Statement to City Council by Charles Crystal

“LCSC is a private organization, and it has in their own words “no obligation to tell us anything.” (Jack Howell, board member ). So it’s not a public entity, yet it has this “public safety” function. Which is your job.  But you didn’t hire LCSC, you didn’t put a contract out for bid, you didn’t vote for the surveillance cameras.

Isn’t outsourcing a public safety function where you pay the contractor taxpayer funds something that must be put out for bid? Where’s the governance here?

So the LCSC has thrown up 165 networked, high-power, sophisticated Bosch cameras throughout the city, including one directly across from my house. So I have a bit of an interest in this.

The constant, general surveillance of the general population is not healthy for the city, parts of the operation are likely unconstitutional, and the fact that it’s run by an organization that’s completely unaccountable to the public is shameful at best, and dangerous at worst.

Last July I spoke here to the Mayor and City Council and asked that you formally take responsibility for the accountability, oversight, and transparency of this incredibly powerful tool, which has such great potential for personal, political, and other abuse.

Since then, we’ve discovered significant abuses, and are learning more about the sloppy management practices, including hirings and firings of unqualified and potentially dangerous people.

The bar for employment at LCSC is clearly not set to the standards we would expect of our Police, for instance, and the mechanisms for public accountability do not exist. And while I know Council Members are friendly with one another and the LCSC, “trust us” is not good enough for institutional governance of public safety functions.  To date, it appears that you’ve that abdicated your responsibility as the governing body for the City, and this argument that you have no control over the cameras is weak—we expect you to take control.

You were given the power to regulate through legislation when you were elected—use that power and bring the surveillance program into the public realm to protect the general public from the possibility and REALITY of abuses. And until that time—take the cameras down.

Pass an ordinance that bans this surveillance until further notice. Then re-approach with a tightly managed, limited system run by the City’s own highly trained public safety officers, under the scrutiny citizens expect of our governments…

So I have some questions for you:

What abuses have there been? How would we know?  How many of these abuses have occurred?
What constitutes an abuse? Who defines it?
Who has oversight over abuses? What is the process for detecting abuses?
What is the process for handling abuses?
What is the process for auditing and monitoring operations?
What political or personal abuses have there been?
By whom and for what purpose?
Has the surveillance been used for non-crime purposes?
Are there any conflicts of interest in the management of LCSC? (Yes, Joe Morales serves on City Council and gets paid 10 times the amount by LCSC, which is funded by a few large donors and a smattering of smaller ones)
Why did Dale Witmer leave? Was he fired? For what purpose?
What is the raw operational data? Why isn’t there real-time access to it?
How many times has a citizen been tracked from one camera to another? For what purpose?

Until we have responsible, public management, and a framework for public accountability, public oversight, and public transparency—you must take the cameras down. You’ve opened the city up for significant liability by allowing this ramshackle operation to continue.

Thank you for your time.

When can we expect a timeline for passing the ordinance, and Mr. Morales, when will you be stepping down—before or after the State Ethics Commission gets involved?”