08/31/2025
Thoughts?
Comment on the original post so it's easier for the Councilman to see please..
Update: On September 9, 2025, the Liberty City Council voted 6โ1 to approve funding for Flock camera deployment around the city.
โ
Voting Yes: John Hebert, Jr. (Mayor), Bruce Bell, Nick Dennis, Debbie Dugger, Ed Seymour, Ross Ward
โ Voting No: Tommy Brents (Mayor Pro Tem)
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๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ถ๐๐ฎ๐ฐ๐
Liberty is making meaningful progress. With passionate leadership from our elected officials and dedicated city staff, our local government is working diligently to address longstanding challenges and lay a stronger foundation for the future. We are tackling critical infrastructure needs, streamlining city operations, and fostering a more responsive culture both inside and outside city hall. This includes positive changes in public safety, where the Liberty Police Department is building trust and serving our community with renewed professionalism. As a council member, I'm encouraged by the positive changes taking place and grateful to work alongside colleagues who are truly committed to moving Liberty forward.
It's precisely because we're making this progressโand because I have respect for my fellow elected officials and city staff, specifically our police departmentโthat I want to address an upcoming decision with the care, deliberation, and transparency it deserves.
๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ถ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ฒ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐จ๐
On September 9th, as part of our budget approval process, the Liberty City Council will decide whether to fund automated license plate reader cameras throughout our city. The proposal calls for eight cameras at city entrances and exits, plus one at a major intersectionโa system designed to log nearly every vehicle entering or leaving Liberty. The cost: $35,450 in year one, then approximately $27,000 annually thereafter. These cameras compete for contingency funds against other city priorities.
While supporters frame this as a public safety tool, the implications run deeper than budget line items or crime statistics. We're choosing whether Liberty will remain true to the Texas spirit of independence and limited government that set us apart.
The proposed placement reveals the system's true scope. By positioning cameras on all major entry and exit points, the proposal would create citywide perimeter surveillance. Furthermore, internal placement along Main St. extend monitoring beyond "who comes and goes" to tracking intra-city movement through our community's busiest corridor.
๐ช๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ช๐ฒ'๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ ๐๐๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด
The technology itself has evolved far beyond the simple license plate readers of a decade ago. Modern automated license plate readers use "Vehicle Fingerprint" technology to capture make, model, color, and distinguishing features including bumper stickers, decals, roof racks, dents, and temporary plates. High-resolution images reveal drivers, passengers, and surroundingsโincluding people entering and exiting vehicles.
The leading provider of these cameras is Flock Safety, a $7.5 billion surveillance company operating over 40,000 cameras across 49 states, performing over 20 billion vehicle scans monthly. This fall, Flock plans to transform its cameras into full surveillance systems capable of live streaming and capturing video clips. Police will be able to access feeds from multiple nearby cameras during 911 calls. The company's new "Nova" platform combines vehicle tracking with police databases, creating profiles that include criminal history and mental health records.
Your political bumper stickers, church parking decals, gun rights logosโany personal expression on a vehicleโbecomes part of a permanent, searchable record tied to your movements. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-partisan civil liberties organization, warns that these "vehicle fingerprints" could flag vehicles based on political bumper stickers, revealing drivers' political or social views.
๐ค๐๐ฒ๐๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ ๐๐ณ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ป๐ฒ๐๐ ๐๐น๐ฎ๐ถ๐บ๐
The effectiveness claims supporting these systems deserve scrutiny. In 2024, Forbes journalist Cyrus Farivar investigated Flock Safety's claim of an 80% reduction in residential burglaries in San Marino, California, finding that burglaries had actually increased and serious crimes remained unchanged. Similar statistical discrepancies appeared in Flock's claims about other cities.
The most comprehensive independent study examined Atlantic City, New Jersey, which installed ALPRs on every entrance and exitโsimilar to Liberty's proposed configuration. The peer-reviewed research concluded that "the available evaluative research has not found much support that the technology improves effectiveness in the form of reduced crime." While the system showed associations with some property crime reductions, "the ALPR expansion did not reduce violent crime," and researchers noted difficulty ruling out other contributing factors.
Independent criminology experts have criticized Flock's research methodology. Notably, TCU's Johnny Nhan, one of the researchers involved in Flock's own studies, stated publicly that he would have handled things differently had he known "how Flock was abusing his research and preventing him from finding facts that didn't support Flock's marketing narrative."
Previous rigorous evaluations in Mesa, AZ, Alexandria, VA, and Baton Rouge, LA, found no significant crime reduction from ALPR deployment. The pattern suggests these systems potentially help solve crimes after they occur but don't prevent crimeโundermining the primary justification for comprehensive surveillance of law-abiding citizens.
๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐๐ถ๐๐๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป๐ฎ๐น ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ป๐
Constitutional concerns extend beyond effectiveness. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against "unreasonable searches and seizures." For decades, courts held that driving on public roads carried no privacy expectation, but modern technology has transformed the legal landscape.
Recent Supreme Court decisions point toward new protections. In 'United States v. Jones' (2012), the Court ruled that long-term GPS tracking constitutes a search requiring a warrant. In 'Carpenter v. United States' (2018), Chief Justice Roberts wrote that comprehensive location data reveals "the privacies of life" and requires judicial oversight.
These precedents suggest a principle: the government cannot circumvent constitutional protections by using technology to accomplish what would otherwise require a warrant. Being observed once differs fundamentally from being tracked everywhere, always. The aggregation of data changes the constitutional analysis.
๐๐ฑ๐ฑ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐๐๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ผ๐บ๐บ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ฒ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ป๐๐ฒ๐
Supporters of ALPR cameras often argue that "license plates on public roads aren't private," comparing ALPRs to "an officer standing at an intersection." This misses a crucial distinction: a single officer occasionally noting plates differs fundamentally from permanent, automated, citywide collection operating around the clock. Scale and permanence transform what might be "reasonable" into comprehensive surveillance.
It's reasonable to think, "if you have nothing to hide, you nothing to fear", but this argument undermines limited government principles. Constitutional rights protect all law-abiding citizens' freedom to move about their community without government monitoring, not just those with secrets to conceal.
Some ALPR defenders claim the cameras only cover "high-traffic areas, not neighborhoods," but they create a meaningless distinction. These high-traffic areas include where Liberty residents work, worship, shop, and gather for civic activities. Since nearly all residents must cross monitored roadways for daily errands, the practical effect remains comprehensive surveillance of ordinary life.
Proponents point out that "every search is logged and auditable" with "valid case numbers" required. These sorts of safeguards are internal policies though, not enforceable constitutional protections. History demonstrates that internal safeguards rarely prevent mission creepโonce surveillance infrastructure exists, political pressure and expanded use inevitably follow.
๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐น-๐ช๐ผ๐ฟ๐น๐ฑ ๐ฅ๐ถ๐๐ธ๐
Recent cases demonstrate these risks. Officers in Kansas used Flock cameras hundreds of times to stalk ex-spouses. Federal agencies have conducted thousands of searches using local ALPR data for purposes far beyond what communities authorized. In a small town like Liberty, where license plates often identify individuals as clearly as faces, comprehensive tracking enables profiling based on where residents shop, worship, or gather.
The chilling effect on constitutional freedoms cannot be dismissed. Knowing every trip is logged may cause residents to avoid political meetings, religious services, or gun shows. Suggesting citizens take backroads to preserve privacy reverses the proper relationship between government and citizensโthe burden should fall on government to justify surveillance, not on residents to evade it.
ALPR vendors market the "network effect"โthe more cities participating, the more powerful the system becomes. For a Texas community valuing local control, this should raise concerns. Liberty's data wouldn't remain local. It would become immediately searchable by state and federal agencies, creating comprehensive tracking that no single community authorized.
This represents an inversion of constitutional principles. Rather than demonstrating individualized suspicion before investigating citizens, these systems create a universal investigative surveillance State, with a permanent databases of everyone's movements for potential future interest. Flock's model captures all passing vehicles continuouslyโnot just suspects, but every law-abiding citizen driving past cameras.
Federal agencies already access these networks. Our Liberty Police Department operates with high standards, but they cannot control how Austin or Washington uses shared dataโa reality concerning any Texan believing in local governance.
Consider recent scenarios. Emergency orders from distant capitals restricted movement, assembly, or worship. With comprehensive vehicle tracking, authorities could identify which Texans attended religious services during lockdowns by scanning for church parking decals, traveled to political rallies through bumper stickers, or frequented gun stores by tracking Second Amendment emblems.
The chilling effect extends beyond tracking to behavior modification. Knowing movements are logged may cause residents to avoid political meetings, religious services, or gun showsโundermining freedoms that make Liberty worth protecting.
๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ป๐ด๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ ๐ฃ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐ป๐
Once surveillance infrastructure exists, expansion becomes inevitable. Supporters might claim that "future expansion would require official approval" and promise local limits. But Council votes don't erase precedentโonce surveillance is normalized, resisting expansion becomes politically harder. Today's safeguards become tomorrow's baselines. Surveillance infrastructure rarely contracts, only grows.
Future councils may face different pressures, federal grants encouraging expansion, or public demands for "doing something" about crime. The capability for comprehensive surveillance, once built, finds new justifications for broader use, perhaps even inside neighborhoods. Surveillance certainly sounds very promising from a public safety perspective.
Remember that red-light cameras carried similar promises of safety and oversight. However, Texans rejected them overwhelmingly, and our Legislature banned their use statewide. Communities across Texas wasted taxpayer money on systems later dismantled when citizens demanded accountability. But this decision isn't merely about stewardship of tax dollars.
๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ต๐ผ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐จ๐
Liberty faces a choice between two visions of community. One normalizes permanent government surveillance as infrastructure, accepting comprehensive monitoring of law-abiding citizens' daily movements. The other maintains the balance between security and freedom defining both American democracy and Texas independence.
Even private security cameras require voluntary cooperation with law enforcement through warrants or permission. Citizens retain choice. ALPR networks operate differentlyโautomatically capturing comprehensive vehicle data, including visible political and religious expressions, without consent and making it available by default to agencies nationwide.
The specific placement strategy creates a dragnet system surveilling our entire community's movements, transforming government's relationship with citizens from individualized suspicion to permanent monitoring. Supporters frame this as "just another police tool," but scale, permanence, and automation distinguish it from traditional policing. What matters isn't stated intent but capability: once comprehensive movement records exist, their use is limited only by shifting policies, politics, and future crises.
In my opinion, our Liberty Police Department has earned our trust under the leadership of Chief Ashe and his team. The department is strengthening its reputation through professional service and community engagement. Our officers work diligently to keep Liberty safe while treating all citizens respectfully. This discussion isn't about questioning local law enforcement capabilitiesโit's about systemic implications of surveillance technology extending far beyond local control and usefulness.
I want to be clear that the question isn't whether Liberty PD can be trusted with this data; it's whether we should create permanent records of citizens' political and religious expressions accessible to agencies across the nation. If we normalize comprehensive surveillance of innocent citizens, we betray the spirit of self-governance that Texans have always prized.
On September 9th, your Liberty City Council will decide our priorities. Citizens should weigh not just immediate potential benefits but lasting likely consequences. The Fourth Amendment promises security against unreasonable searches. Our duty as earthbound elected officials is to ensure that promise survives the digital age.
Protecting Liberty must mean protecting privacyโand honoring the Texas tradition of keeping government power in check. Both public safety and individual freedom require our vigilance.
