Weekly Member Update - August 17, 2026
At least eight cameras on just one lamppost in just one intersection. Are we safer yet?
We don’t think it’s a coincidence that Flock surveillance chose this past week to announce much ballyhooed cosmetic changes to its operating system in hopes of stemming the widespread criticism that the company has received for building a vast surveillance network throughout our communities with the assistance of local law enforcement agencies. After all, this coming week is the National NoALPRs Week of Action, with hundreds of local anti-surveillance actions taking place across the country, including three that we’ve planned here in Albany County. And, Flock has been the target of criticism across the political landscape; everyone from Tucker Carlson to John Oliver is piling on. So it is not all surprising that Flock is out on a publicity tour claiming, like an abusive spouse, that it’s made mistakes in the past but now it has changed and promises to be better going forward. We’ve even been treated to the not-at-all-punchable visage of Flock CEO Garrett Langley looking earnest and apologetic on Fox News and CNN; he’s even gone on the CBS Morning News, where he stunningly admitted that his biggest mistake, as someone who “grew up in a safe neighborhood,” was assuming “that our law enforcement friends were perfect.” Rodney King, George Floyd and Brionna Taylor — along with millions of others — would like a word, Garrett.
So what do we think of Flock’s big changes? We agree with the ACLU and the idiom “lipstick on a pig” comes to mind. Narrowing Flock’s default data retention from 30 to 7 days is meaningless when the police in individual municipalities can just opt out or switch on “evidence mode” to allow for longer periods of data retention. But, more fundamentally, let’s not forget that all data scooped up by every single Flock camera goes directly to some data center holding Flock’s servers and that, under Flock’s own Terms and Conditions, Flock holds a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to use and disclose” it’s customers’ data. So which is it; is the data not retained after 7 days or it is “perpetually” available for Flock’s use? It can’t be both.
What about the new “Audit Assistance” feature, which detects “abnormal activity” by police end users and flags it for administrator review? To be sure, police abuse of Flock technology is widespread — we document more instances of it in this space almost every week it seems, including a few more set forth below. But, as our Tech Lead told WTEN last Friday, it seems a little counterintuitive to expect Flock to police the conduct of the very customers that are paying Flock to surveil their communities. Underscoring this incongruity, Flock’s own website is now practically begging its partner municipalities to turn on their Flock Transparency Portals, essentially conceding that local communities themselves are better positioned to police the conduct of their local law enforcement. Tellingly, Saratoga Springs remains the only local community — not the City of Albany, not Troy, not Colonie, not the Albany County Sheriff — who has published its Transparency Portal. This suggests to us that maybe local police don’t really want community oversight, or that they are afraid of what the community might see if they do get that oversight.
In sum, Flock’s new “safeguards” essentially look to pass the buck and absolve it of any responsibility. Local police get to dictate how long they retain data and who they share it with; it’s not Flock’s fault if your local police don’t give their constituents the ability to monitor their activity. Flock tried, y’all.
Meanwhile, the cameras keep clicking, tracking each and every one of us in our daily lives and giving police the ability to catalogue the movements of all of us without the burden of establishing probable cause to do so. The Times Union quoted an expert in its reporting on Flock’s changes, “This is window dressing that doesn’t address the fundamental problem, which is that police officers are the ones deciding who and when to search, and that should be done by judges with real warrants.” On this point, we often hear naysayers say something to the effect that Flock and ALPRs are no different from the cell phones we all carry around with us. But nothing could be further from the truth. If you don’t want your movements tracked by your phone, you can leave it at home. If you don’t want to be tracked by Flock and other ALPRs, you need to stay home yourself. But, even more fundamentally, if the police want to track you down using the data on your phone, they need a judge to say it’s ok. If the cops want to track you using Flock, they just need to click a button. The cameras are the problem.
We hope to see you at one or more of the local Week of Action events this week. Tonight, we’ll be at the Common Council, reminding our City legislators that Albany’s Flock contract is terminable by the City on 30 days’ notice; and remember, you don’t need to be City resident to address the Common Council of New York’s Capital City. On Wednesday, we’re having some fun with a Safari Hunt and DeFlocktail Social Hour and, on Thursday, we’re doing another What the Flock? presentation for both in-person and live-streamed audiences.
The Week in Flock
As we noted above, police misuse of Flock surveillance technology is a real problem. This week, a Greenville, South Carolina officer was terminated after using Flock cameras on a 166 occasions to track a romantic interest. This officer was the fifth officer to to be terminated for misusing Flock in Greenville County, and this cop was clever enough to camouflage the activity as “warrant checks, traffic infractions and welfare checks” in the audit logs. Not sure if this is kind of “abnormal activity” that Flock thinks is going to show up in its “Audit Assistance” software. Similarly, a cop in Apache Junction, Arizona resigned after an investigation revealed that he had used Flock to do a “welfare check” on his own wife.
The City of Salida, Colorado cancelled its Flock contract this past week, determining that community concerns over privacy, data retention and illegal use of the technology outweighed whatever benefit the cameras brought to the City. In our view, this is right calculus; if you stop your analysis by looking at how helpful a vast surveillance network is to police, you’re not really doing a cost/benefit analysis, you’re just doing a benefit analysis like the City of Troy is now engaged in. Salida joins more than 100 other municipalities — yet none in the Capital Region, unfortunately — to have said Get the Flock Out.
404 Media has reporting that “local, state, and federal law enforcement are monitoring anti-Flock activists and are trying to tie together people who politically oppose mass surveillance with vigilantes who destroy Flock cameras.” If we see an uptick in engagement with this Newsletter, I guess we know where it is coming from.
The City of Schenectady announced that it is adding 14 Axon ALPRs to its surveillance arsenal, more than doubling the number of cameras installed in the Electric City. According to WNYT, most of the new cameras are being placed in residential areas of Niskayuna — much to most residents’ chagrin — and, unlike, the new policy announced by Flock, Schenectady’s Axon cameras will retain data for a stunningly long period of 90 days. Flock gets most of the attention from cops and surveillance opponents alike — they are the “Kleenex” of ALPRs — but don’t sleep on Axon. As the ACLU has noted, all ALPR suppliers essentially have the same problems; “a lack of transparency, oversight, and regulation into how they collect, store, and use our data, and how to hold public and private actors accountable if they abuse it.” Axon has the added distinction of being an object of Trump’s insider-trading investment schemes.
Stationary cameras are apparently not enough “to keep us safe.” Truthout has a deep dive on increased police drone usage, with suggestions that cops in one municipality get jealous of the toys that neighboring cops have and press their superiors to keep up with the Joneses.
Meanwhile, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont — no one’s definition of a leftist radical — has called for a widespread study of the use of surveillance technology in the Nutmeg State and has urged municipalities to not expand their use and installation of ALPRs in the interim.
Data Center Deliberations
If you’ve been a regular reader of this space, you already know that we are big proponents of the Responsible Data Center Development Act (RDCDA), the sweeping legislation co-sponsored by our own Senator Patricia Fahy and still awaiting Governor Hochul’s signature which would impose a statewide moratorium on all data center development while directing the state Department of Environmental Conservation to engage in a detailed study on water, electricity, land use, tax revenue/incentives, pollution, and other adverse impacts of data center operations in the state. The RDCDA, which would also require community infrastructure and residential home upgrades in the communities which agree to host data center development, is considerably more expansive than the limited moratorium recently pronounced by Executive Order of the Governor. Of greatest local concern, of course, is the fact that the Governor’s Executive Order moratorium does not apply, by definition, to the proposed Kenwood Data Center in Albany’s South End. The RDCDA, by contrast, would pause development of the Kenwood project for at least a year to allow our local communities and representatives the time necessary to fully assess whether the Kenwood proposal is really the best use of the hallowed Kenwood Convent site. Moreover, inasmuch as Governor Hochul seems content to stick with her Executive Order and let the RDCDA gather dust on her desk, we have also proposed that the City of Albany Common Council enact a city-wide moratorium of its own, going so far as to draft a proposed resolution for the Common Council’s consideration.
The primary sponsor of the RDCDA is State Senator Kristin Gonzalez, who represents parts of Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan and is part of the burgeoning wave of Democratic Socialist representatives in our State Legislature. As part of her statewide New York Fights AI Data Centers organizing tour, Senator Gonzalez will be holding a rally and press conference at Albany City Hall on August 27 at 10:00 am. In addition for pushing for Governor Hochul’s signature on the RDCDA, Senator Gonzalez and other speakers will be calling on the Common Council to enact its own data center moratorium. We will surely be there and hope you will too; the Kenwood Data Center proposal is not just an issue that will effect Albany’s South End, its impacts could be felt not just City-wide, but across a wide swath of the entire Capital Region community.
One more point on the fight against data centers: Americans for Responsible Innovation, a nonprofit policy advocacy organization which is focused on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, has published a Playbook on how to fight data center development in your community.
Pete Hegseth, as imagined by Anne Telnaes
The Shameful Scandal of the USS Lincoln
We talked about this story briefly last week, but this week it exploded into a full-blown scandal, with our draft-dodging Orange King bloviating on Friday that the record-setting, more than 250-day deployment of the Lincoln has been “not nearly long enough.” Both the Military Times and The Guardian, among other outlets, have reported that sailors have tried to jump overboard in a last-ditch attempt to end their deployments once and for all. The Navy has denied that there is an uptick in suicidal ideation or mental health deterioration onboard the Lincoln, of course, but the Trumpian Acting Secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, has nonetheless advised that more mental health counselors are on their way to the Lincoln, which will now soon head home more than nine months after the carrier’s crew last set foot on land. Aaron Parnas has reports from servicemembers’ families indicating that the squalor, lack of sanitation and food shortages are not limited to the Lincoln; “a consistent pattern [is emerging] across multiple ships, multiple branches, and even service members on land: exhausted troops, failing infrastructure, dwindling supplies, no end date, and leadership that families say is not listening.” For example, aboard the amphibious assault ship the USS Boxer, also stationed in the Persian Gulf, female sailors have taken to rationing feminine hygiene products due to ineffectual supply chains and care packages from home that are never delivered. Finally, the NY Times reports that the supply problems plaguing the Lincoln have their root in day one of the Iran War, when Iranian forces destroyed a major Naval logistical hub in Bahrain, forcing the Navy to rely on supplies from Diego Garcia, an island installation in the Indian Ocean more than 2,000 miles from the Persian Gulf. Apparently, Trump and his low-T Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth hadn’t anticipated an Iranian attack on the Naval supply chain. Who knew that logistics was so integral to “warfighting?” But, don’t get the wrong idea; lest you think that Trump doesn’t have our nation’s military at the front of his mind 24/7, rest assured that the mastermind behind the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is personally redesigning the Navy’s future aircraft carriers.
The Midterm March
It’s 78 days until America goes to the polls in the midterm elections and, while we still have crucial primaries this week in Alaska and Florida, the general election matchups are almost all set. With nothing short of the future of the Republic at stake, it’s not too early to look ahead. And right on cue, a slew of polls burst into view. Remember, polls are not predictive, they are just a snapshot in time. But still…
Amid reports that Anthony Constantino regularly consorts with alleged kidnappers, we have new polling out of the North Country, where Republicans have held the NY-21 Congressional seat for nearly a dozen years. The WNYT/Survey USA poll has Democratic nominee Blake Gendebien with a four-point advantage over Constantino, including a 47-28 advantage over self-described independents. The Constantino campaign called the poll “completely fraudulent” and a “scam,” with Constantino himself calling the poll “illegal” and suggesting that WNYT reporting is “a clear violation of journalistic ethics and (an) example of rampant political corruption [and that WNYT should be] swiftly reprimanded by the FCC to the fullest extent possible.” Something tells us that Constantino isn’t going to gracefully concede if Gendebien pulls this off.
Fox News, of all outlets, has brutal polling for Trump, showing Democrats ahead in Senate races in Maine, Iowa, Texas (!) and North Carolina, amid plummeting favorability numbers for Trump in all those states. For more on the state of the race for control of the US Senate, Daily Kos has a rundown on the 10 biggest showdowns, from Georgia to Kansas. Yes, we said Kansas.
Kathy Hochul leads Bruce Blakeman by 10 points according to polling by Siena. There are flashing warning signs, however; Hochul is down by 10 points in net job approval among young voters, and has a negative favorability among all voters, particularly suburban and rural residents.
Odds & Ends
We told you previously how “Third Way,” which purports to be a centrist — but Dem-leaning — organization, had threatened a $15 million “war” against the Democratic Socialists and other progressives that the pesky Democratic Party voters stubbornly keep choosing. We know that you will be shocked to learn that Third Way gets funding from a health insurance industry group run by Republican consultants. But wait, there’s more! Robert Reich reminds us that Third Way’s “moronic bullshit” has links to former Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, with a donor list comprised of “a Star Wars cantina of billionaire megadonors, Fortune 500 CEOs, corporate dark money bundlers, and giant corporations.”
Run For Something Co-Founder Amanda Litman has some great ruminations on the viral egg-freezing journey of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her conclusion? “There is simply no right way to be a woman, especially a woman seeking power. There are only a multitude of wrong ways. So fuck it, do it your way.”
The local Regional Food Bank has seen an additional 81,000 requests for food since the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program cuts mandated by the Republicans’ Big Beautiful Bill went into effect in June. Next on the chopping block is federal aid to Counties. But don’t worry about feeding people, at least we’re getting a ballroom.
While no one was paying attention, party nominees for State Supreme Court were selected over the past week on your behalf by judicial convention delegates you didn’t know existed in a system that good government groups have criticized for decades. Like it or not, here’s who the party insiders have decided you get to vote for:
There are two seats open in the Third Judicial District comprised of Schoharie, Albany, Rensselaer, Columbia, Greene, Ulster and Sullivan Counties, and Democrats are running Rensselaer County Court Judge Jennifer Sober and Albany County Family Court Judge Amy Joyce, the sister of Albany County Legislators Andrew and Raymond Joyce. The Republicans are running no candidates in the Third District, so Judges Joyce and Sober will both get promoted to Supreme Court in January.
There are four State Supreme Court seats up for grabs in the North Country 4th Judicial District that includes Schenectady, Fulton, Montgomery and Saratoga Counties. There are three incumbents in the fairly red District; Republicans John Ellis and Tom Buchanan, and Democratic Appellate Division Justice Christine Clark. The Republicans are running two other candidates — Ogdensburg City Court Judge Keith Massey and Court of Claims Judge Kate Hogan — and the Democrats have a second nominee in attorney Brad Wanner. Six candidates running against each other for four seats; the top four vote getters will be the winners regardless of party. The coattails of Congressional candidates Anthony Constantino and Blake Gendebien will likely have a big say in who gets a Supreme Court seat in the 4th Judicial District.
Speaking of party insiders, Dan McCoy’s Albany County is suing the City of Albany instead of paying its school-zone speeding tickets.
Filling a hole created by Trump cuts, New York has pledged more than $7 million to fund legal representation for migrant children.
As thousands of illegal detentions begin to inundate the federal courts with habeas applications, ICE activity in the Capital Region is also ramping up considerably. Just this past weekend, ICE was present in Albany in the vicinity of Washington and Quail nearly all day Saturday, and at least five ICE vehicles were patrolling the Pine Hills and Central Avenue neighborhoods on Sunday, according to the Capital Region Sanctuary Coalition. Speaking of CRSC, their resources have been spread terribly thin as they strive to support more and more ICE-impacted families throughout our community; please consider donating to CRSC to help support their crucial work. As organizations like CRSC work to support the families left behind, the individuals detained by ICE continue to be housed in squalid concentration camps run by for-profit prison contractors like GEO Group, where detainees receive bottled water full of insect larvae, among countless other human rights violations. This week, The Nation had the first-person account of Maryam Tahmasebi and her husband Eissa Hashemi, two lawful permanent-resident college professors with no criminal records who have been imprisoned by ICE along with their school-age son in abhorrent conditions since April. Their sin? Hashemi’s mother had served as a translator for the 1979 Iranian hostage takers, long before Hashemi had even been born.
Of course, the most horrifying story concerning ICE this week is the revelation that the agency’s masked, untrained and barbaric goon squad is soon going to be equipped with Generated Low Output Voltage Emitters (known by the oh-so-clever acronym G.L.O.V.E.). These electrified gloves, manufactured by the subtly named Compliance Technologies, can emit a debilitating and painful electrical charge with the press of a button, and have been increasingly popular among law enforcement, correctional personnel and even school resource officers. But it’s not just the efficacy of the GLOVEs that law enforcement finds so appealing, they also like that the devices don’t leave a mark “that could look bad to witnesses or leave an officer vulnerable to lawsuits.” As reported by Mother Jones, police laud their newfound ability to inflict pain without the risk of being sued; in the words of one Sheriff’s testimonial, “I highly recommend these gloves to anybody that’s looking for a utility they can use that is conducive to not leading to lawsuits.” As the Times Union Editorial Board has astutely pointed out, it seems like a really terrible idea to provide ICE Agents, of all people, with devices found by Amnesty International to have been used for torture, and which the Center for Victims of Torture has called “inherently abusive equipment that facilitates torture.” We’re gratified that NY Attorney General Letitia James has threatened legal action if any New Yorker is injured by ICE’s use of these electric gloves, but we’re thinking that use of the devices should be banned in New York across the board. Oh, and there is one other thing; the CEO of Compliant Technologies, Jeff Niklaus, believes that Trump has been “anointed” by the Lord and blames the fatal crash of a passenger plane and a military helicopter over Washington DC in early 2025 on “the vaccines” and on the inclusion of women and LGBTQ people in the military. That’s the guy getting paid $20 million of your tax money in order to provide torture gloves to ICE.