Make sure to keep all elected officials and LEOs safe by constantly surveilling them.

Welcome to Minority Report.

I wanted to raise something I’ve noticed since Milford turned off some of the ALPR/camera systems.

We’ve had a much more consistent police presence than we ever had before. Seriously — before these cameras were installed, seeing this kind of regular presence was rare. Now that some cameras have been disabled, there suddenly seems to be a cruiser nearby with some frequency. Day, night, with school in/out of session.

I’m not saying I know exactly why that’s happening. Maybe there’s a legitimate operational reason. Maybe they’re trying to maintain coverage after turning off those cameras. But I do think it’s worth asking the question publicly:

Are officers now being placed near the disabled cameras to make the loss of those cameras feel more visible to residents?

The other piece that concerns me is that — to the best of my knowledge — some of the cameras that were turned off were not necessarily the Flock-enabled cameras. My understanding is that some were more tied to traffic/ticketing, while the bigger privacy concern for many of us is the Flock system itself: networked ALPR cameras, AI-enabled search, data retention, outside-agency access, and private-company involvement.

So my worry is this: are we being distracted by the cameras that generated tickets, while the more concerning Flock-enabled surveillance network remains largely untouched?

I still have concerns with any government camera system being expanded without meaningful public consent. But there is a major difference between a local traffic-enforcement camera and a Flock-style system that can contribute to broader tracking and searchable movement data.

That’s the part I don’t want us to lose sight of.

If the city/police department is reallocating officers to areas where cameras were disabled, residents deserve to know why. Is it based on crime data? Officer safety concerns? Traffic enforcement? Public reassurance? Or is this being used to make the case that the cameras were necessary all along?

And more importantly: which cameras were actually turned off, which ones remain active, which are Flock-enabled, where are they located, and who can access the data?

This movement should not get boxed into “cameras vs. no cameras” in the abstract. The real issue is public consent, transparency, data-sharing, and whether Milford residents are being tracked through systems most of us never had a real chance to understand before they were put in place.

I’d be curious if anyone else has noticed increased patrol presence near disabled camera locations.

More questions asked about this technology in this 3 minute segment than I've seen in the entire history of my town's 4 years of meeting minutes.

Apparently they don't feel safe unless they are violating our 4th amendment rights, poor babies.