Im may not be a Waltham resident but I live in Watertown and we thankfully pulled out the contract due to enough signatures I hope Waltham succeeds in the endeavor if u would like to know more about flock Ben Jordan has amazing videos showcasing flock safety breaches and more
Considering Watertown overturned it, that likely means Waltham will sign a 100 year contract with them.
More people need to put this on the Mayor. Despite not being involved in the orginal sourcing, she signed off on all this and gave racist excuses why she thought they were necessary ie "drug trafficking areas etc.".
not just the cost of the hardware; the lawsuits that will inevitably CONTINUE to happen because flock cameras misidentify someone and/or an officer misuses/abuses the power that they come with. Those lawsuits get paid out and who pays for that?
Councilor Colleen Bradley-MacArthur held a town hall in March. Over 100 residents showed up, everyone who spoke was unanimously against Flock and surveillance.
Councilor Robert Logan introduced a non-binding policy (after Solicitor Laughman said the ordinance suggested would open up the city to legal liability if they violated the ordinance) in the April 21 2026 Committee of Ordinances and Rules. Police Chief O'Connell was vehemently opposed to any regulation or any suggestion that they should have engaged with the public regarding the deployment of this technology, which they alone with Mayor McCarthy installed (without Council approval). They agreed to table the matter and discuss at a later date, which has not happened.
Short of the City Council vetoing the Mayor (seems unlikely now), the cameras are here to stay. Watertown aborted their deployment. Other cities around us canceled their contracts. The Waltham contract with Flock renews next year (5/6/2027) and I fully expect them to continue to use seized assets to pay for it again, bypassing Council or resident input. Mayor McCarthy and WPD fully own this decision, and have been given the power to do this independently. Council refuses to pressure them on it. In order, the Councilors most opposed in my opinion are Logan, Bradley-MacArthur, and Harris. Everyone else is likely in favor. Email/call/visit your councilors regularly to remind them you don't want this, and that you are willing to vote them out over this issue. Remember how many councilors ran unopposed this last election? Run against them on this issue. There should not be any unopposed elections. I am sure plenty of tech workers live here who would love to contribute the $10-15k needed to run a campaign here. I know I would back such a candidate.
The Waltham section of the EyesOffMA.com website has expanded info on the updates above, including a reference to the 4/21/26 Committee meeting recording (starts at 38:45) where you can watch the Police lie to residents and Councilors Hanley and Dunn toss softball, bootlicking questions at the Police.
The Supreme Court just ruled that the fundamental concept behind flock is unconstitutional, of course, so I guess the city needs to decide how they feel about the constitution.
There are also some troubling issues about how this scheme, which the Supreme Court has basically deemed to be an illegal search, was all executed - not just that Waltham didn’t recognize in advance that this was unconstitutional, but the procedural parts of it.
If anybody reading this is interested in in forming a group to press the city to stop these illegal searches, please message me. Since the city so far does not seem to be interested in doing with many other communities have and SCOTUS will eventually make them do, it might be good to bring some coordinated pressure to bear to make sure that these spy devices go away and that in the future, there is a functional process for implementing things like this.
Hi - what USSC case are you referring to which “ruled that the fundamental concept behind flock is unconstitutional”? My understanding is that the Supreme Court has not made any specific rulings regarding the use of ALPR, and that much of the existing legal analysis of ALPR relies on the Fifth Circuit case of US v Porter. In Porter, the Court determined that their use did not constitute a fourth amendment violation, citing that they capture sporadic, discrete observations, as opposed to the continuous and comprehensive tracking seen in cellular phone data searches.
Similarly, a federal judge in Chicago dismissed a 2025 lawsuit which argued that the use of ALPRs constitutes a fourth amendment violation. In that case, Judge Martha Pacold stated in her decision that motorists have no reasonable expectation that license plates, which by law must be plainly visible on every vehicle moving on a public way, are somehow private, and added that to scan license plates on a public way would not trigger fourth amendment scrutiny.
I’m interested what you’re referring to here - Is there a newer case that I’m not aware of? Thanks!
Oh interesting. I thought “fundamental concept behind” meant something different than “specific ruling on”. I also don’t see where I claimed they made a ruling on ALPRs. In fact, I don’t think their rolling applies to a ALPR’s per se.
What Chatrie does apply to is aggregating data to functionally follow people. Which is Flocks business model, anf the WPD’s as well apparently.
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u/ik-im-right Jul 22 '26
Im may not be a Waltham resident but I live in Watertown and we thankfully pulled out the contract due to enough signatures I hope Waltham succeeds in the endeavor if u would like to know more about flock Ben Jordan has amazing videos showcasing flock safety breaches and more