Everett police arrest woman after stolen vehicle crashes into building
Officers were first alerted to the stolen vehicle around 10:30 a.m. through the city's Flock Safety license plate reader system, which flagged the vehicle in central Everett.
Police located the car shortly afterward and tried to stop it, but the driver did not pull over and sped away.
Officers did not initiate a pursuit.
The suspect ultimately crashed the vehicle into a business near the intersection of 42nd Street and Rucker Avenue.
She was taken into custody at the scene without further incident.
Police identified the driver as a woman in her 30s.
She was booked into the Snohomish County Jail on suspicion of attempting to elude police and possession of a stolen vehicle.
No injuries were reported.
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New York Post
11 hours ago
- New York Post
Big Brother is watching you — but this homeowner made him back down
Last month, Charlie Wolf attended a meeting of the Greers Ferry, Ark., city council to complain about a license-plate camera that he said was violating the Fourth Amendment by regularly taking pictures of his driveway and front yard. Greers Ferry Police Chief Kallen Lacy acknowledged Wolf's 'distress' but rejected his legal analysis, saying 'over 5,000 cities' across the country use such cameras, 'so there is no constitutional violation there.' Despite Lacy's assurance, the widespread acceptance of automated license-plate readers as a crime-fighting tool only magnifies the privacy concerns they raise. They enable routine surveillance of a sort that would have troubled the Fourth Amendment's framers. 'Unlike red-light cameras or speed cameras that are triggered by specific violations,' the Institute for Justice notes, ALPRs 'photograph every vehicle that drives by and can use artificial intelligence to create a profile with identifying information that then gets stored in a massive database. 'Once that happens, officials can search the database for any vehicle they wish, all without a warrant.' Worse, 'departments around the country are automatically sharing data with each other, making it simple for police anywhere to track drivers' movements. 'All of this arbitrary discretion threatens people's privacy, security and freedom of movement by creating an atmosphere where everyone knows they are being watched and tracked whenever they hit the road.' Wolf's experience crystallizes these concerns. As he noted at the city council meeting, the camera that was installed across the street from his house on May 13 was photographing 'our yard, curtilage and vehicles' whenever a car passed by. 'We're being photographed and entered into a database without consent or violation of any law,' Wolf said. The camera captured images of Wolf and his wife whenever they left their home or returned to it. The camera also documented the comings and goings of the Wolfs' visitors, including their friends, children and grandchildren. Depending on the vagaries of traffic, it might record trips to the mailbox, kids playing in the yard or anything else happening in front of the house. Local officials initially were unfazed by the Wolfs' complaints, insisting that the camera, one of five installed in the tiny town under a contract with the ALPR company Flock Safety, would stay where it was. But they reconsidered after receiving a letter from Institute for Justice attorney Joshua Windham, who explained why the couple's objections deserved more respect than they had received. In 2018, Windham noted, the Supreme Court held that the FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when it collected cellphone location data without a warrant supported by probable cause. That ruling, he explained, was based on the principle that the Fourth Amendment 'must preserve at least as much privacy as Americans would have enjoyed when it was adopted.' Back then, Windham observed, 'police lacked the means to create a historical record of people's physical movements' because 'they simply did not have the manpower or the technology to do so.' He noted that a federal judge in Iowa and two state supreme courts have recognized that 'the placement of a surveillance camera in front of a home,' like tracking someone's movements via cellphone data, 'may violate a reasonable privacy expectation.' Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters The morning after Windham sent that letter, Greers Ferry officials posted a defense of ALPRs that read like a Flock press release. But by the end of the month, they had agreed to remove the camera that was spying on the Wolfs. That small victory for privacy was followed a week later by another encouraging development: Scarsdale, NY, terminated its ALPR contract with Flock Safety after more than 400 residents signed a petition expressing concern about 'the broad and lasting implications of deploying such a surveillance system.' The official rationale for the town's decision was lack of funding. But the criticism provoked by the project suggests Americans are beginning to recognize the perils of surrendering their privacy in the name of public safety. Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine.
CBS News
24-07-2025
- CBS News
Berkeley closer to installing Flock surveillance cameras throughout the city
Berkeley could soon be getting at least 16 surveillance cameras installed throughout the city after the plan cleared another hurdle in a late-night Tuesday vote. In an 8-1 vote, city council approved the Surveillance Acquisition Report, which will let the Berkeley Police Department move forward with the contract work with Flock Safety and the implementation of the video cameras. The Flock cameras will capture live video but not audio, and will not have facial recognition, according to the report. Arlo Malmberg, the department's strategic planning and accountability manager, said that the cameras will not send any alerts to police, and Police Chief Jen Louis added that live video will not be monitored unless it is to confirm reports of an ongoing crime, such as an active shooter incident. The cameras will be in locations where there is pedestrian activity to avoid overlap with the city's automated license plate readers, the report states. While both the cameras and ALPRs are through Flock, the systems will not communicate or be integrated with each other, Malmberg said. According to the report, the cameras will be at the following locations. Other possible locations, if there is enough funding, include Ashby and Domingo avenues, Ashby and San Pablo avenues, Dwight and San Pablo avenues, and University and San Pablo avenues According to the report, video will be retained for 180 days. "It often will not become clear that the footage is necessary at all until later in the investigation," Malmberg said. "When the policy was originally approved by council, the discussion recognized that 30 days was not enough … A year felt too long, so we landed on 180 days as a middle ground." Louis said it would also address concerns that footage will still be there in cases of delayed reporting of crimes. Malmberg said that only authorized Police Department personnel will be able to access footage and only for approved uses. Approved uses include supporting specific and active criminal investigations, serious traffic-related investigations, police misconduct investigations and responding to and reviewing critical incidents or natural disasters. Other law enforcement agencies will not be able to directly access Berkeley's footage. Any requests for data will have to go through Berkeley Police, and anything relevant will then be downloaded and shared, Malmberg said. There will be a biannual audit of the surveillance system and the access log. Any time the data is accessed, it will be logged, along with a reason for the access. The city council still has to approve a contract with Flock. Berkeley had previously approved the surveillance program, but another report had to be presented as they decided to move forward with a different vendor and because of the different technology being used, according to the report.
Boston Globe
12-07-2025
- Boston Globe
‘Dragnet warrantless surveillance': Advocates raise concerns over license plate tracking database
'This is hugely concerning from a privacy and civil liberties perspective, particularly in communities that have some welcoming city or Trust Act law on the books that restricts information sharing pertaining to immigration,' said Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Advertisement In a statement, Flock Safety said that departments must opt-in to share any data from their cameras with the broader network. Departments can choose to keep their data to themselves, share with specific other agencies, set geographic limits, or contribute to a national database, Flock Safety chief executive Garrett Langley Advertisement 'Each city should lay out acceptable and unacceptable use cases for [the system], as determined by the laws and values of its jurisdiction,' Langley wrote. 'And law enforcement agencies should regularly conduct audits to ensure all users are complying with the letter and spirit of those policies.' The Flock Safety data was acquired by the ACLU of Massachusetts following a public records request and shared with the Globe. It shows that 88 police departments in Massachusetts requested information from it over the past 12 months. It is unclear how many of those departments have cameras that share data nationwide, and Flock Safety did not respond to a request for that information. Michael Bradley, executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, described automatic plate readers as a 'proven public safety tool' typically governed by departmental policies that restrict access to authorized personnel and limit data retention. 'They help locate stolen vehicles, identify vehicles associated with missing or endangered individuals, and support investigations involving violent crime, organized theft, and more,' Bradley wrote in an email. 'When properly used, ALPR systems allow law enforcement to act swiftly and effectively, often in time-sensitive situations, without intruding on the public's civil liberties.' Unlike at least 16 other states, including Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire, Massachusetts has no law specifically regulating the use of ALPR systems. But the expansion of large-scale ALPR networks has prompted efforts to regulate the technology on Beacon Hill. In February, Watertown Representative Steven Owens filed legislation that would prohibit agencies from disclosing ALPR data, except as required by a judicial proceeding, and bar police from using plate recognition systems to track activity protected by the First Amendment. Advertisement The legislation would also set a 14-day limit for retaining ALPR data, unless it is needed for a specific criminal investigation. The legislation has been referred to the Joint Committee on Transportation. The ACLU of Massachusetts has endorsed the legislation, saying it strikes the right balance between recognizing the public safety utility of ALPR systems and protecting driver privacy. 'We have compromised, essentially,' Crockford said. 'It's our view that ideally, this information shouldn't be collected at all.' Holly Beilin, Flock Safety's director of communications, said the company supports 'the goals of legislation that would strengthen privacy protections and look forward to working with the legislature on this important issue.' The 88 agencies listed in the Flock dataset cover municipalities across the state, and range from urban agencies like the Springfield and Lowell police departments to suburbs and small towns. In Bellingham, a Norfolk County town of 17,000 people, the police department signed a deal to have Flock install cameras in 2023, Police Chief Ken Fitzgerald said in an interview. Fitzgerald said one perk of the system is that Flock operates the cameras and maintains the images they capture, cutting down on the administrative burden for the department. 'The nice portion of this for us, I suppose, is that government is not taking pictures or storing pictures of anyone,' he said. 'This is a private company.' That same privatization is worrisome for civil liberties advocates, who have voiced concerns that Flock is not accountable to the Massachusetts public. 'It is dragnet warrantless surveillance that targets all motorists,' Crockford said. 'Not people suspected of criminal activity, but anyone.' In 2020, the Advertisement But the Supreme Judicial Court cautioned that if a larger network of cameras existed, that could track a driver's movements in more detail, it could trigger constitutional protections against warrantless searches. 'In declining to establish a bright-line rule for when the use of ALPRs constitutes a search, we recognize this may bring some interim confusion,' Justice Frank M. Gaziano wrote in the decision. 'We trust, however, that as our cases develop, this constitutional line gradually and appropriately will come into focus.' Five years later, that focus remains elusive, legal analysts said. The SJC has not clarified its ruling, as more sophisticated ALPR networks have reached the market, and there is no Massachusetts legal challenge poised to raise those questions. Dan Dolan, a criminal defense lawyer and professor at New England School of Law, said the SJC's ruling was based on the narrow facts of that case, where a small set of cameras only tracked movements over the Bourne and Sagamore bridges. 'There was certainly, to me, no question they said those devices may constitute some sort of constitutional violation, depending on the amount of data being collected,' Dolan said.
