PARTIAL FLOCK VICTORY!

May 7’s Flock vote was a partial victory.

Flock “Safety” will continue surveilling our community for another year with the 52 cameras that currently exist across the city of Berkeley. However, the city’s proposed $2 million expansion contract with Flock—which would have enabled the creation of a database consisting of footage collected from individual security cameras, and introduced Flock’s drone technology to Berkeley—failed in an 8 to 1 vote.

Councilmember Shoshanna O’Keefe displayed a particularly twisted contempt towards her constituents, taunting the crowd with nihilistic, all-or-nothing, and whataboutist “logic.” O’Keefe stated that Berkeley residents should accept Flock’s surveillance because surveillance is also conducted on us by our own personal smartphones; somehow, the fact that our privacy is threatened at every corner of our lives means that we need to accept even more surveillance. According to O’Keefe, we should just resign ourselves to fascist tech.

Additionally, rather than acknowledging the fact that much of the Berkeley community took time out of their busy lives to attend the May 7 city council meeting, O’Keefe essentially called us—her constituents—unemployed extremists.

We are thankful for everyone who has followed this campaign for the past year. The struggle continues. Stay vigilant, and stay informed.