Category: ordinances

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News ordinances

How We Blocked Flock In Cambridge

Cambridge and Somerville and Boston, as a result of prior work by Digital Fourth, ACLU of MA and others, have “surveillance oversight ordinances” that put procedural hurdles in the way of police adoption of surveillance technologies.

Under these ordinances, for something like Flock Safety, city agencies are legally obliged to disclose to City Council that they are intending to deploy any surveillance technology. They must explain what the technology is; what will happen to the data from it (collection, retention, sharing, destruction); and whether they believe it will have a differential impact on any group within the City. That report must be presented at a public hearing, and the City Council is empowered to say yes or no to the technology.

In the context of this ordinance in Cambridge, unfortunately, a lot depends on who chairs the Public Safety Committee, and how close they are to the cops. We made very little headway in blocking surveillance technologies from January 2023 through to the summer of 2024, because the chair of Public Safety, Paul Toner, was the most powerful Councilor and was very tight with the cops. He waved through anything they asked for. He was very reluctant to schedule separate public hearings for new technologies. In February 2025, therefore, he made sure that Flock would be approved, and the three City Councilors with genuine concerns (including DSA-endorsed Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler), weren’t able to prevail. We brought six people to give public testimony against it.

At the same time, we were fighting the City on a proposal to allow Cambridge PD to deploy drones. We worked closely with ACLU of MA, and Councilors were worried enough that Toner had to schedule a hearing. At the hearing, we focused on the fact that Cambridge PD hadn’t bothered to develop or disclose a policy on drone use, so whatever they were saying about how drones would or would not be used wasn’t binding. We recommended that Cambridge PD go and draft a policy, consult with us and with ACLU, and bring the policy back to City Council, whereupon City Council would consider whether the proposal to deploy drones was reasonable. Remarkably, City Council agreed, against Toner’s objections. It was a sign of things to come. Over a year later, Cambridge PD has not moved forward with that proposal.

In May through to June, things began to shift regarding Flock. Our national folks monitor surveillance, privacy and Fourth Amendment news very closely. The news broke that Flock had helped a Texas cop chase down a woman suspected of having an abortion. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, responding to that news, filed a policy order for reconsideration of the Flock deployment, backed up by Nolan and Siddiqui. Because we were monitoring the agendas for City meetings in general, we saw that the Pole and Conduit Commission was proposing to approve the actual installation of Flock equipment. We saw an opening, and mobilized to get the Pole and Conduit Commission to delay approval of actual installation till after City Council had considered Sobrinho-Wheeler’s policy order.

Flock had to disclose to that Commission the exact locations where they planned to put in the cameras. That gave our advocacy lots of ammunition. Bad news kept flooding in for Flock Safety, and we made sure City Councilors, the City Manager and the Pole and Conduit Commission members had that information. Then, on July 8, a scandal that had been circulating around City Hall for around a year broke, and Paul Toner announced his future resignation, and was stripped of his committee chairmanships. Toner was replaced as chair of Public Safety by his vice-Chair Angie Wilson. She scheduled consideration of Sobrinho-Wheeler’s policy order for September. We organized speakers for that session. Toner still strenuously objected to revoking Flock’s contract, so it was agreed to suspend it, pending a review by the City Manager. We submitted for this hearing a thorough analysis of where the cameras were to be deployed, because Flock had had to disclose to the Pole and Conduit Commission exactly where they were planning to put them up; we made the argument that the ALPR cameras were heavily focused on East Cambridge in a way that would deeply and differentially affect the residents of public housing complexes in that area.

The review returned to the Council on December 9, and Wilson invited Gideon Epstein of ACLU of MA and Alex Marthews of Digital Fourth to provide expert testimony, like we had done in 2018-21 under Toner’s predecessor. Then, unexpectedly, at the start of the meeting, Cambridge PD and the City Manager’s office recommended revocation of the Flock contract. They had just found out that morning that Flock Safety was in breach of the contract terms. The City had suspended the contract and made very clear that no equipment was to be installed, but a Flock technician had gone ahead and reinstalled two cameras anyway. What with that, and our and ACLU’s expert testimony, and nine out of ten public testimonies being thoroughly opposed to Flock, the writing was finally on the wall. Public Safety Committee recommended revocation, and given the City Manager’s and the police’s posture, it was a given that the full Council would wave through the revocation.

The City Council still preserved, and the City Manager is even now trying to preserve, the underlying City approval for the use of ALPR in general, but now without a specific vendor in mind, and therefore without any specifics on where it would deploy or what the policies would be. The onus is now on the City/Cambridge PD to identify an ALPR vendor that won’t pose significant privacy issues.

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ordinances

Don’t Get Fooled Again: Boston Should Not Permit Systematic Police Surveillance of Social Media

On August 27, after a lot of work from Digital Fourth members, ACLU’s Kade Crockford, the Muslim Justice League’s Fatema Ahmad, and computer scientist Nasser Eledroos, Boston City Council formally voted to reject Boston PD’s second attempt in a dozen years to set up a permanent social media surveillance framework for the residents of Boston and surrounding communities. The technologies at issue were SourceFeed, SearchFeed and Chorus Intelligence Suite. Councilors Breadon, Louijeune, Mejia, Pepén, Weber and Worrell voted to reject the technology. Councilors Durkan, FitzGerald, Flynn, Murphy and Santana voted to accept it.

We’re setting out here the background on this issue, and what our volunteers have been doing on it. We’ve been around long enough in town to know that this isn’t BPD’s first effort to deploy this technology – and that the first effort failed spectacularly. In 2014 and 2015, BRIC, Boston PD’s DHS-funded intelligence arm, used Geofeedia social media surveillance with the aim of identifying potential Muslim terrorists. For years, BPD, through its intelligence arm BRIC, used keywords like “#MuslimLivesMatter” and “Ferguson” to collect the posts of local activists, leading to searches of completely innocent individuals, including Councilor Tito Jackson. They only abandoned it when the City Council found out. In fact, BPD has a long track record of suspicionless surveillance of activists like Veterans for Peace, Stop the Wars Coalition, Occupy Wall Street, Code Pink, Black and Muslim activists and now also, as we expected, pro-Palestinian protest groups, including those at local universities.

BPD claims to want to “identify pre-violent extremists”, but the police have no business surveilling such people’s communications. If they have probable cause that a particular individual is planning a crime, they can get a judge to approve a warrant for the person’s communications; they can even do it simply by asking the social media company, or by subpoenaing them. These kinds of social media surveillance software vendors are different. They surveil hundreds of networks at a time and millions of people’s communications, using AI to flag whatever they define as anomalous. When BRIC gathers records on individuals for whom there is no reasonable suspicion of their involvement in a crime, that violates the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “unreasonable searches and seizures”, as well as the federal privacy regulation, 28 CFR Part 23.20, that is supposed to prevent BRIC from doing this kind of thing.

On August 11, our volunteer co-chair Julie participated as an invited expert on a panel at a Committee hearing, where she described various surveillance technologies of concern that are used by the Boston Police Department (BPD) and BRIC without any warrant based on particularized suspicion. She discussed how an executive order is demanding that the federal government eliminate the data silos mandated by the National Data Privacy Act of 1974, to merge state databases into a master database being created by Palantir, a company notorious for its dystopian surveillance and highlighted how DHS has forced universities to share data on its students. Julie drove home the threat of searches and seizures based on expression of  opinions that contradict current policies of the United States in social media or in the press, giving examples of students apprehended by ICE, including Rümeysa Oztürk of Tufts University. 

Also testifying at this hearing was our member Fiona from Smith College. She described the danger posed by the pilot contract that BPD has with the ALPR company, Flock. Fiona discussed how the national database of license plates captured countrywide was used by a Texas sheriff to track a woman seeking an out-of-state abortion and the fact that the Flock database has been accessed by the federal government. As a member of Smith Students for Reproductive Justice, Fiona said that she saw privacy protection as paramount in ensuring reproductive autonomy. She emphasized that access by other states and the federal government to databases generated by surveillance technology used by the BPD also threatens the freedom of political activists, protesters and immigrants.

On August 12, Julie was also a panel expert at a Committee hearing dedicated to discussing the three social media surveillance tools, SourceFeed, SearchFeed and Chorus Intelligence Suite. Back in October 2024, BPD decided to use an “exigent circumstances” exception in the Surveillance Oversight Ordinance, to adopt social media surveillance without either notifying the Boston City Council or submitting an impact report within the 30-day time frame required by the Surveillance Ordinance. SourceFeed and SiteFeed are especially intrusive because they involve chat surveillance on a number of platforms. If our DHS-funded regional systems flag people without reasonable suspicion as “pre-violent extremists”, she argued, the federal government’s elimination of data silos could easily give them those locally collected leads. Julie emphasized that the DOD’s use of social media surveillance failed to notice Jack Teixeira as he was leaking classified information on Discord and that in 2022, the BPD did not even show up when notified about a demonstration by the Patriot Front, a known violent group in Boston, and a Black man filming the event was attacked. The plain fact is that, as we’ve been observing for a dozen years, trying to detect terrorist attacks in advance on social media doesn’t work. The signal-to-noise ratio is impossible to get around, no matter what AI-driven tools you deploy. The best such systems can offer is easier access after an attack to the social media accounts of an already-known attacker – but that means that by definition, the collection wouldn’t be under “exigent” circumstances intended to prevent immediate loss of life and limb.

One Digital Fourth member, who is a graduate student at Boston University, gave powerful testimony at a second hearing on Social Media Surveillance on August 19, saying that in the past the BPD has surveilled political groups and that she feared that social media surveillance would target our most vulnerable residents including immigrants and activists and homeless people whose posts would be screened to look for mental illness. Our member recalled the conversations that she has had with fellow Boston University students. Domestic students are fearful that exposure of their political affiliations could lead to them being denied opportunities. Foreign students are afraid that surveillance of their social media could lead to the revocation of their visas. Even staying wholly off social media doesn’t protect you. She said that this fear leads to censorship and that Boston’s tradition of free speech must be protected, especially as the federal government targets people for their opinions. At the end of the hearing, Julie told the committee that they had to reject the use of these technologies by BPD. She reminded the Committee that BPD had responded to a social media post made by the Muslim Justice League to its members encouraging their attendance at a City Council meeting by sending a massive police presence to the meeting, where they blocked entrances and behaved as though there was a threat when there was no evidence of one. Since the Committee has no way to enact guardrails to protect the public from abuses, this surveillance needs to be ended.

When the City Council discussed the matter on August 27, one of their main objections was procedural. BPD had so little respect for the Surveillance Oversight Ordinance that they didn’t follow it. They justified the “exigent” adoption of social media surveillance tools because of the pending federal elections, but the Ordinance requires that after thirty days, they either cease to use the tool, bring it to City Council, or apply to the Mayor for a temporary extension that also would be notified to City Council. Instead, it was July 2025 before they notified the City Council of their ongoing social media surveillance program. If BPD can’t respect the process of approval of the technology, how can Boston area residents trust that they can run the actual surveillance in a responsible and rights-respecting way?

When the Ordinance was negotiated, it contained flaws that stack the deck in favor of police continuing their use of surveillance technologies. It should be the case that, the City Council having now voted the technology down (again), BPD would not be allowed to use it. Instead, their use of it has been delayed, and more work is needed to stop it. The Ordinance says:

“If the City Council does not approve the use of the proposed new surveillance capabilities, the request shall be sent to the Surveillance Oversight Advisory Board who will make recommendations to the Mayor. Subsequent to receiving the recommendations from the Surveillance Oversight Advisory Board, the Mayor may at their discretion resubmit a modified request to the City Council for approval.”

This is the first time this procedure will be used.

The Surveillance Oversight Advisory Board is a five-member body consisting of a City Councilor chosen by the City Council President (currently Ruthzee Louijeune, who voted against this technology); a representative of the MA ACLU (currently Chris Conley); a representative of the Boston Police Commissioner (currently Teresa Anderson); and two representatives chosen by the Mayor, including at least one academic expert (currently Ân H. Lê and Hilary Robinson).

In the event the Mayor chooses to resubmit a modified request to the City Council, the same process would apply again, where the Council would have 60 days to conduct a review and take a vote on whether to approve the request. So, our next task as advocates is to work to ensure that the Advisory Board’s recommendation on this technology is negative.

We have managed fine since 2016 without Boston PD contracting with a third party vendor to surveil our social media. We are blessed with historically low crime rates. The only threat Boston’s elected officials should be worrying about is what our local police and the federal government will do with this data if BPD collects it.

Categories
Mission News ordinances shotspotter

Cambridge Debates “ShotSpotter” Audio Monitoring

Banner saying "ShotSpotter Surveillance: Understand It's Not Safety!!

The following is a letter from Stephanie Guirand of The Black Response, a community group of current and former public housing residents concerned with racial justice, police abolition, and surveillance technologies. TBR has developed some good data visualizations of Cambridge’s ShotSpotter deployment here.

Dear Cambridge City Councilors,

I am writing on behalf of The Black Response and the Stop ShotSpotter Coalition – Camberville to thank you for convening a thoughtful and deeply informative Public Safety Committee hearing on ShotSpotter on Monday. We are especially appreciative of Councilor Ayesha Wilson for her skillful facilitation and for managing a logistically complex session with care and focus. We also thank Councilors McGovern, Siddiqui, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Toner, and Zusy for their presence and engagement, as well as Police Commissioner Elow and her colleagues for taking this issue seriously and participating in good faith.

We can all agree that we are in a fight to preserve democracy nationally. At Monday’s hearing, we saw democracy in action. The public, councilors, CPD, researchers, legal experts, and community organizations engaged in meaningful dialogue on a highly consequential issue, ShotSpotter. While we appreciate the opportunity to be heard, several critical concerns raised during the hearing merit follow-up.

ShotSpotter is Always-On and Recording, and Other Privacy Concerns

One of the clearest takeaways from the expert testimony, especially from Professors Spencer Piston and Robert Maher, is that ShotSpotter is a network of microphones that are always on. Regardless of whether audio is stored for 24 or 72 hours, the reality is that these microphones are continuously listening and recording. Whether or not street-level conversation triggers a sensor to send local law enforcement doesn’t matter, the microphones are always listening. Professor Maher affirmed, and Professor Piston supported with legal precedent, that these microphones are capable of picking up and transmitting street-level conversations.

This raises a fundamental difference from personal recording devices (e.g., Smartphones, Alexa), which people knowingly use and control in everyday life. The vast majority of Cambridge residents are unaware of the ShotSpotter microphones. They do not know that they may be recorded while speaking outside or near these microphones. That lack of informed consent raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns.

The Overstated Utility of ShotSpotter for Law Enforcement

During the hearing, we repeatedly heard from councilors, the police, SoundThinking representatives, and the District Attorney that ShotSpotter is “just one tool among many” used to address gun crime in the city. Police Commissioner Elow opened her remarks by assuring the public that “no one has been arrested solely on the basis of ShotSpotter” (or something to that effect). However, this reassurance raises important questions about the actual utility of the ShotSpotter microphones.

Interpretations of current research (see Carr et al) suggest the presence of ShotSpotter may actually discourage members of the public from calling 911, undermining one of the most direct and community-driven tools for emergency response and investigation.

The data presented by the Cambridge Police Department did not demonstrate a clear or urgent need for ShotSpotter’s microphone technology. Despite the privacy concerns it raises, the numbers failed to show a meaningful impact on reducing gun violence or increasing arrest or conviction rates for gun-related offenses.

Additionally, attorney Connie Tran provided important clarification during the hearing. She debunked a misleading description of a case in which she represented a client who was falsely accused, and ultimately cleared, of gun charges that had originated from a ShotSpotter alert. Tran also noted that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has raised concerns about the scientific reliability of ShotSpotter and is now requiring courts to evaluate the soundness of ShotSpotter in relevant cases.

If ShotSpotter does not meaningfully reduce gun violence, does not lead to arrests or convictions, and is increasingly under judicial scrutiny for its lack of scientific reliability, we are left wondering: What is its true utility in Cambridge?

Potential Infringement on Civil Liberties of Cambridge Residents

One of the most striking themes to emerge during the hearing, and repeated during public comment, was the tension between the public’s right to privacy and the City’s use of ShotSpotter. At its core, this is more than a debate about a surveillance tool. It is a question of what we value as a community. Should residents be asked to give up their right to privacy in exchange for a law enforcement tool that has demonstrated limited effectiveness?

As experts explained during the hearing, ShotSpotter relies on microphones that are always on and continuously listening. While SoundThinking claims that recordings are only retained for 24 hours (previously 72 hours), the fact remains that these devices are always active in public spaces. Again, most people do not realize that their conversations on the street could be recorded without their knowledge or consent.

The benefits presented by law enforcement were modest at best. In eleven years, ShotSpotter was credited with saving one life in Cambridge. It was unclear whether that incident was also reported through a 911 call. In another instance, there was a confirmed gun incident without a 911 report. It is still not clear if these are two separate cases or the same one. Even if they are different, the impact of ShotSpotter over a decade appears limited.

Despite this, law enforcement and the District Attorney argued that ShotSpotter is a valuable tool beyond its intended function, to identify audio of gun incidents and alert law enforcement to the location of the gun incident. They described instances in which alerts led to broader investigations. For example, in a case discussed at the hearing, a ShotSpotter alert ultimately resulted in a conviction for a restraining order violation, but the person was acquitted of all gun-related charges. This was attorney Connie Tran’s case. While public safety is of course important, using ShotSpotter to extend the reach of investigations raises serious concerns. This pattern suggests that the tool is being used in ways not originally intended, scientifically investigated, or publicly debated.

Professor Spencer Piston raised a similar issue when discussing a class-action lawsuit in Chicago (William v City of Chicago). In that case, plaintiffs argue that ShotSpotter has led to increased policing, stop and frisk, in Black and Brown neighborhoods. They claim that the technology results in over-surveillance and unnecessary police encounters, often unrelated to gun violence. This pattern of overreach is at the heart of their legal challenge.

If local authorities are already stretching the use of ShotSpotter, there is reason to question whether the company itself, or its funders, might also be doing so. In this case, ShotSpotter is funded not by the City of Cambridge, but by the Department of Homeland Security. That funding relationship, between SoundThinking and the Department of Homeland Security, calls into question who truly controls the ShotSpotter technology (and the data it produces) in Cambridge. If the federal government is the real client, what assurances does the City of Cambridge have about how the data is being used or shared?

Without a clear and publicly available contract, it is difficult to verify what protections exist. The City of Cambridge cannot simply rely on verbal assurances from the SoundThinking salesman, or as a Cambridge police officer referred to him, “their colleague.” As attorney Connie Tran points out, the SoundThinking representative during the trial was under oath, and it was there that more information about the function of ShotSpotter was revealed. There must be enforceable limits, transparency, and oversight. The presence of always-on microphones in public spaces, especially without widespread awareness or consent, raises fundamental questions about civil liberties. If the benefits are so limited, is the trade-off worth it?

Cambridge must ask whether this is a reasonable and responsible use of public space and public trust to continue to use ShotSpotter microphones. If not, then it is time to reconsider whether ShotSpotter belongs in our city at all.

Lack of Contract Oversight

We were deeply alarmed to learn during the hearing that the City Solicitor has not yet seen or reviewed the contract that governs the relationship between the City of Cambridge and SoundThinking. The City has a duty to ensure that its agreements, particularly those involving surveillance technologies, are transparent, legally sound, and in compliance with Cambridge’s Surveillance Technology Ordinance.

We strongly urge the Council to:

  • Immediately obtain the full contract with SoundThinking,
  • Make the document publicly accessible, and
  • Schedule a follow-up hearing focused specifically on the contract and its legal implications.

Federal Influence and Sanctuary City Values

Although SoundThinking’s sales representative, Alfred Lewers, claimed that Cambridge data is only shared with the City of Cambridge, the fact that the Department of Homeland Security funds the ShotSpotter system casts serious doubt on that assurance, especially given SoundThinking’s unrestricted ability to share data as established in their contracts (see available contract with Boston). It appears that DHS, not the City, is the true client. We understand this because the City does not appear to even have the contract between the City and SoundThinking. This suggests that SoundThinking has no obligation to uphold Cambridge’s Sanctuary City protections, and the public has no way of verifying who else may access these recordings or how the data is ultimately used.

This raises an important question: if, under the current federal administration, our Sanctuary City status limits federal funding for social programs, why is DHS funding a surveillance system in our city and why is the City of Cambridge working to set it up for them? What does that say about the federal government’s priorities—and about our own?

Lack of Transparency on Device Locations

SoundThinking’s explanation for why device locations are withheld from the public was underwhelming at best. Fortunately, our coalition obtained a leaked list of ShotSpotter microphone locations, which we have since verified by physically visiting the sites. These microphones are disproportionately located on top of public buildings, including public housing and section 8 buildings, confirming that marginalized communities are bearing the brunt of this audio surveillance (see our map).

At the hearing, SoundThinking introduced a paid “dashboard” service that visualizes ShotSpotter data. We see no justification for Cambridge to spend any taxpayer dollars on this, especially when a free and equally effective alternative already exists. In preparation for the hearing, The Black Response developed a publicly accessible dashboard using data from Cambridge’s Bridgestats reports. We offer our dashboard to the city for free (The Black Response’s ShotSpotter data dashboard). If the city does not trust our dashboard, why not contract out this work to other local community organizations or universities in the City?

Incomplete Participation and Need for Follow-Up

Due to time constraints, two of our expert panelists, Jonathan Manes from the MacArthur Justice Center and Abdul Nasser Rad, a quantitative researcher from Campaign Zero, were not able to share their insights during the hearing. In addition, at least a dozen residents who signed up for public comment were not called upon.

We believe a follow-up session is necessary to allow for these important voices to be heard and for unanswered questions to be addressed. We would be more than willing to help coordinate that effort in partnership with the City.

A Call for a Temporary Freeze

We also want to echo the concern raised by Councilor Zusy: perhaps it is time to consider a (temporary) freeze on the use of ShotSpotter in Cambridge. This would be a prudent and responsible step while the City investigates the legal, ethical, and operational implications of ShotSpotter microphones. In an era where federal law enforcement agencies have demonstrated increasing disregard for legal norms and human rights, we cannot afford to take these risks lightly, especially in communities that are already vulnerable.

Thank you again for your leadership and for demonstrating what democratic governance should look like: accessible, informed, transparent, and responsive. We look forward to continuing this vital conversation and working with the City to ensure public safety strategies are both effective and equitable.

In community,

Stephanie Guirand
The Black Response
On behalf of the Stop ShotSpotter Coalition – Camberville

Categories
immigration Mission ordinances

Our New “ICE Agent Identification Ordinance”

There is a (mostly) new trend in ICE raids, where ICE agents show up masked, and refuse to identify themselves, either to the public or local police. There is also a new trend of people impersonating ICE agents, because they find it gives them license to harass members of the public, abduct and sexually assault them, or even spring them from jail. When purported ICE agents show up and refuse to identify, like they did in Chelsea, MA on May 11, 2025, it causes fear among the public and confusion among police officers. Is the person in front of them an ICE agent or not? Does the officer even have the power to try to find out?

To address this problem, Digital Fourth has developed “ICE Agent Identification Ordinance” text for Massachusetts cities (this example is tailored for Cambridge), and is working with City Councilmembers in Cambridge, Boston and Amherst (so far) to get such ordinances passed.

Technical note: The key trouble folks have had in figuring out what to do with unidentified people purporting to be ICE agents, is that federal law doesn’t in fact require federal law enforcement or immigration officers to identify themselves (though DHS regulations do). Local laws don’t supersede federal law, so a local ordinance can’t require actual ICE agents to identify themselves. But, we realized, local laws can require local police to ask, not require, purported ICE agents to identify themselves to local police. Then, if the purported ICE agent refuses to do so, local laws can also require local police to treat the purported ICE agent as they would an ordinary member of the public. If the purported ICE agent does identify themselves successfully, however, local police don’t have the power to “forcibly impede or oppose” them in their conduct of a raid.

Digital Fourth was instrumental in passing surveillance technology oversight ordinances and facial recognition bans in Cambridge, Somerville and Boston in 2017-22. This draft language has been through attorney review. To request text adapted to your Massachusetts city, click here.

UPDATE: C. Scott Ananian in the Town of Brookline has alerted us to the excellent By-Law he helped Brookline pass on the issue of ICE raids in December 2024. Town officials may wish to use this, as an example of language that has already passed Town processes.