MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Questions and comments about Flock cameras were raised at the regular meeting of the Monongalia County Commission Wednesday morning.
The commission has approved a three-year $180,000 contract with Flock Safety for 20 cameras that have automatic license plate reading capabilities only. The cameras capture images of license plates and the vehicle it is attached to and only use the information in the event of an official alert or official criminal complaint.
The cameras have been in use for just a few months and have led to a sharp pushback from the public and two felony arrests in Morgantown for allegedly damaging the devices. The cameras have been argued about in other parts of the state. Huntington City Council had more discussion this week about the city’s new contract and a legislative committee heard more than an hour of discussion back on Sunday.
Resident Stephanie Hunt told the commission the handful of people who have spoken at meetings are just a sample of the many that oppose the devices. She also compared the use of Flock cameras to the “cointelpro” program operated by the FBI to disrupt communist party activities from the 1950s into the 1970s.
“I’m uncomfortable with being a publicly identifiable opponent of mass surveillance,” Hunt said at Wednesday’s meeting. “Our country has a documented history of programs like COINTELPRO of monitoring and targeting people engaged in lawful political advocacy and dissent.”
Leslie Nash shared concerns about data sharing policies included in the contract between Monongalia County and Flock Safety. She contends license plate numbers and vehicle images collected by the system in Monongalia County could be accessed by agencies conducting random searches across the country.
“What happens is an organization that’s a member of the nationwide network simply asks to search the nationwide network, and Monongalia County’s cameras would be included in that search,” Nash said.
Monongalia County Sheriff’s Office officials said only plates and vehicle characteristics associated with a warrant, criminal complaint, a Silver Alert, or an Amber Alert would come up in the searches. The identifying numbers and characteristics are the only searchable criteria the system will accept.
Resident Leslie Wilbur and others not only oppose the cameras, but they also believe opioid settlement money should not be used for the purchase.
“You seek to weaponize our reasonable anger with you for using opioid settlement money to contract with Flock, and we see that,” Wilbur said. “You’re trying to discredit us because your own behavior is difficult to defend.”
The West Virginia First Foundation Memorandum of Understanding identifies law enforcement and public safety as allowable expenses.
“We’ve committed and expended only four percent of the opioid funds for these cameras and four percent toward policing in general,” Monongalia County Commission President Jeff Arnett said. “The rules sent down to us for the use of these funds were that we could use up to 50 percent of the opioid funds for policing in some way, and we have not come close to that.”
The Monongalia County version of the system is a license plate reader that interfaces with a live crime data base. Deputies could be notified of a suspect involved in a crime, or they could be used to track a getaway or identify a suspect in a serious or violent crime. The system reads license plates only that are part of a crime, a criminal complaint, a Silver Alert, or an Amber Alert. There is no mass collection and storage of mass amounts of data, according to commissioners.
“These cameras search for license plates after a criminal complaint or a criminal action has been opened and a case number has been issued on a particular individual and then associated with a license plate,” Arnett said.