type of investigation, there's a 150-day automatic delete, where you also have to track it have a signification of exact delete. But also when we look at the actual court cases that he didn't go over earlier, it was up here, the fifth quarter of appeals as of March, USA versus Elijah Porter, literally tracked him as he was going around town because he was committing illegal acts. But they saw those snippets of information allowed to put him together to find him while he was committing those illegal acts. But it does not constitute, our Supreme Court under the fifth court does not constitute Those use LPRs does not constitute a warranted search. However, if you are using your phone, that is, and if they use it like a geofence, which is the June 26 USA versus Oklahoma case, if they use a geofence, it does require a warrant to search. The use of your electronic devices is by far the most Usage and violation of your privacy if you use it or you do not secure it a lot of people that are online Every single day talking about this online if you do not secure your online presence You're putting so much information out there and you know, I tell you how I can how I can tell you this I could sit out this side of this courthouse videotape you legally Take that public information tie it to other public information that's in the city courthouse, and then create a social network that is vastly more intrusive than what is Flock Camera and be completely legal to do it, and then sell it to the highest bidder and be completely legal to do it. That is 100% available for anybody to do. But when we look at ALPRs, they are 100% doing the best that they can and keeping safety in mind. Moreover, if you look at the numbers of the cost, what it takes Greenwood to run the systems, it would take right around one to six ratio for in terms of hiring more police officers to do what flock camera can do as they're spread out around Greenwood, Arkansas. Now we talk about why we need a Greenwood. We don't have crime. Well, we are an organism tied to Fort Smith, Arkansas. Fort Smith, Arkansas is a regional hub for drugs, narcotics, and other activity running north, south, east, and west. If you don't believe that, just look up FBI records for Fort Smith, Arkansas and list nationally what the crime statistics are for Fort Smith, Arkansas. Now, one thing I do suggest for the council is to get a page that shows all of the flock activity like Fort Smith has. Fort Smith does have a page that shows how much activity they have, how many video tapes they do, how many arrests they do, and so forth. It's a transparency page. That is one of the requests I have for you as well. But when we look at cities that are pulling these flock cameras out, it is either by the pressure of the citizens, whether or not you choose to have a vote on this coming in November or not, but it is really a determination of safety. Some people say it's the safety over freedoms or not. But when we look at what it can provide, there is no human element that can effectively do the same thing as ALPRs efficiently, or you have to hire such a large police force that it is not efficient money-wise. Thank you very much for your time.

Next I have on the list is Ms. Tammy Jones. If you'll come to the mic, please, and state your name and address, please.

Good evening. My name is Tammy Jones, and I live right here on Bell Road in Greenwood, Arkansas. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Pull the mic down. I can't hear me. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. All right. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. Well, I can't stand before you tonight and say that I know all the ins and outs of flock cameras. Yet what I am convinced of is that if they can stop one kidnapping, one felony on the run, one stalker stops one bully at school campuses, it would be worth it especially if it happened to someone you love. A camera on school recess field not only confirmed one bully, but three. Where a student had severe sprained wrist, thought that at first it was broken, as well as the wind that got knocked out of her when she was knocked down and fell. All because not everyone knew that there was cameras. I didn't know. I was glad a camera caught it and the student began to feel safe at school again. But the bullies were caught in the act. As a governmental invasion of privacy that so many people talk about, well, the government has record of who we are, how much we make, demand we pay taxes, our address, social security number, driver's license, what meds we take, controls what doctors we can see at times. I believe we get this picture. Our lives are being invaded every day. As for police officer or authorized person possibly misusing flock cameras, that can be stopped by facing the consequences and take them out of that position. I believe getting a focus on the pros and cons of flock cameras could be a first choice. Drawing data in states, towns, et cetera, and publishing that will help move from a con to a pro. I agree with the gentleman before me, almost like he was reading my mind. And last, when you want others to hear you, control your temper and hold fast to positive morals and character traits. I was asked earlier what I would like to see, and I said whatever the decision is. that we would come together and support that together in the city of Greenwood because we need to support the decision that is made rather than continuing to battle. Thank you for the opportunity to share.

Thank you. Next on the list is Mr. Cameron Keller.

Cameron Keller, 31 Grand Magnolia Drive. Today I come before you as a citizen concerned by the course of events which has led us to where we are now. After having extensive conversations with involved parties, including the police chief, I have discovered that the original contract, which was signed with Flock Safety, is missing and one will not be sent by Flock itself. But some weeks ago, I submitted a FOIA request to the city, and I received my requested documents in a timely and professional manner. And for that, I would like to thank the Police Chief Brad Hobbs and Kirsten Falkenberry and all other involved parties. But I will tell you that what I received in the FOIA did not dissuade my fears. In fact, it doubled them. The contract, which the city is currently operating on with Flock, revealed something even more troubling. Flock's terms and conditions, which he referenced in his PowerPoint, are not actually listed in the contract. They are listed as being on Flock's website. Now, what does that mean? That means that when Flock removes the explicit term, which they did, Flock does not own and shall not sell customer data, and replace it with customer hereby grants Flock a limited non-exclusive royalty-free, you've heard it now many times, not only does it go unnoticed or unnotified, as I have confirmed today, again, by Police Chief Brad Hobbs, but they are also technically not in violation of their contract because it says it is on our website customer agrees to all the terms on our website and i did confirm that by the way with a with an attorney uh... now this puts into perspective the unfortunate reality of the situation which is that greenwood is trusting this company whose only responsibility it's to their investors and to produce profit for them and themselves with our public safety to operate in good faith and to not mislead them and tell them the truth. And if they lied, well, I guess it would just be the first time a corporation has ever lied before. This company with an $8.4 billion valuation. And when you compare their lobby to Axon, it's worth noting that despite Axon being five times the valuation and generating 10 times the revenue, that Flock spends four times more of its revenue on lobbying than Axon does. And that's not to mention their state lobbying apparatus or their implicit in their contract municipal lobbying apparatus, which is essentially what this gentleman is doing here today. Now, there is a misconception about what flock cameras do. There are some that believe that they are just automatic license plate readers and nothing more. And what he said in that PowerPoint in so many words was that, no, that's not what they are. What they are is that, at minimum, according to their own marketing, They track color, make, model, dents, scratches, roof racks, decals, political stickers, a complete what they call vehicle signature of each and every car that passes by at 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Flock cameras also discern when you frequently travel with other specific vehicles and can flag potential associates and recognize patterns for your particular vehicle's commutes, and that data is stored for a minimum of 30 days. Now, the line has been repeated ad nauseum. You do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy when you're out in public, and that's not a false line, but when you go... Rather, when you go out in public and a police officer observes you, that's not a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. But if an officer is tailing you every day, not just in Greenwood, but in Fort Smith, Barling, Alma, Van Buren, Little Rock, or when you decide to take a weekend trip to Dallas, well then I think we have a different story. And they store that data for a minimum of 30 days. The Supreme Court has ruled over and over again that... Tracking intimate location data, whether it's a car or a cell phone, is indeed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Being stolen, these will have ceased to have been worth it, and I think Tom would agree that we cannot afford the $2 million settlement that we're going to give to said family. And by the way, that is not a hypothetical. That happened in Colorado. So the value of these cameras would come down to their general capability to reduce and solve crime. And to this point, no evidence actually exists to prove that flock cameras do any such thing. No independent peer reviewed studies, that is. He referenced a TCU study from 2024 in his PowerPoint. What he did not mention is who co-authored and funded that study. That was Flock themselves. It was co-authored by a Flock employee and funded by a Flock employee. That's like McDonald's trying to tell you that a Big Mac and a large fry is the best thing an American can eat in his three square meals a day. They may say it, their data might say it, but you and I both know that's not true. So, I don't fault anybody who believes in flock cameras, I totally understand and sympathize with their views, but as time goes on, we have to ask ourselves if the appropriate response is to just roll over and say, oh well, they're watching me, or actually stand and fight further infringement. And I would take issue with the fact that the company to which we have outsourced our public safety has referred to anti-flock individuals as far left, anti-police, and in some cases as terrorists. You all know me, I know you all do, and you know that I am not a far-left anti-police terrorist. So with my time running out, counsel, I just want to say and appeal to you tonight, I know that this is not a voting meeting. But look at this crowd. The people are here, and the vast majority of these people want you to get rid of these flock cameras. So let's not debate it. It's too late to put it on the ballot in November. You all know that. So let's get rid of it as soon as humanly possible. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next on the list is Shiloh. Yes, ma'am. I printed some stuff out for you guys, would you like it?

Thank you. Okay. I'm a lot more informal than Cameron is. And by the way, he's running for office. So I think he's an incredible candidate. And I do strongly encourage anyone who's running for office or currently holding office to listen to the people that are speaking to you, that you can hear and you can see, as long as you can verify the identity on social media as well. This is an overwhelmingly unpopular topic. idea having flock cameras and i don't remember ever having this being an issue that we voted on in the first place and government has limits not rights so you know when something is deeply unpopular and the people don't like it generally speaking it doesn't mean that it has to be good for them or bad for them they should just be able to say no we don't want it period even in the declaration of independence says governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness but when a long train of abuses and assertions pursuing invariably the same object Events are designed to reduce them under absolute despotism. It is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. Another thing, Amber Alerts. It was mentioned, you know, having a list of people that cannot pick up your child. They are legally still able to pick up your child. They don't meet the first requirement of an Amber Alert, which is that the child is in imminent or immediate danger. That's what protective orders are for. And I don't know about anyone else here, but when I call the front desk at my kid's school, they pick up, they know my kid's by name, they know my caller ID. And if anyone tried to pick them up that wasn't normal, or they thought or knew that I had conflict with, I would get a phone call. There's a very short list of people that are allowed to pick up my kids, and anyone who's not on that list can't, even if they're legally allowed to. Not without me getting a phone call. Okay. Another thing. Closed circuit TV doesn't go to some other location, doesn't stay there, isn't open to other law enforcement agencies. That needs a warrant. And if it's not tracking, then how come you can track the time in between my locations at each flock camera making a line of where I've been. You don't know how long it takes to drive from this Denver Street location to that Denver Street location. I do. It takes around three minutes between flock cameras. You can reasonably track someone using that. And when it's shared with other organizations or agencies, if they're anything, you can use any reason to get our information. That's not secure.

In their job successfully without flock, why should we believe Greenwood can't? I have confidence in our police department. Don't sell our officers short just to sell us a surveillance technology. These cities had it, they used it, they evaluated it, and each decided something needed to change. Greenwood should be willing to do the same. Block will show you success stories tonight, and I believe them, but usefulness is not the highest standard in a free country. How much power are we willing to give the government over innocent people in order to make the government's job easier? That's a compromise. Preserve the alert, remove the archive. Axon's ALPR system distinguishes between ordinary plate reads and hot list hits and allows different retention periods. Don't build a 30-day history of everybody else simply because technology allows you to do it. So I'm asking this council, do not expand the system, suspend the city's use of these cameras, conduct a real public review of what is collected, why it's retained, who can search it, who can receive it, and what the future expansion would look like. Why does finding the people we are actually looking for require keeping records on everybody we are not? Greenwood citizens are not inventory. Our movements are not corporate assets. I'll wrap it up. Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Next on the list is Mr. Mike Dean.

My name is Mike Dean, and I live at 3330 Eagle Drive here in Greenwood. Been here 23 years. Never come up here to speak. Always thought you guys did a great job. Voted for most of you. And have great respect for that man right there. But let me tell you, This is way, way beyond what we should be doing. This is awful. This is Fourth Amendment. This is Benjamin Franklin said it, and I'll paraphrase. When you give up freedom for security, you get neither, and that's what this is. This is awful, y'all. You know how you know that we're being surveilled? If you will look, and like I say, I respect all you guys, but you look back. The last five years, I've seen probably 50 videos of the great things the council and the mayor have done for this town. You see it on Facebook. You say, well, look what we did. When we hire new police officers, we see it. Where was the video when you put in these flock cameras that, hey, this is for your safety? That says it's for surveillance. If police want to track me, you need to have probable cause. You need to get a warrant. And you need to get a tracker to be able to come get me. You do not need to be using cameras. And I respect this man. He's a salesman. I understand. But I could care less. I mean, how is somebody from Greenwood was not defending Flock? You guys put this system in. Y'all have installed this system, and you're surveilling us. That's the only way to see it. And the axon, it's awful too. We've got to get rid of these cameras. I mean, I was stunned when I found out this. And just wait. In the next two or three months, you're going to see unbelievable stuff come out on these flock cameras. It's just been three or four weeks with all this information coming out. You wait, and I'm also disappointed because we're having this meeting, and it's too late for somebody to run who's going to be against the flock cameras. So we've got, I know you're running for mayor. Mayor, y'all are running against one another, and if neither one of y'all are against these flock cameras, then this town has no chance to vote to get them out of here. We're just gonna have to put up with it, and you're gonna rule over us, and we're gonna have to just deal with it. And I tell you, these Axon cameras, they got to go. All this stuff's got to go, y'all. Also, are you aware that the main investor of Flock Cameras, the company, has also become the main investor. Hey, look it up on AI. He's also become the main investor of a company that can go in and hack cameras and change the images with AI. Check it out. This has got to go. I'm not going to take up a bunch of time. But I am disappointed that this has been allowed in our community. And there was no vote or there was no telling the people of this community that we were doing it.

Awful. Thank you.

I apologize. The next sign-up, his last name is Ramos. Am I correct? Address is 720 something. Does that help anybody?

Last name looks like R-A-M-O-S. Luis or something.

I'm sorry?

I don't want to miss anybody. R-A-M-O-S is the last name, or that's what it appears to be.

Maybe they stepped out.

Come back to it. We'll go on, and then we'll call back. Wade Wisdom, name and address, please.

Hello. My name is Wade Wisdom, address 814 West Atlanta Street. I know that most of you don't know me. I know the mayor personally. He's been to my wedding. He is a very good man. I respect him a lot. Thank you, everyone, for coming out. Everybody else? Uh, yeah, this is a very, very important issue to me. Um, I am married with two sons. My oldest is two years old. I am not very comfortable with the fact that me and my wife and kids can be out. just going to the grocery store and these cameras are watching us just to go get groceries. This is insane. So I want to go over some stuff for you guys, why I'm not in favor of this at all. First off, there is a big issue across the country right now with police officers misusing flock cameras, as we've heard tonight. As of right now, there are between 40 to 60 cases across 12 states of this happening so far. Officers have either been fired, reprimanded, or put on leave because of this misuse. Police officers have used them to stalk people such as ex-girlfriends, ex-wives, etc. Now, do I understand people's arguments for saying we need them to help someone who might be kidnapped, shootings, crime? I completely understand. I get it. I'm a father myself. If something happened to my kids, I would be devastated. However, where do we draw the line? Where? Because who's going to stop Flock from working with the federal government to where the federal government will have even more chances and power to keep an eye on us, the citizens? These Flock cameras also do not just read license plates. I've looked this up. They also track where you shop, where you go to eat, what kind of roads and routes you normally take. They can also tell exactly who you are by the tattoos you have on your body And they can track every single person in America. It's not just tracking criminals. The worst thing I've ever gotten was a speeding ticket. I am not a criminal. I try my best to take care of my family. A Business Insider investigation revealed that Flock safety cameras misread license plates and 71% of the felony and stolen vehicle alerts, that was 1,012 out of 1,427 alerts, sent to Roseville Police Department in California in 2023 and 2024. It was also found in Los Angeles, California, that in a span of two months, 161 innocent drivers were wrongly stopped because of Flock camera errors. These are just a few examples of why we should only not implement these kind of cameras, but any kind of surveillance like this at all. So like, for instance, once it's in place and it's declared a national emergency, if they're working with the federal government, well, what if they decide to change the rules all of a sudden? They can do that. And then for safety reasons, they would be doing all sorts of draconian stuff that we've never seen before in this country. But we've seen it in the world in the last 50 to 100 years. And something else that has also bothered me is what the Flock CEO said a few weeks ago. Now, I'm quoting him here. So just bear with me. Here he says, and I quote, you've got organizations like the ACLU and the EF who take on above the board approach to fight for their point of view and thankfully we live in a beautifully democratic capitalist country where we can fight in court. And I have a lot of respect for those groups because they have reasonable debates and we follow the law. And then unfortunately there's terroristic organizations like DFOC whose primary motivation is chaos. They are closer to Antifa than anything else. Just want to let everybody know, I've looked this up. DFLOC, all they do is they map out where each camera is in each town and city, and then they tell you what the actual stats are. That is it. Calling them a terroristic organization is horrible. And... To Flock, I understand he's just doing his job. I get it. I completely understand that. But the fact that their CEO is more than willing to call organizations and people who are just simply against this, terrorists, what are we doing? That's a huge red flag to me. What are they going to start calling my boys when they're older if they're against this? Are they going to start rounding people up? I don't know. But that's a huge red flag. And I also would like to mention that this fault camera issue is just a branch off of the 2001 Patriot Act, if anyone older than me remembers that. I was only four years old at the time. I did not give a voice or say in the matter whether or not we could have that. However, if you know about the Patriot Act, you know that the federal government is allowed to listen to this on our phones, our televisions, pretty much any electric device that you have or use, they use it to listen to you. That is unconstitutional, illegal, and against our rights as American citizens. And I was going to end my speech tonight with a snippet from the Declaration of Independence. But a couple of people have already done that for me, so I don't feel like I need to. I just want to say this is just very, I'm very disappointed. I really didn't think this would ever happen in my town. I'm not originally from here. I'm originally from Oklahoma, but I met my wife back in 21. I moved here. I love living here. This is a great community, a great town with lots of great people. And this is just unprecedented. This could lead down to such a horrible path that we may never get to go back from. this kind of reminds me of covid and this also kind of reminds me because i'm a history buff of the soviet union uh east germany of the stasi if anyone is familiar with what the stasi did to their own people uh that i yield my time thank you everybody next on the list tonight is william gouge is that correct

Goose. Goose. I'm sorry. Sorry. Oh, you're fine.

William Goose, 625 East Houston Street. Just to continue the theme tonight, I, for one, do not want to open the doors to a complete surveillance state, and let's not kid ourselves. That's what Flock is doing. The line that we're being fed right now that it only tracks tags, only tracks vehicles, that is the line that they use to get in the door. Once they have a flock on every corner, it's a simple software update, and now it tracks a whole lot more than just your tags. That's why they told you to say that does not, not cannot track faces. It will, down the road. We already have documented nationwide examples of the system being used illegally, and while the ones that were caught were punished, accountability only lasts as long as someone with integrity is in charge. We often make the mistake of projecting our own integrity onto others, and that is a dangerous gamble. I like Chief Hobbs. I think he's an example of a fine police officer. I don't know who comes after Hobbs. I don't know who comes after him. and they're going to be the ones in charge of the system. We don't need to go very far back to see how quickly the rules can change, in the name of safety, of course. Just a few years ago, the government decided that it was illegal to stand within six feet of somebody. The government decided it was illegal for me to go run my business. The government decided it was illegal for me to attend church. If you truly believe that this system will never be used against citizens, I have a bridge to sell you. Thank you.

Next on the list is I believe Mr. Chris Young. Okay, thank you, sir. Next on the list is Mr. David Dust.

David dust for easily loop I just want to clear up a couple common misconceptions that I'm sure a lot of non tech savvy people aren't really aware of I used to build internet infrastructure so I'm well aware of how data works there is no such thing as a license plate reader not in this digital day and age they do not exist period point of fact in the story it is the software that that dictates what the camera's being used for. Any camera can be dubbed a license plate reader if it's fed through license plate reader software. So any camera can turn into facial recognition, can turn into data tracking, can turn into literally anything that you feed the software, anything, doesn't matter. The vehicle fingerprint, that they claim it's being used for is just a small snippet of what it's actually capable of. They also have gunshot detection. So there is a microphone. It listens to absolutely everything. A lot of them have RF scanners, which pick up on your Bluetooth from your car, your watch, your ring, anything. Anything that gives off a signal, it tracks. Anything. There are video subscriptions that are available to this system. Not still shot subscriptions, video subscriptions. So I mean, they've already admitted that it takes video, already. There's convoy assertion, which it's already been covered. There's no public oversight. on any of this. We're not allowed to say where they go. We're not allowed to say when they're on or what they look at. And the fact that a portion of them are pointed at walk paths, parks, what is that? Why? That's ridiculous. It shouldn't be pointed at a path where I walk my dog. There have been over 100,000 errors since there No, I read that wrong. 181,000 errors. So more than the cameras themselves. 181,000 errors in total over nine years. That's a baffling number.

Oh, I did have one thing.

I was just doing some quick searching while his... presentation was going on, the CFIF and the Center for American Progress, if you want to find out who's actually funding all of these facilitating organizations that condone flock, let's just go through the information here. Companies associated with Karl Rove, Meta, Facebook, AT&T. Here's a couple more here. The Founders Fund, which if you look at the controlling members of the Founders Fund, you're just going to find a big list of Epstein names, which we all know what that is. Just about everything that he's shown us are lies. They're lies. They're paid-for lies. The biggest one that I saw was one of the funders was the Gates Foundation. Bill Gates Company, guys. Come on. We all have social media accounts. Like this, this is ridiculous. Why, why would you okay? This, this is, this is absurd. And a lot of people have put this more eloquently than I have. So I'm going to, you know, kind of bypass a lot of this. Um, would y'all indulge me in just a little experiment real quick, just a quick raise hands. Would that be all right? Just a, just a quick acknowledgement of, you know, I'm just going to ask you a few questions and just a yay or nay by show of hands. Is that okay? Yeah, OK. How many of you have spouses? Most of you, OK. How many of you have children? OK. How many of you have grandchildren and kids with best friends and things like that? OK. How many of you are willing to give me their daily schedules, who they hang out with, where they go during the day, all of their personal information? Oh, I don't see any hands going up. Kind of seems like y'all aren't buying this BS either. So I'm just going to yield the rest of my time, because y'all know this is BS, guys.

Thank you. Next on our list is Bryant McGrath. Is that correct?

This is what I get for signing up late. Now everybody's already said everything I want to say or whatever.

But I'll try to...

I'm sorry.

3150 Eagle Drive in beautiful Greenwood.

I appreciate you all giving me the opportunity to speak. All of us giving me the opportunity to speak here. I'm going to kind of read this because... But I've been a resident of Greenwood for 10 years, and I moved from the People's Republic of California for the freedom of Arkansas. And I've seen firsthand what a government out of control with no regard to the Constitution really looks like. And I didn't even expect for a minute that I'd be here in my little small town now, worried about the same kind of overreach, but now I have AI powering it, right? But we're here and we're hosting a person whose entire job here is to deflect the criticism for this system. uh... and do whatever it takes to keep it from a vote that's their whole goes to keep this from a vote uh... that's their jobs is to come to city councils and uh... make sure that we can try to keep this from being a vote to keep the citizens out of the loop these things and i'm not able to do it that's not my words uh... jonathan paths was an ex flock employee probably knows who that is uh... whistleblower who just came out he did the exact same job that he did going around the city councils and uh... basically trying to convince them to not listen to the people to buy the system for the greater good, right? But there's simple facts on the matter here. And before I say anything else, I'd like to say this isn't about Greenwood Police Department. This isn't about our little thing. I'm maybe more paranoid than that. And I feel like this is a part of something a lot bigger that we don't want to be a part of. We don't want to help along. But yes, they are tracking more than license plates. There's ample evidence in the public domain of Flock, Axe, and all the similar systems of singling out far more, including unique vehicle features we talked about, people walking along the street. Yes, I do have actual proof of them viewing people as well. Facing public swimming pools, playgrounds, daycares, gyms, firearms retailers. That's a fun one. They like to watch and see who's going to buy guns. Why do they care about that? How long until... Somebody else had mentioned this Leonardo signal trace thing. I think Wade maybe mentioned that. There's a lot of things that this stuff does, and it's getting more and more by the day. It's getting more and more advanced and more and more scary of what it's actually trying to do. No, there's no assurance of any data governance. That's actually what I do for a living, so I can tell you that the government does, in fact, get hacked. AWS does get hacked. There's no assurance for that. To the contrary, it's a story of misuse, not only one by police agencies, but even flock employees themselves. Recently, after a records request revealed from Dunwoody, Georgia, Flock employees viewed the live recorded cameras over 1,000 times between 2023 and April 2026. And in 2025 alone, they searched Dunwoody citizens' data over 400 times, and the vast majority have no case number and no documented law enforcement purposes. And the more shocking part of that is that those feeds didn't have anything to do with license plates. The Flock system was recording in a private community center, including cameras in gymnasium rooms, pools, and fitness studios. The private center agreed to this because the Dunwoody police had told them that access to the private security cameras was solely for real-time critical incident response. Meanwhile, the flock of employees were watching people swimming in the pool. Yes, it does misidentify constantly. We've already been through all of that. There's so many instances of that. One of them, a 50-year-old grandmother from Tennessee spent five months in jail because AI facial recognition linked her to a crime in North Dakota, a state she's never even been to. Five months in jail. I'm glad that wasn't my grandma. And I would stop with, no, it's not worth it. I get it that it... can do amazing things. It may find my child. It may do these things. Somebody else had even mentioned about you can't give up your liberty for the sake of security. The bigger issue I see is that this isn't just limited to flock. It's on AWS gov data centers for a reason. It's because this is a government thing. We know that, you know, this is the same government the rest of people, like somebody had said, for attending church during COVID, the same government clearly has nefarious plans for mass surveillance and control. Same government that's funding flock in many of its ways. And, you know, has an inch ever not become a mile when the federal government and a greedy corporation collude? The truth is it's not about cameras or data centers or trusting corporate appointed spokespeople here or anything like that. It's about a chance that we as just our small little town can say yes or no. Do we stand for the Constitution or not? He spent a lot of time talking about Fourth Amendment situations that don't really apply because there's a lot of, and I won't get into it, there's a lot of Fourth Amendment SCOTUS cases that have come up that do apply to this, that do apply to the actual tracking of people as they go along. This isn't just simple pictures. If I drive to California, there's flock tracking me the entire way that's an entirely different situation in a closed-loop system uh... and what they're trying to say is is not a fourth-minute violations is very clearly fourth-minute violations i think that that's going to become a big thing here person and i don't want our town to be caught up in that as well so anyway all that to say i can't say it as good as all the other people did or whatever But you guys, this scares me. This scares me for my kids. This scares me for what they're going to do with these systems. These polls are going to stand a lot longer than the next administration, the next government, the next things that happen, like the next police chief, all these different things. Things are not moving in a good place. They're not moving in a good way, and it scares me a lot. It scares me for my kids. I don't want them to live under that tyranny with the capabilities that these things can have. We're just a small little town. Are we going to stop it? No. But we can do something. We can put our foot down and say that we're not going to be a part of that. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much.

I'm mispronouncing, I'm sure, these names, I'm sorry.

It depends how much spaghetti you eat, but thank you for having me. Okay. Joey Marone from Crawford County. I'll give you my address if you want, but I crossed the river to get here, so forgive me for taking up valuable time. But I do appreciate what's going on here. Greenwood is kind of a trendsetter, and... I hope to have a similar conversation with our mayor and chief. We have a great chief just like you do. Brad's an exceptional guy, and he's pretty much a single issue voter, so to speak, and it's keeping me safe, and I appreciate him for that. Travis, your role here is significant. Your opinion matters. You, as an attorney, base your opinions off the Constitution, and I think that's been addressed. But there's one thing that kind of left me without rest when I got to meet you, Mayor Doug, for the first time a few weeks ago when we talked about this, was the expectation of privacy on public roads. And that seems to be an open-ended concern. because of where it might lead, and who might have jurisdiction over that, and in this case it's you. And so as mayor, as the person that the people has elected to help adjudicate whether or not they feel secure, safe, and living calmly in a prosperous town, the issue has rested on you, not the guy that wants the tools, you're the guy that provides the tools. I'm a carpenter, I want all the tools I can get to do the job, cutting edge. But it's your job to facilitate this guy to do his job in tools inside the boundary with the help of Travis that fall within the lines of fairness and constitutionally protected personal freedom. And when that becomes subjective, which it shouldn't be, when that becomes interpretive, then my challenge to Greenwood is to err on the side of freedom. Err on the side of faith in your constituents. We are innocent until proven guilty constitutionally. And the fear mongering sales pitch that we just had to go through brought me back PSD from COVID, two weeks to stop the spread, safe and effective. Wear the mask, none of us are wearing it now. So we bought into a lot of this stuff because the power is from on high without a vote. For some reason, we got so afraid of the word mandate that we just bowed to our both knees. And without a vote, we fell victim, victim. Our whole country, world, victim. And there's a use in the private sector for cameras. I'm a private business owner. And if I want to have a camera to protect my private business, I'm allowed to do that. And if you come on my private property and enjoy the services of my private business, you might be videoed. for security. But whose are the roads? Are they the chief's? No, but he does a good job protecting the roads. Are they yours? I mean, if there's a no hitchhiking sign on a state highway, I get it. The police officer can pull over a hitchhiker or stop and say, hey, you ain't supposed to be walking on interstate. But in town or in the county, whose are these roads? I mean, everybody behind me pays a crap ton of taxes to pay for these roads. They're ours. They're our roads, and we're being tracked on them. That's uncomfortable. And there's something you can do about it. You as mayor can do about it if you become mayor again. And I would suggest as a political strategist to jump on board, man. And if this guy that's running against you has any wit, he would jump on board. And you can fight who can be the most anti-flocker because that's really the most important issue in our country right now. Are we being tracked and are we, listen, Mayor Doug, when your grandkid is sitting there and my grandson is standing here, what are they gonna be arguing about? Be long past cameras at that time. But don't worry about Van Buren, we got this covered. We're doing it right. We're just implanting computer chips on our kids' wrists. They're gonna be fine. That's ugly, isn't it? It's an ugly thought. We've been talking about this for a long time, talking about what's the beast look like? What's the end look like? What's it all going to be? Watch the freaking movies, man. They've already told this story. If you haven't seen all the Jason Bourne movies and Eagle Eye and the rest of them, go. It'll be fun. You're living it. And you're making decisions that will direct your county, that will direct your town accordingly. I'm going to take liberty to read a closing remark, and I plagiarize this. Thank you for allowing us, we the people, an opportunity to express our concerns. It should have happened three years ago. The City Council has represented a voice of the people. Citizens' comment time is to allow you to hear from the people, from us. While that process was skipped three years ago, I'm glad we are here tonight. Now the ball is in your court. You will make a decision, and while some will agree with that decision and some will not, we must respect the process. Most people's decisions or minds have already been made up, and you can't argue with somebody whose mind's been made up. But take some time to think about where this is going. Take some time to marinate on it, to pray about it, however you zero in on your inner you, and think, man, I have an opportunity to make a decision bigger than me that's gonna affect more than just me, and I hope you make the right decision.

Next on the list tonight is Lori Collins. Okay, thank you. Tim Collins. Okay, thank you. Lori Collar.

No. You good?

Okay, okay, thank you. That is the last on the list. Is Sonny still here or somebody that would check that? Colt, would you mind? Is there still some papers back there or not? We've got them all? Okay. Did we miss anybody? Yes, ma'am.

Okay, my name's Terri Smith. I live at 3533 Oches Inver Road. I've lived in Greenwood for 60 years. Microphone down, okay. When I grew up in Greenwood, there was one policeman, okay? Greenwood wasn't that big. Obviously, it's not like it is now. But, you know, he made it, and it worked out okay. And Doug grew up with this one policeman. um i don't want to i'm so mixed on this and i hate to say it because i don't really know exactly i came here to learn and to to to see how what my thoughts were i think probably my biggest problem is that the people of greenwood didn't get to vote on it and no one ever told us until they were here four years and then I'm just appalled that really it happened and we let somebody who doesn't work here anymore make all the decisions. He got to sign the contract. He got to say who got to look at it, who didn't get to look at it, who we want to surveil it, who we share it with, who we don't share it with. And that's a problem to me. I mean, I am so for having, obviously, tools for the policemen. I respect Brad and the whole department so much and Doug and everybody up here. But I feel like... that we the people haven't had our that we didn't get a choice in this and here we are having to live it every day and i'm not i don't care if someone sees that i came home at 12 o'clock or went to the grocery store that's not a problem to me i don't care what i care about is not knowing where somebody that can open-endedly sell it to some other person in some other time and use it to make money. The kid that owns this company is like 28. He has $18 billion. He didn't give a rat's rear about Greenwood, Arkansas. He's just trying to make money. I mean, I think it's just a moneymaker, and we're falling into it. And I feel like the people of Greenwood should get to vote or have an opinion in it. And maybe Brad just got inherited whatever the contract said. Maybe... Maybe that's not the way Brad would want it to be, or maybe not the way you'd want it to be. I thought that people need to know, and if it goes to the next step, how do we know that? It's what it is now. Maybe this reads license plates. What happens when they update the software in two months, and it does facial recognition, and then it shows who's in the car, and then it picks up stuff in your phone? So that's my concern. I'm not really, can't say I'm not for it, but I'm just not for the way it happened. and the way it's being run and i expect the city council and the mayor to take leadership and make sure that all those all the all the check boxes are checked thank you

We are at the time in the agenda for the city's position. And this is Travis Plummer, our city attorney, obviously, and then Chief Brad Hobbs. I'm not sure who wants to go first.

I'll do my best. Mayor, council, thank you again.

I'm sorry, let me really quick before I forget it, and hopefully I won't at the end of this too. Thank you all for coming tonight, absolutely. Everybody's got an opinion, and that's what this was for, is to hear your opinion. And I very much appreciate every single person being here. Thank you. Chief.

Mayor, Council, Madam Clerk, thank you all again for having this study session. Special thanks to the public for giving us passionate feedback. I want to take a few minutes and talk about our license plates, commonly referred to as the LPRs. I don't work for Flock, so I'm not going to be a salesman for them. There's been a lot of discussion surrounding these cameras recently, and I understand why any time law enforcement uses technology, cameras, or data, the public has every right to ask questions. What it does do, and how it's being used, who has access to it, and probably most importantly, what keeps it from being abused? Those are all fair questions, and they deserve straightforward answers. So on July 14th, how we got to where we're at now, on July 14th, the mayor and the city attorney and I met with two citizens, Greenwood citizen Wade Dunn and Van Buren citizen Joey Maroney about the use of our flock cameras in Greenwood. Coming out of that meeting, I was asked to take a deeper look into this technology, not just flock, but LPR technology in general. I was also asked to determine whether other companies or systems were available that might be a better option for Greenwood. And that's what I did. I didn't want this review to simply be about defending the system we already have. I wanted to understand the technology, the law, the privacy concerns, the safeguards that's available to us, and any alternatives. One of the first things I learned was the license plate reader is not new technology. As he said, it came in the late 70s and early 80s. First implemented in Los Angeles, California. We're talking about technology that's been developing and evolving for more than four decades. I also reached out to two of Flock's major competitors, Motorola Solutions and Axon. Axon is who we currently use for our officer body cams. Motorola was unable to attend tonight, but they have indicated they can participate at a later date. They did provide me with a quote, it's in your packet, for a system that's comparable to what we currently operate, and that quote is in your packet, as I just said. I reached out to Axon as well, and as of tonight, I have not heard or received a response back. I was also specifically asked to research a company named LSAG, another LPR provider, I did. During that research, I learned that LSAC's corporate history and ownership are tied to Italian defense and aerospace industry. That raised concerns for me when considering technology associated with law enforcement and public data. For that reason, I did not pursue LSAC as a leading alternative for Greenwood. I didn't simply ask Flock to tell me My flock was the best. I looked at its competitors, I requested information, I requested pricing, and I spent considerable time researching the technology itself. So that brings me back to the legal debate. When I first began preparing to speak about the license plate reader, I thought that I would have to defend its use, because we've been using it. But the more I studied the issue, the more I realized I don't have to defend it. The debate has already taken place. Attorneys on both sides have argued it, privacy advocates have challenged it, state legislators have debated it, and judges across this country from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast have examined the constitutional questions surrounding this technology. Courts have repeatedly upheld the lawful use of license plate readers when appropriate for legitimate law enforcement uses. Here in Arkansas, our legislature has also addressed this issue by establishing statutory requirements governing the use of automated license plate readers. So my responsibility is not to re-litigate questions that have already been debated in legislatures and argued in courtrooms. My responsibility is to make sure our department uses this technology legally, ethically, and only for the purposes authorized by law. And that's exactly what I intend to do. If Arkansas law changes, we'll change with it. If the courts establish new constitutional restrictions, we'll follow those decisions. But tonight, I think the question we should be asking is much simpler. Does Greenwood have a legitimate need for this technology, and are we using it responsibly? I also think we need to put this discussion in perspective. At some point, as a society, we've accepted that cameras have become part of our public safety. They're used in airports, they're used in sporting events, they're used throughout all major cities, they're used by businesses, schools, homeowners, and perhaps the best example is law enforcement itself. The public has a right has rightfully demanded greater transparency and accountability from police officers. And that's what police officers in the United States did. We put cameras on the chest of virtually every police officer in the United States. We record traffic stops, arrests, disturbances, encounters with the public because cameras provide evidence and prove accountability and establish law or establish what actually happened. So I don't believe the question should simply be are cameras being used. Of course they are. The better question is, what are they being used for? Who has access to the information and what safeguards are in place to prevent abuse? That's the standard I believe we should apply to the license plate readers as well. Greenwood LPR's program, what I learned about it was the funding for Greenwood LPR's technology was approved as a part of the city's 2022 budget. Today, through the partnership with the schools, we operate 11 license plate readers, in the city of Greenwood. These are not facial recognition cameras. They're not listening devices. They're not accessing your cell phones. They're not determining who's driving a vehicle. At its core, the system photographs vehicles and license plate traveling on public roadways and records, records information associated with that vehicle. The information can become an investigative tool, which we've learned tonight. So I brought three actual incident reports with me, real accidents, real crime in Greenwood, Arkansas. Not in a far land, distant land, not a make believe this is actual crimes in the city of Greenwood. In one incident, we had a teenage driver being followed throughout Fort Smith and Sebastian County by an adult male who eventually followed her back to Greenwood. but developed into a legitimate stalking situation involving a minor. The ability to identify the vehicle and obtain information of the owner gave law enforcement another tool to investigate what was happening and protect that young person. That's a real incident, that's a real teenager. I have the report with me if anybody wants to FOIA it. The second incident is more concerning. A mother threatened to kill her children who attended our school district. We were able to determine that the vehicle she was driving, we were able to identify that vehicle, and we were able to interstep and stop her before she reached our school. I want to emphasize that that's not something a company put in a sales brochure. That's in Greenwood, Arkansas at our school. In another case, we had a person of interest in a murder investigation behaving suspiciously around our school. More importantly, wanted to speak to the superintendent and was basically, just wanted to really speak to him and act in a suspicious manner. Information concerning that person's vehicle gave our officers another tool to help determine where the individual was and respond appropriately. Those are three examples and there are many more. Every day we use this technology, especially when it comes to our schools. We receive information about someone who may present a threat and we know what vehicle they're driving and every minute matters. An LPR doesn't replace an officer, it doesn't replace an investigation, it provides information. And sometimes getting the right information at the right time can make all the difference. Safeguarding the system. Because this technology is valuable, we also have an obligation to make sure it's used correctly. I understand the privacy concerns and I don't dismiss them. They're all valid concerns, the same concerns that I have. In fact, Our officers do not have an unlimited authority to use them. I know Mr. Dunn said every officer had the ability to access them, that's true, but I've limited who could put information in it to two police officers, a primary and an alternate, just like we do our evidence lab. They have to go through a supervisor to enter this information into the system, and that's by design. Our LPR system is a law enforcement investigative tool and should be used only for legitimate law enforcement purposes, not out of curiosity, not politics, not out of personal relationships, and not because somebody simply wants to know where the other person or where another person's been. And I want the public to know that we aren't simply saying we'll safeguard the system. Out of an abundance of caution, I ordered an audit of our department's use of the LPR system. At this time, I found no evidence that our personnel have abused the system. I've also developed a new standalone LPR policy specifically governing our use of this technology. That policy has been submitted to the city attorney for review and will be implemented once that process is complete. The policy will establish clear expectations and restrictions regarding the use of such system. It's important to note that we were using our CGIS policy and our NCIC policy. They've mentioned it before for law enforcement in the state of Arkansas to abuse the NCIC database is a six year prison term and $10,000 fine. That's the policy we were operating under. We've since submitted a policy to the city attorney for review. Again, I found no evidence that our personnel abused the system. The policy is, correction, the policy will establish expectations and restrictions regarding the use of the system. We've also created the public transparency portal provided by FLOC and it's now current on the city's, on the Greenwood Police Department's website. I don't want our citizens relying on rumors or social media posts to understand what we're doing. I want information about our program available to the public. So when we're asked what safeguards were we putting in place, I can give you specific answers. We ordered an audit, we reviewed our usage, we're implementing a dedicated policy, we're strengthening oversight, and we've opened a transparency portal to the public. Technology should increase our capabilities, it should never decrease our accountability. I don't expect everyone in Greenwood to agree in every aspect on this issue, and that's okay. People can have legitimate disagreements about the proper balance between privacy and privacy technology and public safety. But I ask that we base that decision on what the technology actually does, what the law actually allows, and how our department actually uses it. After taking this deeper look, reviewing the law, researching alternatives, examining our safeguards, and reviewing actual incidents where this technology assisted our officers, I've reached a very clear conclusion. We have a real need for license plate reader technology in the city of Greenwood. But with that comes responsibility. I have a responsibility to give our officers the tools they need to protect this community. I have a responsibility to protect our schools and our children. I have a responsibility to respect the constitutional rights of every person who lives or travels through Greenwood. And I have a responsibility to make sure authority entrusted to this department is not abused. Those responsibilities are not mutually exclusive. We can use modern technology to protect our community while respecting individual rights. And when legitimate concerns are raised, we can listen, examine what we're doing, and make improvements. That's exactly what we've done. I don't believe scrutiny weakens law enforcement. I believe scrutiny brings better practices, better procedures, and greater accountability. And that brings me to what was originally asked from me, to take a deep dive, to look at these companies. I learned about LSAC, and that was one of the companies that was specifically requested of me to look at. They mentioned Leonardo. Leonardo is the parent company of LSAC. I didn't even entertain that after I learned that, that they were owned by an Italian defense company. Flock has come in with a lower price range of their competitors, and they are providing two or the same level of securities that Motorola and Axon would provide. That's the end of my statement. I respect what I've heard tonight. It all resonates with me. I'll leave that to the city attorney to explain the case law that we both studied. And I've given the mayor my input. I believe that a committee to research this fully and see what is actually the best bet for Greenwood might be the best bet. It's hard to research something in a three-week period and give a very intelligent answer. That's the best you can come up with in such a short time. But that's what was asked of me, and that's what I did. And with that, I'll turn it over to the city attorney.

Thank you very much, Chief Hobbs. And I will say before I get started that I can't think of anybody that I would rather have in charge of our ALPR systems on a local level. So thank you for all you've done, all you continue to do to make sure that we're complying with the law. And that being said, I put together an objective legal memorandum. And for those of you that might not know what that is, that's not my personal opinion or anyone's personal opinion. It's just what has the law told us. And... keep in mind that this legal memorandum is current as of today's date so the wheels of justice turn slow obviously i don't i don't think greenwood's an isolated event i think there's probably a lot of these meetings happening across the country and This is really the first time I've been a part of something so grassroots and illustrative of our democracy. It's been pretty impressive and I commend everyone for their candor. And I can tell you that our law enforcement are elite because I work with several different agencies and Greenwood PD carries the torch with regard to those agencies. So we'll just start at the top. Are we on the same page, Tom? So the bottom line is on Greenwood's confirmed 11-camera deployment under current law, fixed ALPR cameras that photograph a vehicle exterior and required license plate on public roads, retain data briefly, and are queried for a documented law enforcement purpose are likely constitutional. Five cameras are near schools and funded by Greenwood Public Schools. Those facts support a public safety rationale but should also be paired with verified limits on coverage, retention, sharing, and use. There is no controlling Eighth Circuit merits decision holding otherwise. The conclusion is strong but not categorical. A dense, long-retained, broadly shared, or suspicionless system capable of reconstructing the whole of a person's movements could cross the constitutional aggregation line. In Arkansas statutory compliance, and human verification before a stop remain essential independent safeguards, I feel strongly that we've abided by that conclusion and our use of the LPR system in Greenwood to this point. And I know that Chief mentioned he sent a policy over and he's bolstered that above and beyond what we might or might not have been following previously. So the audience and purpose of this memo is to explain the legal basis for Greenwood's use of automated license plate readers, addresses the principal constitutional and statutory concerns raised about the technology, and states the city's position under current law and the system facts described below. There's a couple of questions presented here. These are just kind of some questions that I've heard over the past three or so weeks. Does the city conduct a Fourth Amendment search when a fixed ALPR photographs a publicly displayed plate and vehicle exterior on a public roadway? Does a later database query become a search because multiple time and location observations can be aggregated? What do Eighth Circuit, and that's where we're located, we're located in the Eighth Circuit of the United States, here in Arkansas. And Arkansas authorities permit and what limits arise from the automatic, or excuse me, Arkansas Automatic License Plate Reader System Act and 12 CAR section 24-104. That is actually a code of Arkansas regulations. guideline that the state police follow regarding their use of the ALPR systems and how should residents and city officials evaluate claims that existing cases already hold flock cameras unconstitutional and what legal limits and safeguards define a lawful and defensible municipal system? Short answer is capture a conventional fixed camera observation of a vehicle exterior and license plate on a public road almost certainly is not a search. License plates are required to be exposed. An officer could see and record that same information. This is United States v. Knotts. That's a bedrock Fourth Amendment case that if you've been to law school, you've heard of that case before. There's a couple other cases there, specifically McDonald v. State. That's an Arkansas case that basically said the same thing. Query, the better current view is that a targeted query returning a limited set of sporadic public road observations is also not a search. The Fifth Circuit now holds so in United States v. Porter, and every published state appellate merits decision applying the Federal Fourth Amendment to ordinary ALPR facts has rejected suppression. meaning that motions for suppression were raised by defense counsel in criminal cases in federal court, and those have been largely rejected. But courts also repeatedly reserve the question whether aggregation, density, duration, or network sharing can produce a constitutionally protected whole of movements. Here in the 8th Circuit, the 8th Circuit has not issued a controlling merits decision on the ALPR query. District courts within the circuit have held the uses before them were not searches. Again, those cases are fairly limited in our circuit. I've heard the case Chattery v. U.S. mentioned tonight. That was... That was more based on CSLI, which is cell site location information and not concerning ALPR photographs. And so we're kind of getting into the same wheelhouse, but not quite the same thing. And then there's another case that I've heard mentioned. It's an Article III standing decision in a First Amendment challenge, not a Fourth Amendment ruling. That was Digital Recognition Network. So here in Arkansas, Greenwood is affirmatively authorized to use the ALPRs through its municipal law enforcement agency for the statutory comparisons and lawful purposes specified in ACA 12-12-1803-B1. The city must obey the use, sharing, retention, reporting public policy, disclosure, and destruction rules in sections 12-12-1804 through 1808 as amended by Act 668 of 2025. Um, another interesting note that I've, that was brought to my attention, um, ACA five 73, one Oh one section 13 enacted by act nine 56 of 2021 refers to a vehicle as an extension of the home and weapon and the weapons chapter, which is, um, 573-101. But no known or reported Arkansas appellate decision applies that language to make a publicly exposed plate or vehicle exterior private. Those state law duties and distinctions matter independently of the Fourth Amendment. We'll cover that a little more depth on down the way here. uh... system facts and limits is limits of analysis for the purposes of this announced greenwood system can system consists of eleven fixed cameras directed at public roadways fiber located near our schools are funded by greenwood public schools the cameras photograph license plate and vehicle characteristics visible from public road vantage points Now, I've heard a lot of commentary tonight that they can and do much more, but this analysis is based strictly on the fact that they are taking fixed license plate or rear end of the vehicle camera shots. Camera funding does not change the constitutional test, but placement, coverage, retention, network access, and the breadth of a later query matter to the aggregation analysis. The city's use is evaluated under Fourth Amendment, the Arkansas Constitution, Arkansas ALPR statutes, and the operational safeguards identified in those authorities. The constitutional answer is fact sensitive. This memo therefore distinguishes four government acts, initial image capture, the retention, a historical or network query, and the later traffic stop, arrest, or search. A lawful camera observation does not automatically validate a stop, and a faulty stop does not make the camera itself unconstitutional. This memorandum was prepared for public review. It explains the city's legal position while candidly identifying the factual limits, statutory duties, and developing aggregation issues that courts consider. The legal conclusion remains fact sensitive and the status of pending cases may change before future litigation or later public updates. So bear in mind, we're not forward looking. We are looking from this point in time backwards. The controlling fourth amendment framework, um, cats V United States protects reasonable expectations of privacy. Uh, and us versus Jones. Those are bedrock fourth amendment cases. They separately protect against information obtained by physical trespass on a constitutionally protected person, house paper or effect. And they LPR mounted lawfully in public right of way ordinarily involves no physical intrusion on the motorist vehicle. The principal question is therefore whether the information obtained is one society recognizes as private. which is a valid concern. In the next couple paragraphs, I talked about Cardwell, excuse me, Class, which is another case, and Hammond. And the reason I mention these here is because Knott's and Jones received a little bit of negative treatment. And so I wanted to make sure that the negative treatment was not on the Fourth Amendment issue that we're here to talk about tonight. And I won't bore you with all this. This, by the way, will be available for anyone who requests it. So all you would have to do is request from the city clerk or my office and we could provide you a full copy of this. But for sake of brevity, I will keep it moving along. Section B, aggregation and the whole of movements. Jones, Carpenter v. United States and Chattree prevent a mechanical rule that all public movement is forever unprotected. Five justices and Jones recognize that prolonged GPS monitoring may invade an expectation of privacy in the whole of a person's physical movements. Carpenter held that acquisition of seven days of historical CSLI, that's the cell site location information, was a search because the data was detailed, encyclopedic, automatic, retrospective, and followed the user into private and sensitive places. Carpenter expressly described its holding as narrow and did not call conventional cameras into question. So there's the distinction there. I'll go on down to the blue box, the key Chattery point. Decision strengthens the aggregation argument in genuinely comprehensive systems, but it also preserves the doctrinal distinction on which ordinary ALPR cases rely. Intermittent observations of vehicle exterior on public roads are not precise. Continuous records of a person inside public and private spaces. See, the search question is separate from reasonableness and remedy. If a future court classifies a particular ALPR query as a search, the next questions are whether a warrant, an exception, or a sufficiently particular statute makes it reasonable, and whether suppression, damages, or prospective relief is available. Good faith, inevitable discovery, independent source, standing and qualified immunity doctrines often resolve cases without definitive merits holding a broad statement that a case approved or struck down ALPRs must therefore be narrowed to identify the exact issues and posture. There's a lot of issues that we've talked about here tonight that have not been challenged in court for lack of better analysis. So there's a lot of things that have been brought up tonight that are forward thinking that our courts simply have not handled yet. And so it's been a great evening of conjecture and hopefully we'll have a little more guidance from the courts in the future. But again, this is just from today's date looking backwards. Um, so we'll move on to the Arkansas and eighth circuit analysis, uh, Arkansas statutory authorization and mandatory safeguards. Um, we've already covered a lot of this, the officer motor vehicle, ACIC, NCIC, uh, these databases are created for ongoing investigation. Um, ACA section 12, 12, 18, no three, um, kind of follows along with some of those guidelines. Um, This is a lot of stuff that we've already talked about tonight. This is just basically the statutory authorization in Arkansas that authorizes the use of these on a municipal level. Section B. ACA five 73, one Oh one in the vehicle as an extension of home. This was an interesting, uh, topic that was brought to my attention and I thought it would look in, I would look into it more. Uh, that statute defines a vehicle as an automobile, uh, being considered an extension of a person's home with any protection that conveys the argument should be addressed directly and not dismissed. It's the way I felt about it. Um, The Weapons Act described the amended section as definitions concerning weapons while simultaneously revising the carrying a weapon statute. Like I said earlier, there's no known Arkansas appellate decision that applies that section to ALPRs, license plates, or observation of a vehicle exterior, and that did not amend Arkansas's ALPR statutes also. Therefore, it's still my position that a picture of the back of someone's car is not considered a search and or seizure under the context of the Constitution. Even if it does carry search and seizure significance beyond weapons law, it does not logically make everything visible on a vehicle private A home's exterior address and activities exposed to lawful public view do not receive the same protection as its interior. McDonald v. State also talked about that. And the way it talked about it was that viewing a VIN number on a vehicle was not considered a search nor a seizure. An ALPR likewise photographs only the plate and exterior from a public road vantage point. It does not enter the passenger compartment, inspect closed containers, or expose information concealed inside. And we'll go on down to the blue box, state law priority. Arkansas law independently requires publicly inspectable rules and policies, six-month statistical reports, retention and destruction controls, access and dissemination records, and compliance with statutory use and sharing limits. A favorable Fourth Amendment analysis does not cure a statutory violation. I think we've talked about that quite a bit tonight. And our policy that the Chief has forwarded to me is very clear on that, on all those points. I think there's a lot of concern about what happens to the pictures once they're taken. And so that's kind of touching on that. We'll skip over Section C, Tom. We'll start getting into the case law that I used to put this together. Eighth Circuit authorities, again, digital recognition network. That's not really on point with what we're here to talk about tonight. United States v. Giles was a case where a commercial database returned five or six observations over roughly six months. Two Colorado interstate observations mattered. The court-held query was not a search. The record was sparse, public road-based, and unlike the near-perfect surveillance in Carpenter, it also found independent... reasonable suspicion. Giles is the strongest reviewed in-circuit merits authority, but it is one district judge not binding eighth circuit precedent. So basically what that means is it's kind of the strongest guidepost that we have in the eighth circuit. However, it is a district court ruling, so it is not binding law moving forward. You guys are probably getting really bored listening to all this. I enjoyed it. So we'll just keep going down here, Tom. We'll go down to F, the 8th Circuit bottom line. A Greenwood ALPR case would begin with favorable Supreme Court public road principles, two favorable in-circuit district cases, and no adverse controlling 8th Circuit ALPR precedent. The principal litigation risk is not the act of photographing a license plate. It is proof that Greenwood's total system, I threw that in there, our system, local cameras plus shared network searches, retention, and analytical features can cheaply reconstruct a person's sustained movements or sensitive associations. So short retention, limited camera density, purpose-bound queries, and auditability material improve the City of Greenwood's position. under our current case law. I won't go into all the nationwide analysis. It's not necessarily binding below the Supreme Court level on us. There are some Supreme Court cases in here, but you'll start recognizing a pattern once you go through all these. And please, if anyone would like to review this, it will be available upon request to anyone who would like to look at it. Again, we've got more federal district decisions. Again, those are not binding, even in the circuits where they were decided. But there are a lot of them, and a lot of them are talking about motions to suppress this type data in court. And a majority of these cases found that they were not a search or seizure based on the facts presented and those motions were largely denied. See if I can cherry pick. Okay, so here's a good one. Schmidt v. City of Norfolk. That is a case that was brought up earlier tonight. In that case, summary judgment was granted to Norfolk after discovery showed fixed camera gaps and an inability to catalog the whole of driver's movements. However, that case is currently on appeal and remains pending, so we don't have an outcome there yet. We don't know when that will be, but that's an interesting one to keep an eye on for those of you keeping up with all the case law. I didn't see. Yes. Yes.

That's a little above my pay grade. I just try to stick with what's already been done and whether or not I agree with whether, you know,

Why that's being appealed or if it will be successful, I just really don't have an opinion on that. I do know there's tons and tons and tons of district judges across the United States, and their opinions can vary very differently. And so the further up that they go, whether it be to the appellate court or eventually the Supreme Court, then you kind of narrow down the pool of thought. So I'm kind of, I want to keep an eye on that myself just to see where that goes. But you're right, that's exactly what was said. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I think that'll be a big one. It won't be binding on us here in the Eighth Circuit as it's in Virginia, but nevertheless an interesting one to keep an eye on. I did identify some contrary and limiting authorities. That may be of some interest here. Section D, Tom? Okay, he's ahead of me, all right. Oh, you're, okay. Commonwealth v. Bell, that's also a Virginia case. Is the principal decision actually holding that flock collection and storage constitute a Fourth Amendment violation via search and suppressing warrantless ALPR-derived evidence? Bell analogized Norfolk's 172-camera database to Jones and Carpenter. That may help answer your question, sir. Uh, it is a single state trial court ruling. It was not appealed and has not been rejected or displaced by the Virginia court of appeals. Um, and so it, it's kind of just hanging out there. It wasn't challenged. So that was one it's not binding, but it is one where they said that it was a search. Um, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, that's a Fourth Circuit case, held that an aerial system covering about 90% of Baltimore for roughly 12 hours daily with 45-day retention and the ability to reconstruct movements was a search. It did not, however, involve ALPR, so we're talking about a little bit different technology for the purpose of this memo. Okay. Um, and then finally Carpenter and Chattery are controlling Supreme court search decisions, but neither involved a plate reader. They foreclose an absolute claim that all third party or short duration location data is unprotected. They did not erase knots or hold that intermittent public road vehicle observations are private. Their practical command is proportionality assess precision. comprehensiveness, public-private reach, retrospectivity, duration, and ease of aggregation. Then we go on to talk more about what these cases actually established in Carpenter and in Chattory. We've already touched on those. Here's the Schmidt case again. As I said, it was still ongoing. While these cases still matter to Greenwood, they identify facts a challenger will seek. Total local and network cameras searched, percentage of trips captured, observations per person, retention, camera proximity to homes, clinics, worship, political meetings, schools, or other potentially sensitive destinations. whether make model unique features allow plate free tracking national sharing search audits and whether officers can run exploratory searches without a case nexus greenwood stands prepared to explain the usefulness of its 11 camera deployment including the five school area cameras funded by greenwood public schools with verified coverage use coverage and use data rather than vendor slogans i think chief did a good job talking about that and i put together a little table here of you know um how all this applies to Greenwood and what kind of a use pattern would create what kind of risk. And so you start down here or up here at the top where you've got single camera captures on a public street, verified hot list alerts followed by database confirmation. That's by an individual checking with dispatch or ACIC. Those are fairly low risk cases. Then on down, you get to a low moderate risk where targeted historical query tied to a reported offense. a short window, but still you're wanting to tie, you're wanting to do a query of multiple hits. And then you start getting into more moderate and high-risk activities when you do broad local query over weeks with many observations. Multi-agency nationwide query reconstructing, sustained travel, unverified alert use as sole basis for a high-risk stop, use share retention outside Arkansas statute of public policy. Those were all assessments that came from the case law that we've gone over and or the existing statutes and regulations. uh... was not my feeling that based on what i uh... research that green was strongest position that is that a fixed camera does not only or excuse me does only one officer standing at the roadside could lawfully do observe the required uh... plate vehicle exterior direction time and public location uh... mcdonald held under the federal in arkansas constitutions and officers viewing and recording of exterior then number exposed the public view is not their search nor seizure automation scale matter at the aggregation stage they do not convert each public exposure into a trespass or make the plate itself private. Retention and historical query Retention enables retrospective aggregation. The constitutional risk therefore rises with time, density, and breadth of sharing. A 30-day default, and that's the city's policy, I do believe is what we have at this time, is material easier to defend than Arkansas's 150-day statutory ceiling. 150 days seems like a long time. There's a legislator in the room, too, I think. So that, anyway. The ceiling is not a recommended default and not a constitutional safe harbor. Investigation should be documented, limited to relevant records, reviewed periodically, and destroyed at the statutory endpoint. Stops based on alert. We're just talking about here, if we receive a hit, we're not automatically adjudicating that person guilty of a crime. We're gonna have to use a person to verify that that picture actually matches the plate that the hit returned on and that a real person is actually calling dispatch or verifying that through ACIC or NCIC. Kansas v. Glover, another United States Supreme Court case, permitted a common sense inference that a registered owner is driving absent contrary facts. It does not excuse obvious mismatches or stale erroneous data. This was interesting, sharing and vendor control. Arkansas allows evidence indicating plate data to be shared with other law enforcement agency, but prohibits unrelated use in broad commercial exchange. Cities should know exactly which agencies can search Greenwood data, what Greenwood users can search outside the city, what default sharing settings exist, whether federal out of state users are included, and whether the vendor may use images for model training or another secondary purpose. Contract language should make the city, not the vendor, the policy decision maker, and require deletion, security, breach, notice, audit, export, and termination assistance. These legal and operational guardrails are, I believe they're largely reflected in the policy that Chief Hobbs sent over. We've been talking about what we can and can't or should or should not do, and this kind of goes through all the statutory language and what we felt like would be in our policy. I won't read all this verbatim. It's kind of a long list. Here's a good one. So I put together kind of what I thought the city's position would be in light of some recent public comment. First, the cameras photograph vehicles where any person may lawfully see them on public roads. They do not enter homes, listen to conversations, or obtain cell phone location. I've heard a lot of conjecture tonight about that may or may not be the truth. That I do not know. I'm just operating based on the information that I have. Uh, the fourth amendment issues not answered by slogan course, distinguished a discreet public road image from a continuous phone or GPS tracking. The current appellate cases, including a published Fifth Circuit decision and a published Virginia decision, uphold ordinary ALPR use while warning that a truly comprehensive movement history may require a warrant. Carpenter and Chattree protect precise cell phone histories that follow people into private places. We accept those decisions here in Greenwood. Chattree itself explains why a vehicle exposed on public roads is different. The Schmidt order did not hold flock unconstitutional. After the factual record was developed, the court entered judgment for Norfolk and that appeal remains pending. We already talked about that. Arkansas has enacted specific ALPR limits. Greenwood's defense rests on demonstrated compliance, which is short retention, documented law enforcement purposes, audit logs, restricted sharing, and human confirmation before any stop is made. I feel very strongly that we've abided by those guideposts. to this point. A camera alert is a lead, not a conviction. Officers must verify the plate and current database status before acting. The city's not asking residents to choose between safety and privacy. The lawful program is a limited public safety tool governed by written rules, oversight, and consequences for misuse. And then all I have left is just basically a digest of all the case law that I went through. Um, basically just a short explanation of what it, what each case is holdings were. Um, At this point, I feel that Greenwood can responsibly defend a conventional, tightly governed 11-camera ALPR program. The present legal weight favors the city. Plates and vehicle exteriors on public roads are exposed. The strongest current ALPR merits authorities reject a search on ordinary facts, and the Eighth Circuit has no controlling rules. The five school area cameras do not change the role for initial capture, but the protection of Greenwood schools is self-explanatory with respect to their coverage, funding, permitted uses, and safeguards. Carpenter and Chattery make comprehensiveness, private place reach, aggregation, and retrospective ease constitutionally significant. Bell shows that a trial judge can view a dense ALPR network differently. And Sturdivant, McCarthy, Jackson, Porter, Robinson, and Schmidt all preserve a future line. So what that tells me is that this is very early in its infancy as far as how it's gonna progress through courts into the future, especially as the technology continues to evolve and expand in its use across the country. So I felt like the most defensible position is therefore both firm and bounded. Greenwood uses ALPRs as a public safety tool to generate discreet public road and investigative leads. Inquiries serve documented lawful purposes. Retention is short. Sharing is restricted. Access is audited. Statutory reports are maintained. And officers independently confirm an alert before acting. When a query would reconstruct a sustained movement, history, or expose sensitive associations, the city should obtain a warrant if practicable. That approach preserved the public safety value of the cameras while materially reducing Fourth Amendment, Arkansas statutory, evidentiary, and public trust risk. So that's basically it. There's a table of authorities at the end that shows all the authorities that were used and the pages where you can read about those in the memo. But I will say that this nation was founded by and has always been known for being earmarked by individuals who have, or had remarkable foresight starting with our forefathers. And tonight's been a great example of how that works under our form of government. Um, I'm fairly confident that our law enforcement and leadership has utilized this technology responsibly. And I really appreciate everyone coming out and voicing their concerns. And, um, You know, I think change may be, if change is needed, that might be better served at a level above Greenwood, maybe on the state or federal level. And as you can see through this memo, that's happening as we speak on a federal level. It's my understanding that may be debated on the House and Senate floors here in our state in the very near future. So with that, that's my presentation.

Thank you, sir, Mr. Plummer. Since you pointed him out, I'm going to go ahead and recognize Senator Simon, Brad Simon out here. So thank you for coming, sir. Did you want to say anything?

Mr. Dunn mentioned the representation

Thank you, Senator. On the agenda, it's council forum. I would open it up to the council. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Sure. No way.

Are you asking me specific or the council, all of us? Gentlemen, you want to address the answer? I will tell you what I believe. And I hate the fact that somebody mentioned tonight that this, I don't like this being a political decision in a political time. I literally hate that thought. But it is what it is, and the timing is interesting, to say the least. And I'm speaking on me personally, not for anybody else in the room. So it's a tough position to be in. I will tell you my brief, and I was told not to give you a lot of this stuff I'm going to tell you. I'm not going to say a whole lot. It's counsel form, and I try to yield to the counsel as much as I can. It's their study. Yes, sir. That's why I'm going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. Yes, sir. So on the side of protecting my family, I think it's a great tool. If I haven't mentioned, I have a grandson who I'm very fond of, and many of you do have grandchildren and children. And so if anything were ever to endanger him, or I thought would be possible to endanger him, I would want, I would want everything available to me, every tool in the toolbox to be used to save my, my grandson. If he, if ever that was a case, uh, I've told the fire department, I want you to bring every truck you've got to my house when it's on fire. That's, that's what these tools are for. I want to touch real quick on, because it was been asked a little bit and suggested or mentioned. The way this got in play, the way it is, the reason we have it today, it was presented as a line item budget. Simple, I'm not making excuses for this. This is just, I want you to know what happened. In 2022, I believe, Tom, budget was presented to you, or I'm sorry, not to you, to the council. It's always presented to myself and the council. And it was a line item, that's all it was. Flock cameras, X amount of dollars. and it was passed in the budget for a tool for the police department. The chief was not the chief at the time. Doesn't matter who was chief. So that's how it got in place.

It didn't say cameras even. I'm sorry. Just flock system.

Flock system. Didn't say cameras. It was flock system.

So at any time, it would come to your realization that maybe the citizens of this city should make a determination beyond the city council before you even erected those.

So it's a budget item. So the budget is presented to the council. It said flock system. We didn't know.

I don't know that we did know at the time.

I did not vote specifically. I can't answer that. So I'm opening a can of worms and I was told I probably shouldn't have done this. but I needed you to know how it became in place. Let me finish, sir, if you don't mind. I'll let you speak, I promise you. I'm not saying it was right or it was wrong. That's how it happened. If this chief presents in a budget line item that he needs tasers, or whatever he needs, a lot of times, and I'm not trying to speak, and by the way, the council that's sitting here now was not all the council that was there in 2022. So I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. I'm just giving you the process of how it became in place. So we do not go to the citizens, sir, to ask you if you want tasers, or we don't go to the citizens and ask you if the street department should get a dump truck. Which is what we understand now. So we're not, we can't fix, I can't, sir? I can't answer for everybody. I did not know. I'm not, and that's just my, I'm telling you the truth. The truth, okay? Okay? I did not know what we were looking at. And there's difference of, you're welcome, absolutely. And there's difference of opinions of what we are dealing with now, as you heard tonight. The majority of you are against FLOC. We get that. I understand that. And I expected that having this meeting. I called this meeting specifically to make sure that we heard from the citizens. I think it's now up to this council and me to decide if we're able, and we are, we're able to take things in and out of budgets. We do it all the time. But we needed to hear from you. And no, we didn't hear from, I'll tell you right now, we didn't hear from 3,000 people. Because not everybody comes. Yes, sir.

I agree that they need tools.

You're talking about now. These have been in place for five years.

I'm sorry?

I'm not questioning where they are. I'm just saying you're talking about if we had the choice to do it today, it's a whole different subject. That's not where we are. No, I'm talking about installing new ones. Do we have a choice of taking them out? Absolutely. Absolutely. This is all I'm trying to, I just wanted the citizens to know how they became in existence in this city. Anything is possible, absolutely. And it's not my, I was told tonight that it's strictly my decision. I'm the mayor. I ran for the position of mayor knowing that there's a six-person council that I lean on. And we discuss this and we make decisions together. So if I decided tonight, and I know mayors across the state, I know some of these mayors that have just said, we're done. I'm gonna talk with those mayors. I would like to have their input. I will be calling on the phone tomorrow. Many of these are friends of mine, and I'm like, and one called me today from Van Buren. Your mayor called me today from Van Buren to get my thoughts on what's gonna happen tonight. He has his thoughts, and you'll see. So I just wanted to make you sure that you knew how it happened. If this was all brand new and we didn't have them already, this would be a different meeting, to be honest with you. But just understand that not, I'm gonna get you, I promise. I promise.

And they need to come to the mic probably.

Yeah, if you would come to the microphone. I'm on a mic, so. I just want you to know that not everything in a budget is, should it have been? I would say yes. Did we? We did not. Yes, sir.

Do I need to state my name and all that? Please, if you don't mind. Christian. Yes, sir. And I actually don't live in the city limits. I live outside the city limits. Yes, sir. First of all, everybody is very familiar with tracking devices and cameras. I've got, you know, game cam. I can tell you if you want to shoot a big deer, you can look on your game cam and you can tell when he's going to show up. Sure. My daughter's 21 years old. She works in Fort Smith. Gets off at 9, 10 o'clock at night. I don't count on a flock camera knowing where she's at. Got live 360 right here on my phone. I can look it up. I can know exactly where she's at on Highway 10, Nickeltown, wherever. If I order a pizza from Domino's, they'll tell me it's on Nickeltown Road and I've got to open my electric gate to get into my house. We're all familiar with the cameras, but Me putting my daughter on a Life 360 and surveilling her is different than me putting you on a Life 360 and surveilling you or taking a picture of your car every time you go through town. So just think about the decisions because it is important. What do you think? You ever showed up in here tonight? Absolutely. Absolutely.

And listen, by the way, it was commented on Facebook that I planned this on school orientation. I promise you, that was not. You cannot pick a night in Greenwood, Arkansas, any night, and not affect the school, sports, or meetings. That's just impossible.

Thank you for your time.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Can you give me one minute?

Well, I'm reluctant, Mr. Dumba, because then I've got to give everybody a minute. And I'm taking citizen forum time.

Give me council form.

Council form. Council, are you okay?

Sure.

With Mr. Nunn having a minute? Yes, sir.

If you can come to the mic, that way.

Yeah, if you'll come up.

One minute. One minute. Put a timer on one minute. Hey, Doug. Yes, sir.

Thank you for that honesty, and I mean that. I really do. Yes, sir. That meant a lot. What I was going to close with, and he read well ago, I didn't know about these three months ago, two months ago, however long it's been. And the biggest issue I had was the fact that the citizens weren't heard. In fact, you guys didn't even, through Doug's honesty and openness, the city council at that time didn't really know what they were. But now you do. So the ball's in your court. I may not like your decision, but I respect the process. So it's up to you. You've heard the people. Thank you for hearing us, and thank you for taking the time for tonight.

Thank you. That's it. Since I robbed the council forum, I'm sorry, gentlemen.

No, so my next question is, is this going to be something that we put on the next city council meeting?

You know how this works. So, yes, sir. I would suspect if anybody here at council wants to add it to the agenda for September? Sorry? September 14th. We can't vote on that tonight. We can't. they can tell me but they can tell her to add it to the agenda and i was just if you weren't i was going to so we'll put that well we're not making a motion because we're not voting right so y'all want it on the next one yep i'll just put council because i feel like all y'all want it on there yeah yes we got yes sir you got 30 seconds okay that's fine now now my background i'm a software trainer and the the application epic that i

trained physicians and surgeons on, it's HIPAA compliant. It's the, I always forget, it's Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. you're talking about medical information, you're talking about financial information. They lock that thing down tight. So I can't go in as an employee and look at my own medical record or a friend's medical record. And they've got a break the glass feature. If I'm going in and looking at someone who's a VIP or behavioral health or whatever related, I've got to put in my login password and tell why I'm going into this. And they keystroke everything. They log every keystroke that goes into that system. The thing that would make sense to me, and I don't know, I'm looking at this thing as kind of a continuum because we've got a balance between privacy and safety. And if there's any way to compromise, I mean, I would like to see the data housed locally so that we have control But that's a double edged sword too. It is a lot of data and we've got to be able to protect that data against hackers. That's a tremendous responsibility to have that. It's a lot of data to protect. But if it could be housed locally, with things like the ability to track keystrokes, have the ability to go in even on a daily basis and see who's been in the system and why. That to me makes me feel more comfortable. Wade and I didn't even know there were flock cameras in town until I talked to Wade about a month ago. And my first thought was, who's housing the data? If it's outside of our control, no matter whether we have the ability to say who has access to it, I don't like for it being out there because it's a big net scooping up a lot of people. And I don't want to be scooped up my data and put somewhere out there. So I would like, if there were any way to have a hybrid system where it's controlled locally and locked down well, then I see it as our police department protecting our people and our information. but it just scares me when that information gets outside in the cloud that's just my personal opinion i i'm just saying this because i may be ignorant of what we can and can't do by virtue of a contract but i'm just saying that would make me feel more comfortable if we were protecting and we had good control over our own data and that could be accessed with our permission. That's the way I see it being a decent compromise. And like I said, I. Sure, I'm just.

Okay, I don't want to lose control here, so I want the forum to continue with the council. Gentlemen, do you have anything? I think he was gonna answer that question. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. I'll try and be brief. You don't have 30 minutes. Okay. No, perfect. A lot of what I want to reemphasize, we're talking about guardrails, we're talking about policy, we're talking about allowing the use of the system to reflect your guys' community values. And so what I came here today was to explain the system and its foundation. to get you to understand that you are able to reflect your community values on how you want to use and implement the tool, what restrictions, what searches, how data retention, all of that is kind of implemented. And that's where, that's what's being lost in kind of this national conversation is, well, what are the privacy guard rails? What are those safeguards, and are we able to articulate them? Council, Chief Hobbs, again, you guys have that local control over what you guys are discussing right now, whether that changes for a year from now, five years from now, you have that local control. I just wanted to articulate how that is already existing in the system for you to do so. Thank you, sir. structure it takes to do so, right? Even if we spend millions and millions of dollars on that certification to protect your guys' data. I don't know what those numbers look like, but I know they're astronomical. And so that's a valid conversation on any tool, body-worn camera equipment. It's the same thing, right? And so that's where this dialogue comes into play of what does the evolution of public safety, not just ALDRs, but in general, look like. And that's why I come to these forums. with legislators and councilmen and community leaders to figure out where is that balance?

It's 9.09 and let me just say this. I very, very, very much appreciate this meeting tonight. For my intent and purpose, this filled that intent and purpose. We got to hear from the folks in Greenwood, Arkansas. I want to commend our police department. I want to be on public. I do it all the time. But these guys are amazing. And you're right, whoever said it. Chief Hobbs is not going to be here forever. I'm not going to be here forever. Nobody's going to be here forever.

I've been here forever.

She's been here forever. She looks young, but we call her, what did I call you? Old Mother Hubbard. But she's been here a long time. Thank you so much for this. And let me wrap it up with this, if I may. I've got notes all over my papers and I'm horrible about taking notes, but, and I got little stars here and there. So a couple of things that I heard tonight that were very important to me. And I know we're to you transfer somebody to suggest if, if this continues this or another. Uh, tool similar, a transparency page for the public is very, very important. I know the chief and I've talked about this already, and I think you've already got something on, on our website to show you what we're doing with this, with this information. Uh, and I'm now I'm just searching for what I wrote. Uh, and again, I'm not, I do not, I'm not inclined to make decisions on my own unless it's day to day, which is, which is what I'm supposed to do to, to, to help take care of the city. But the council, we're gonna, we're gonna work this out and we're gonna talk about it. It's already been added. It's gonna add to the September agenda. I invite you back, uh, Be warning sometimes we meet for four hours. Sometimes we're here at 1130 trying to get the right decisions or after or ever or longer Then we then we visit aha or a Waffle House, so you'll be invited down there But I just want to make one point to you if I may The chief and I and I'm not trying to be a pastor here because I'm not I'm far from it But this is a huge thing. This is a big deal and The chief and I met with my pastor and his pastor last week in my office and we had prayer about this, about all of this, about how you feel, about how we feel and what we want for the citizens. I know I want and everybody up at this table, everybody here, the chief, all of the police department wants the best for our citizens of Greenwood. We care about your safety. We care about When I say that, I am talking about if you lost somebody, but we also care about your privacy. And I don't like giving up anything for anything. So it may not seem tough, but it is tough. But I want to point to that scripture behind you on the wall. And to me, that is huge. And I put it up there. I say, I didn't write it. I can't write that well, and I can't reach that. But we put that up there several years ago, and it's Philippians 2, 4, and it says, let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. And that's what I try to strive for. I know this council does. I know everybody here does, certainly the police department. So I just want to leave you with that. And please know that we take this very seriously, and this will be further discussed and do the best we can for the city of Greenwood. Thank you.

Thank you.