An ICE ban would address one danger, not the system that creates it
A clear ban on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement access would protect people now. We support that ban and other firm interim protections.
The ban would leave everyday collection, police search power, drones, connected tools, vendor dependence, and public spending intact. Police would retain the ability to search records through a platform managed in part by a private company.
The larger question remains: should the city use public money to create searchable records of ordinary travel when residents are not suspected of wrongdoing?
California cities already had safeguards
Written policy and actual platform access did not always match.
Mountain View terminated its Flock contract after a city audit found federal and state access that violated city policy. The city had already turned off its cameras.[1][2]
Oxnard suspended its cameras after an audit found that a vendor-enabled nationwide query let outside and federal agencies include Oxnard data in searches without city approval.[3]
Los Altos reported that a statewide lookup setting had been active without city approval. The city said this conflicted with policy and asked Flock to turn it off.[4]
These records do not show that rules are useless. Rules can reduce harm, but they depend on software settings, access permissions, vendor conduct, audits, enforcement, and public verification. A protection on paper is only as strong as the public's ability to verify and enforce it.
The collection itself creates the danger
A vehicle-location record is a record of human movement.
Automated license-plate readers record plates, vehicle details, time, and location, then turn those observations into searchable records. Collection comes first. A judgment about relevance comes later.
California’s Attorney General has warned that plate data can reveal patterns tied to homes, workplaces, schools, medical care, places of worship, and daily movement.[5]
Every passing vehicle may enter the system, but the consequences are unequal. Immigrant families, workers organizing on the job, tenants facing retaliation, protesters, survivors, and people seeking sensitive healthcare face greater danger when police or other institutions with power over their lives can reach those records.
This is not only a privacy question. It is a question of who controls public money, information, and police search power. Working people should not have to surrender freedom of movement in exchange for public safety. We can fight for safety through prevention, care, useful public services, and accountable emergency response without recording everyone's everyday travel.
Limited-use promises do not justify recording everyone
A narrow search policy cannot turn broad collection into a targeted investigation.
A system does not need a name-search field to expose where a person lives, works, worships, receives care, or meets other people. Repeated vehicle records can reveal patterns about a person’s life.
Targeted investigations should be targeted. Stockton should not build a standing pool of movement records for later police searches.
The drone agreement places parts of public operations inside Flock’s technology, permissions, and contract terms. Public money pays for the system, police gain search power, and a private vendor retains control over parts of the platform. That relationship weakens public control.[6][7]
Audit records may reveal less than readers expect. 404 Media reported that agencies were advised to be “as vague as permissible” when recording reasons for Flock searches.[8]
Removal is the only answer
Organize to dismantle the system and prevent it from returning under another name.
Our petition calls for an end to every Flock contract, a stop to expansion, lawful data deletion, a public closeout record, and a ban on recreating the same tracking function under another name.
By signing, you’re urging the Stockton City Council to pass a Flock Removal Resolution that ends this surveillance system, prevents it from returning under another name, and restores meaningful public control over how surveillance technology is funded and used.
Terminate or decline to renew every Flock contract at the earliest lawful date, and prohibit automatic renewal.
Immediately stop new Flock purchases, tools, integrations, data-sharing arrangements, deployments, and expansions.
Require deletion, to the fullest extent permitted by law, of all Flock-collected vehicle, image, video, and location data held by the city, Flock, or authorized third parties. Any data that cannot legally be deleted should be publicly identified, along with the reason it must be retained and the date it will be destroyed.
Publish a complete inventory and public closeout record. This should include all Flock equipment, contracts, integrations, data-sharing relationships, and access permissions; an audit of who accessed or received Stockton data and for what stated purpose; a dated deactivation and removal schedule; and a final closeout report confirming that the system has been dismantled.
Prohibit Stockton from recreating the same mass-tracking system under another name. City funds, grants, contracts, purchasing authority, or staff resources should not be used to acquire, operate, renew, or expand Flock or any substantially similar system that routinely records and makes searchable the movements of people who are not suspected of wrongdoing. This applies regardless of vendor, brand, or funding source.
Residents and workers can sign, talk with coworkers and neighbors, press the City Council, and monitor removal. Staying organized after the cameras come down can build lasting worker control over public budgets and safety institutions, with money directed toward stable homes, safe work, care, prevention, useful public services, and accountable emergency response.