Speak at a newport city council meeting

Make your voice heard by your representatives by speaking up about Flock cameras and advocate for the end of unwarranted surveillance in Newport.

HERE'S HOW:

Newport City Council meetings are held on the second and fourht Wednesday of every month, and begin at 6:30pm.
Meetings are held at City Hall, on the second floor City Council Chambers and are open to the public.
Before every meeting there is a Citizen's Forum, and during that forum councilors listen to public comments.
Comments must be kept to 3 minutes or less.
In order to speak during the citizen's forum you must sign up for it by contacting the city clerk's office at: 401-845-5429.

talking points and tips for making your voice heard:

Every driver gets recorded, guilty or not. That's not policing, that's a dragnet
This data maps your life: your doctor, your church, your protests, who you love
No resident can opt out of being tracked on their own streets
The Fourth Amendment used to mean a warrant was required for this. Not anymore.

The "10% of crime solved" statistic comes from the company selling the cameras, not independent research
Most scans never hit a "hot list." This system mostly tracks innocent people, not criminals
If it doesn't reduce crime, it's not a safety investment, it's a surveillance expense

Based on Newport Police Department's own public Flock transparency portal, out-of-state agencies can search Newport's ALPR data.
Nobody can promise this data stays local once it's in a national network, and nobody is looking over the shoulder of Flock to make sure it does. There is no public or private oversight
A transparency portal run by the vendor is not oversight, it's marketing

Other cities made the same "we won't share with ICE" promise, and shared anyway
National government agencies, such as ICE, can just subpoena the data if the city doesn't want to share it

This same technology has already been used to hunt down someone for getting an abortion
Legal here doesn't mean safe, if another state's police can search our cameras - which they can!

City after city, ALPR stops fall hardest on Black and Latino drivers
If the city won't track and publish that data, it can't claim this is being used fairly

People have been pulled from their cars at gunpoint over a misread plate from Flock cameras
One wrongful stop can cost a life or a lawsuit and this technology guarantees more of them

This company has already leaked login credentials and camera data to Russia of all places!
A surveillance network is only as secure as its weakest password
If it gets hacked, it's Newport residents' privacy on the line not the vendor's

This contract isn't cheap, and the price goes up every renewal
That money could fund violence interruption, mental health response, safer streets instead it funds cameras pointed at all of us, even those not accused or suspected of a crime.

Residents were never meaningfully asked before this contract was signed
A decision this invasive deserves a real public vote, at the very least public comment, not a quiet renewal
Other cities have canceled these contracts. This council can too

Speak to a specific route you drive every day that's now tracked
Speak as a parent, immigrant, or protester who feels the chill of being watched
Speak about how it makes you feel to have your movements logged and searchable every time you run out to Shaw's

Close strong: "I'm asking this council to cancel this contract" lands harder than any question ever could.