Support City Council and Public Oversight
Last week Councilman Scott Benson reached a new low in public argument. Over the last few months he has opposed efforts to provide civilian input on the purchase and use of surveillance technologies.
In his role on the Public Health and Safety Committee, Benson has offered a series of amendments to the bill carefully crafted by Council member Mary Sheffield. Sheffield brought together the Chief of Police and a broadly-based citizen’s coalition. After months of research and discussion they agreed on a bill that will protect the rights of citizens and meet the needs of the police department. Not everyone is happy with this bill, but it has two key factors: it requires public hearings before the purchase of additional surveillance technologies and it establishes strong guidelines to support the role of the City Council in oversight, requiring monitoring and use of technologies.
These are the key provisions Councilman Benson opposes. At an earlier committee meeting he said he didn’t want to “waste his time on public hearings.” Now he is orchestrating police officers, including commanders, to come forward and support his position. The four officers who spoke on February 10 were not well briefed in their opposition. Each one, in their own way advanced the same argument. Somehow they have linked public meetings with telling criminals they are being watched. This sort of reasoning makes no sense at all. It is obvious that Benson, who was thanked by some speakers for bringing this ordinance to their attention, had asked police friends to voice support for his amendment. But the support they offered hand nothing to do with Council oversight or public hearings. The officers simply said how much they ”don’t want criminals to know when they are being surveilled.”
Nothing in the current ordinance has anything to do with telling criminals they are being watched. It was clear that these officers had not read the ordinance, and really didn’t know what they were opposing. It was also clear Benson had probably asked them to speak in order to influence Council member Ayers, who has voiced concerns about “rank and file” police, or as she likes to say, “boots on the ground.”
The proposed ordinance, without Councilman Bensons meddling, would make sure that we, as citizens, have the opportunity to know and assess how our money is being used by police officers as the police department asks Council to consider purchasing additional surveillance equipment. This measure is crucial because we have all learned that under Project Green Light and through the real time crime center, facial recognition technologies have been in use for years, and no one knew it or approved it. No one was able to ask if this was a wise expenditure of $1 million.
Chief Craig has asserted that these technologies have been used responsibly. However, we now all know that they are highly unreliable when it comes to identifying people of color. We also know that the police department has some credibility problems.
At the same time, federal efforts to move into our city with increasingly militarized police are escalating. Just a few days after Councilman Bensons theatrical production, the New York Times reported yet another of President Trumps secret operations. They reported that the “administration is deploying law enforcement tactical units from the southern border as part of a supercharged arrest operation in sanctuary cities across the country.” These include “members of the elite tactical unit known as BORTAC, which acts essentially as the SWAT team of the Border Patrol. With additional gear such as stun grenades and enhanced Special Forces-type training, including sniper certification, the officers typically conduct high-risk operations targeting individuals who are known to be violent, many of them with extensive criminal records. These troops are not trained to operate in urban areas. Detroit is one of a handful of cities targeted for this intervention.
As Rodd Monts, of the ACLU wrote:
Surveillance is no guarantee of security; in fact, for many, constant surveillance is a safety threat in and of itself. Police professionals will tell you that many of the violent tragedies they respond to are the result of issues that surveillance could not prevent. Do we want to make our communities safer? Of course. But to really do that, we need to invest in the things that truly impact lives positively, from cleaner water and air, to better nutrition, physical and mental health care, to improved education and employment opportunities, and safe and reliable transportation to access them all. Community residents should have a say in whether their money is invested in these elements essential to their quality of life or is spent on cameras and other mass surveillance technologies that treat every resident like a suspect and document what happens when quality of life essentials are ignored.
Councilman Benson’s opposition is short sighted and mis-guided. We all deserve safe and open neighborhoods. We also deserve serious discussion of how to achieve these. The work of Councilmember Sheffield, Chief Craig and all the concerned citizens who have worked for months on the current Community Input Over Government Surveillance needs to be supported.