Come to the Flock Vote on May 7th

On May 7th, the City Council will decide whether or not Berkeley continues its relationship with a company that has a well-established history of violating privacy and sharing data with ICE. It all began on March 24, 2026, the Berkeley City Council called a meeting to hear out the Berkeley Police Department’s proposal to renew and expand their contract with the surveillance company Flock. The council had planned to vote during that meeting, but after an extensive period of public comment and the Police Accountability Board’s recommendation not to rush the decision, the vote was postponed until June 2nd. However, because the current Flock contract is set to expire in June, pro-Flock officials moved the date up to May 7th to try and renew the contract before it runs out. 

Despite the risks of abuse and the inevitable erosion of privacy rights for Berkeley residents, the Berkeley Police Department is pushing hard for this technology. On March 24th, Jen Louis sat before the council and presented her pro-Flock position. In this presentation, Louis argued that Flock aids the department by providing access to a network of camera footage across the Bay Area . However, she confessed that the Oakland and San Francisco police departments would be able to share their Flock data with Berkeley, in the case that BPD would be tracking a person or car across city limits. This raises alarming questions about whether agencies other than BPD can access Berkeley’s surveillance data and expose Berkeley residents to ICE. Cities being able to tap into other cities' data may reveal insecurity within the network.  This concern was further exemplified by a finding in November 2025, when the Police Accountability Board revealed in an audit that BPD’s database had been searched with the search terms “ICE” and “CBP” The search was conducted using a “statewide lookup” feature, which allowed an unknown agency  to search all California Flock databases (Cayetano 3). After this incident, BPD claims to have limited the agencies with access to Berkeley’s data. Supposedly, only agencies from within the nine Bay Area counties and Sacramento County are granted entry to Berkeley’s Flock database, but not all counties are following sanctuary policies. Allowing these outside parties to access Berkeley data puts our communities at significant risk for ICE terror. 

All council members have concerns about Flock to different degrees and have drafted individual supplementals intended to tweak the contract to make the deployment more palatable for skeptics. For example, council member Brent Blackaby advocated for an increased fine  and an optional escape hatch out of the contract (Blackaby 2). without bothering to present a real argument for why the people of Berkeley should feel reassured by such a flimsy deterrent. This action was backed by Mark Humbert, Shoshana O’Keefe, Terry Taplin, and Rashi Kesarwani. Another supplemental from Ben Bartlett indulged in the fantasy that the city of Berkeley would have adequate control over these cameras (Bartlett 3). This is the illusion of control - ICE has already accessed Berkeley’s data without repercussions, and will likely find ways to do so again if the contra . Our council members are suggesting meaningless fines for when Flock does inevitably violate access policies. While they sit around and carry water for the surveillance state, the Berkeley community is being threatened with real danger. The Berkeley Police Accountability Board has already proven to us that Flock cannot be trusted and will not keep their promises. Flock has broken the law countless times and will be further empowered to violate our privacy with this contract. 

Six out of nine councilmembers’ drafted supplementals designed to add a veneer of responsibility to Flock. Our question is: if our councilmembers are already preparing for Flock to share data with ICE, why are they renewing the contract to begin with? If Berkeley is truly a sanctuary city, why are our councilmembers so eager to shoo in a contract that could assist MAGA’s Department of Homeland Security? Our elected officials’ desperate attempts to renew this contract, despite overwhelming condemnation from constituents, shows a concerning pattern of impunity and lack of consideration for our vulnerable neighbors. It does not reflect the values of our sanctuary city. So far, many communities nationwide have rejected Flock by cancelling their contracts. If the title of Sanctuary City means anything at all, Berkeley must join their ranks.