BROOKINGS (8-27-26) — This week, a group of local residents petitioned the Brookings City Council to reconsider its use of flock cameras.
The cameras — sometimes called automated license plate readers — are AI-powered cameras that conduct round the clock mass surveillance. Like many other communities across the nation, Brookings does employ flock cameras for police department usage.
Aurora resident Craig Jorgensen has a degree in computer science and experience as a cybersecurity specialist. He told the council too many people have easy access to flock camera data… “Searching or creating alerts in the system does not require a warrant or an ongoing investigation to be performed. The database is also searchable by any organizations that the leasing organization chooses to share the data with. To date, Brookings Police Department has not disclosed what agencies they share that data with. The value of a system like this is that vehicles can be flagged and alerted to law enforcement for quick responses. One cost the system comes at is it cannot know criminal from innocent traffic until the data is already captured.”
Aurora resident Robert Herb said he and others have not consented to this type of mass surveillance… “Actually you’re not asking us; you’re telling us that if we want to live, and work, and shop in Brookings that we must hand over a detailed list of everywhere that we have been in the city of Brookings every day that we come here. To me that does not sound like a safe city to be in. That does not sound like a city that I want to shop in. I don’t want to come here to work because I don’t want to be tracked.”
Brookings resident Andrew Konechne said he’s not angry at the city council but does hope they’ll reconsider using flock cameras… “We believe that you want what we want —and that’s what’s best for Brookings. When you approved what was presented to you as a simple budget line item, you made the best decision you could with the very limited information that you had and promises that have proved to be false. So if you hear anger in my voice tonight, I’m not angry at any of you. I’m angry on your behalf.”
The Brookings City Council asked Police Chief Michael Drake to make a presentation on the city’s use of flock cameras at the council’s September 22nd meeting.
— Brookings Radio News
