News & Commentary

No sufficient regulations, restrictions, or safeguards exist that can fully address the concerns posed by mass surveillance technology like this.  

This year’s election will include a statewide ballot initiative, Issue 3, which would import our existing strict photo ID laws in the Ohio Constitution.

Class is back in session for Ohio students, but across the state we’re seeing academic freedom missing from the syllabi.

The ACLU of Ohio wants the rest of the state to join us in saying NO to ALPRs and other invasive surveillance technology.

There is simply no amount of regulation or restrictions that will get us comfortable with their existence and use as a mass surveillance tool, whether in Columbus, or anywhere else in Ohio.

Flock has and surely will continue to give you all sorts of assurances that they are balancing public safety and our civil liberties. The simple fact of the matter, though, is that they have created perhaps the largest and most sophisticated surveillance network in modern history. No government, and no private corporation for that matter, can be trusted with that immense power.

Cleveland’s 100 cameras are connected to all of Flock’s ALPRs, because nationwide data-sharing is turned on by default in a Flock contract.

Our country is better than this, we are better than this, and I am so proud that the ACLU of Ohio is litigating this case so we can live under the law in a society that practices compassion, not cruelty.

We advocate for a narrower version of HB 338 that directly addresses issues of serious prison violence instead of a kitchen sink bill that dilutes the focus on the stated goal of reducing that violence and, we believe, contains various changes that will prove to be counterproductive.