Weekly Member Update - May 4, 2026

Written By Indivisible Albany Team

Good Trouble Projections of AlbaNY Visibility Brigade projected the message of the week near Thruway Exit 24

“The Voting Rights Act is—or, now more accurately, was—’one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history.’ It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. And it has been repeatedly, and overwhelmingly, reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed—not the Members of this Court. I dissent, then, from this latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.” - From the Dissenting Opinion of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, quoting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in Louisiana v. Callais, April 29, 2026

Greetings, and Happy Star Wars Day to those that celebrate.

We legit tried to read Justice Sam Alito’s full majority opinion in Louisiana v Callais, where the Supreme Court of the United States finally did what they have been long expected to do and fully obliterated the Voting Rights Act. But flag-flying Sam’s opinion is a punishing read, a masterwork in conservative revisionist history, full of demeaning references to SCOTUS’s once-proud liberal traditions and snide asides about his predecessors’ “insufficient attention to the language of statutory provisions.” Alito imagines an America where, because strange fruit no longer routinely hangs from American trees and because we once elected a Black President, racial animus must no longer exist in this Country and, to the extent that it does, it is animus to white hegemony that is the real danger to guard against. Alito’s words are not so much measured jurisprudence with a respect for precedent than it is the gleefully malevolent rantings of your Fox News watching uncle, but we suppose that it is only fitting that the odious objective of disenfranchising tens of millions of non-white voters is being accomplished in an equally odious opinion.

There will be much more written about the impact of Callais in the coming months, and we are linking to some important first takes below. That said, we quoted Justice Kagan above because we think she touches on the most salient point of all; the Voting Rights Act was enacted by the People, through the device of our elected officials, and it has been taken away by a theocratic, authoritarian and unelected tribunal which seeks to destroy every pretense that America should be a broad, multiracial and multicultural democracy. But, if they weren’t before, the stakes are now abundantly clear; the tyrranical right in this Country is moving to entrench themselves forever, and the only acceptable response from the progressive left must be a willingness to use every tool at our disposal to meet them head on. The coming midterm elections are truly the existential moment, and if the left is successful in November, what must follow is a period of staunch political, cultural and procedural opposition to MAGA and, then, broad and comprehensive structural reform when MAGA is defeated. It is not hyperbole to say the Republic is at stake.

The Week in Flock:

  • The not-for-profit, public-interest law firm Institute for Justice has documented the 14 known cases of police officers using ALPRs to stalk romantic interests, including, on one occasion, a complete stranger to the stalker cop.

  • 404 Media has additional reporting on the outrage the residents of Dunwoody, Georgia are feeling over news that Flock executives routinely access footage from, among other places, a local children’s gymnastics classroom.

  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published commentary about the efforts in some states to limit the disclosure of ALPR data — including details on ALPR sharing across police agencies, how many license plate scans have been conducted, where they happened, and the success/error rate of license plate targeting — pursuant to citizens’ Freedom of Information requests.

  • The residents of Shoreline, Washington have squashed Flock before it even had the opportunity to hatch; the Shoreline City Council cancelled a planned “informational session” with Flock representatives this past week amid public uproar.

  • Arwa Mahdawi, the author of “Strong Female Lead: Lessons from Women in Power,” makes the argument in The Guardian that Flock CEO Garrett Langley just might win from among the admittedly crowded field in the race to be the nation’s most unlikable tech tycoon.

  • On the local front, the Albany Community Policing Advisory Committee held a public forum this past Thursday on the City of Albany Police Department's use of technology and public safety, and Indivisible Albany was there. As reported by IA Organizing Chair Marianna Achlaoug and IA Safety Lead Jon Licht, Albany Police Chief Brandon Cox stated that APD does not share data directly with ICE, and that their information sharing was for criminal investigations and not civil matters. During the ensuing Q&A, however, it was revealed that APD was unaware of the "public transparency portal" option that Flock can provide to its customers; a feature most famously utilized locally by Saratoga Springs. Notably, while Chief Cox confirmed that APD shares data with Saratoga Springs, we pointed out that data in the Saratoga network has been accessible to agencies nationwide known to cooperate with ICE. Concerning Flock’s retention of Albany data, Chief Cox pointed to APD’s contract with Flock, which purportedly assures that Flock does not retain data beyond the APD’s own 30-day retention period. We know that Flock has that pesky “irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to use and disclose” its customer data, however, and Chief Cox did not push back at our assertion that law enforcement is being used as the middle men for Flock’s data harvesting operation. Commendably, Chief Cox expressed a willingness to have a continued conversation on the issue of Flock, and we look forward to having those discussions, particularly once the City responds to our outstanding FOIL request.

  • For those of you who reside in the Town of Colonie, your Town officials finally fulfilled our March 10 FOIL request this past week. In case you’re wondering, the Colonie PD entered into a contract with Flock surveillance company in March 2025. For the tidy sum of $36,000 a year, the People of Colonie have received eight Flock Falcon ALPR cameras to watch Colonie motorists, and four Flock Condor Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) video cameras. As Benn Jordan has famously documented, Condors are not for recording license plate numbers and are instead better suited for watching people in parking lots and parks like The Crossings and Cook Park. And not to worry, good citizens of Colonie, your contract with Flock definitely includes access to Flock’s National LPR Network, so rest assured that people all across the Country can access all of Colonie’s data as they see fit. If you live in Colonie, mark your calendars for early 2027, the existing Flock contract comes up for renewal in March 2027 and, as we have learned from the Trojan experience with Flock, Flock’s contracts “automatically renew” if the municipality fails to give notice of nonnrenewal more than 30 days before the current contract expires. Fortunately, we’ll be bringing our Get the Flock Out presentation to Colonie later this month, so Colonie has plenty of time to build the public pressure campaign necessary to add Colonie to the list of municipalities that have deFlocked.

  • Speaking of Troy, news came late last week that the Troy City Council is proposing a new Local Law #3 “Establishing Standards Governing the City’s Use of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) Systems.” We’ve taken a look at this proposed legislation, and a full explanation of what we think is set forth here. Bottom line is that this legislation does nothing to rid Troy of Flock cameras, and it may instead make them a permanently entrenched feature. The City Council is going to need to expend a shit-ton of political capital to get this Local Law passed over the objection of Troy Mayor Carmella Mantello and, in the end, it may not be worth it. In our view, that political capital should be used in fighting back against Mayor Mantello’s illegal exercise of her “emergency” powers and pushing out Flock altogether. And, if the City Council wants to legislate in the meantime, we suggest they focus on the transparency and reporting requirements in section 6 of their proposed Local Law.

Odds & Ends:

Indivisible Albany Team
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Weekly Member Update - April 27, 2026