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Ulysses Lateiner submitting comments re: Digital Fourth's comments on the Surveillance Technology Impact Reports.
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To the Honorable City Council:
I am submitting this comment regarding the agenda item "Digital Fourth submitting comments re: the 4 Surveillance Technology Impact Reports submitted on October 22 and the 7 STIRs submitted on November 12", which is presently listed as Agenda Item 50 under "New Business" for the November 24 City Council meeting.
This agenda item concerns a number of different Surveillance Technology Impact Reports (STIRs) covering a variety of surveillance technologies (STs). I don't have time or space here to address the individual STs and STIRs on the agenda, so let me simply say that I have lived in Somerville for almost two decades now, and at no point in that time have I ever felt that law enforcement use of surveillance technologies would make me feel substantively more safe in this city than I already feel. As a taxpaying resident today, I can think of dozens of ways the administration could better spend my tax dollars than by giving the Somerville Police Department (SPD) access to STs that are not needed for them to do their job adequately, and that furthermore present well-documented threats to our civil rights. So as you consider the STIRs on the agenda, I hope you will bear in mind my constituent request that:
• For any STs under discussion where SPD has not already been authorized and/or funded to use that ST, I ask that the Council grant no authorization and/or funding for SPD to use these STs.
• For any STs under discussion where SPD has already received authorization and/or funding to use that ST, I ask that the Council grant no additional authorization and/or funding for SPD to expand the use of these STs.
• For any STs under discussion where SPD has already received authorization and/or funding to use that ST, I ask that to whatever extent possible, the Council rescind any already granted authorization and/or funding for SPD to use these STs, with the aim being to fully terminate SPD's use of these STs.
Thank you for not wasting your constituents' money on unnecessary technologies that do not make us substantively safer, and in fact make us less safe in terms of our civil rights. There are numerous valid ways to spend our money, including valid law enforcement needs, but surveillance technologies are not one of them.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Ulysses Lateiner