Delete WardMaking a Public Comment
Council welcomes public comment before regular council meetings. Fill out the online form below for your chance to make a public comment at the next regular Monday Council meeting. Please read the revised rules and procedures.
Registrations can also be submitted:
* In person at Cleveland City Hall, Room 220, 601 Lakeside Ave. NE. Paper forms are available to register.
* If you don't want to fill out the online form below, you can download this form and fill it out, and email it to publiccomment@clevelandcitycouncil.gov or drop it off at Council offices. (Parking at City Hall on the upper lot is free on Mondays after 5 pm when Council is meeting.) If you need assistance, language, or disability, go here to make a request (at least 3 days in advance.)
Make a Comment in Person
Registrations to speak up to 3 minutes at a regular council meeting can be submitted between noon Wednesday and 2 pm on the Monday before a regular 7 pm council meeting. (Early, incomplete and false registrations are not accepted.) Only the first 10 are accepted.
Make a Comment Online
If you don't want to speak at a Council meeting, please submit your written comments below.
Public Comments
Filter By
Mr. Garrett Langley
Chief Executive Officer
Flock Group, Inc.
1170 Howell Mill Road NW, Suite 210
Atlanta, GA, 30318
Dear Mr. Langley
On July 25, 2025, I announced that Flock had agreed to implement additional privacy protections
for Oregonians to prevent abuses by federal and out-of-state agencies related to abortion and
immigration enforcement. At the urging of concerned constituents, I conducted further oversight
and have determined that Flock cannot live up to its commitment to protect the privacy and security
of Oregonians. Abuse of Flock cameras is inevitable, and Flock has made it clear it takes no
responsibility to prevent or detect that. For that reason, I must now recommend that communities
that have installed Flock cameras reevaluate that decision.
Flock operates the largest network of surveillance cameras in the United States, reportedly
contracting with more than 5,000 police departments, 1,000 businesses, and numerous homeowners
associations across 49 states. When a vehicle passes by a Flock camera, Flock records license plate
information, vehicle characteristics, and when and where the vehicle was spotted. Flock’s network
of surveillance cameras generate and store billions of vehicle scans each month. Flock reportedly
then enables law enforcement to search not just by plate number, but also by make, model, or even
bumper stickers.
Flock has been the subject of significant press attention, community activism and oversight by
federal and state officials, because of a number of incidents in which law enforcement agencies
accessed Flock-collected data in connection with immigration enforcement and to enforce state laws
criminalizing abortion. Flock has not taken responsibility for the harms it has enabled, and has
instead attempted to spin the facts and shift the blame to others.
My office questioned Flock about these incidents, and sought detailed information about how, why
and with whom sensitive data is shared. Based on that research, it is my view that Flock has built a
dangerous platform in which abuse of surveillance data is almost certain. In particular, the company
has adopted a see-no-evil approach of not proactively auditing the searches done by its law
enforcement customers because, as the company’s Chief Communications Officer told the press, “it
is not Flock’s job to police the police.”
By default, data generated by Flock cameras can only be accessed by the customer that paid for the
cameras. But most Flock customers do not stay with this default. In August, Flock informed my
office that 75% of its law enforcement customers have enrolled in the “National Lookup Tool,”
which permits any other enrolled customer to search data collected through their cameras. There are
two likely reasons for the high enrollment rate for such data sharing. First, Flock only permits
agencies to access this search tool if those agencies also share data from their own cameras. Second,
to address concerns that license plate data might be abused by federal immigration authorities,
Flock has assured its state and local law enforcement customers that the company does not provide
access to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
With this representation about DHS access to Flock data, Flock deceived its law enforcement
customers. In August, 9 News in Denver revealed that Flock granted U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) access to its systems, enabling the agency to search data collected by Flock’s
cameras, including using the National Lookup Tool. Officials from Flock subsequently confirmed
to my office in September that the company provided access to CBP, Homeland Security
Investigations (HSI), the Secret Service, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service as part of a
pilot earlier this year. Flock told my office that during the pilot, which has now ended, CBP and
HSI conducted approximately 200 and 175 searches respectively. Flock also confirmed that it
misled its state and local law enforcement customers, telling my office that “due to internal
miscommunication, customers were inaccurately informed that Flock did not have any relationship
with DHS, while pilot programs with sub-agencies of DHS were briefly active.”
In addition to the direct access that Flock intentionally granted to federal agencies, activists and the
press have documented numerous instances of Flock searches run by or for federal agencies on
other customers’ accounts. In several cases, local law enforcement personnel shared their Flock
passwords with federal agents, who then used their access to conduct searches for immigration related purposes. In several other cases, local law enforcement ran searches at the request of federal
agents, again, for immigration-related purposes.
In response to these troubling press reports this summer, my office began conducting oversight into
Flock. After the first meeting with my staff, Flock committed to providing additional privacy
protections for Oregonians’ data. Specifically, Flock agreed to apply software filters to data
collected by cameras in Oregon that it had already enabled for data collected in Illinois, California,
Colorado, and Washington, which are supposed to prevent out-of-state police searches related to
abortion or immigration. However, subsequent oversight by my office revealed that these filters are
easy to circumvent and do not meaningfully protect the privacy of Oregonians.
Flock requires its law enforcement customers to provide a reason for a search, which by default,
they are prompted to enter into a text box into which any text can be entered. Flock has confirmed
to my office that it does not require its law enforcement users to enter a case-specific reason, nor
does Flock prohibit law enforcement customers from entering meaningless, generic reasons such as
“investigation” or “crime.” Data recently provided to my office by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation — from a dataset of 11.4 million Flock nationwide searches for a six-month period
obtained through a public records request — reveals that more than 14% of the search reasons
contained just the word “investigation” without a case number.
Flock customers can change their default settings to require that their own employees be presented
with a drop-down menu of predefined reasons; but importantly, Flock customers cannot control the
reasons provided for searches of their data by other law enforcement customers. Additionally, until
recently, Flock customers could enable a different opt-in setting to require a case number for
searches; if enabled, employees of those agencies would not be required to document any reason at
all when submitting searches of other agencies’ data. Flock confirmed to my office on August 19,
that it removed this option the day before, on August 18, shortly after receiving questions about it
from my office.
The privacy protection that Flock promised to Oregonians — that Flock software will automatically
examine the reason provided by law enforcement officers for terms indicating an abortion- or
immigration-related search — is meaningless when law enforcement officials provide generic
reasons like “investigation” or “crime.” Likewise, Flock’s filters are meaningless if no reason for a
search is provided in the first place. While the search reasons collected by Flock, obtained by press
and activists through open records requests, have occasionally revealed searches for immigration
and abortion enforcement, these are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Presumably, most officers
using Flock to hunt down immigrants and women who have received abortions are not going to type
that in as the reason for their search. And, regardless, given that Flock has washed its hands of any
obligation to audit its customers, Flock customers have no reason to trust a search reason provided
by another agency.
I now believe that abuses of your product are not only likely but inevitable, and that Flock is unable
and uninterested in preventing them. Cities around the country, including in Oregon, are currently
reevaluating their decision to install Flock cameras. I commend and support this reexamination. In
my view, local elected officials can best protect their constituents from the inevitable abuses of
Flock cameras by removing Flock from their communities.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter. If you have any questions about this letter,
please contact Chris Soghoian in my office."
I am concerned that the legislation being considered now is to be within the EMS department, which is already underfunded and staffed. It is also critical that peer support is are and that other non police provider programs are pulled into this single legislation for ease of use and effectiveness of response.
I urge you to vote to pass Tanisha's Law and create a crisis response team that will bring care and not violence. Please honor her legacy and her family's wishes to ensure Clevelanders are treated with the dignity that all people deserve.