The California city of San Clemente will officially allow Customs and Border Patrol to begin a controversial new surveillance project within its city limits. The plan, which involves installing cameras on a hill to overlook the Orange County city and its famous coastline, is moving ahead despite a torrent of pushback from locals, including many who attended a fiery, hours-long San Clemente City Council meeting on Jan. 20.
Under the new agreement, which passed 3-1 in a city council vote (with one member abstaining), San Clemente will allow CBP to install a collection of cameras to monitor for incoming panga boats off the coast. These narrow skiffs have reportedly been used in the past to deliver immigrants and occasionally contraband items to the shore quickly from Mexico. While the boats are fast, small and nimble, they can also be dangerous for those onboard; last November, four people were killed and five were rescued when a panga-style boat capsized in the waters off San Diego.
San Clemente, the southernmost city in Orange County, has agreed to lease the land to CBP for at least five years to more closely surveil the coastline and deter future panga boat arrivals. The approved lease, once signed by all parties, runs for five years, with five-year renewals thereafter for a total of 20 years. CBP will, surprisingly, only pay the city a one-time $10 fee for the land use, and will pay for any electricity or maintenance needs, but San Clemente will have no oversight on the video data collected or its use.
“The federal government is demanding a black box operation on our soil,” said Robin Seymour, a resident who attended the Jan. 20 meeting to oppose the cameras. “This proposal is the definition of a Big Brother system,” Seymour continued. “Once these maritime surveillance systems are installed, we lose all control over how that data is used, who is being tracked, and what facial recognition or AI-driven technologies are being deployed against our residents and visitors.”
FILE: Law enforcement officials gather on the boat ramp in Marina Del Rey, Calif., where a panga boat is tethered. (Mark Boster/LA Times via Getty )
During the Jan. 20 meeting, city officials admitted that they would not be allowed access to the CBP-installed cameras or to the footage taken from those cameras. Furthermore, Border Patrol officials told San Clemente city leaders that they could not guarantee that the cameras would only surveil the beaches and coastline, leaving out the town itself. “There’s still the position that they can’t commit contractually to not surveilling anything inside the city limits of San Clemente, or inside the residential area,” Assistant City Manager Brian Brower told the San Clemente City Council at the Jan. 20 meeting. “They gave the example that if they were in pursuit of an active smuggling operation and following it in from the marine area,” Brower continued, “and then that pursuit led to an area where folks were fleeing through – or being pursued through a residential neighborhood, for example – the system would track that pursuit into that residential area.”
A slide shown to the council and meeting attendees listed several potential issues with the camera installation, including the loss of city control. “No shared access for City or local law enforcement,” the slide read, adding that because the project is “a federal installation on City land,” San Clemente could bear some “political risk” for the cameras.
At the meeting, which pushed on past midnight, the vast majority of speakers came out in opposition to the lease agreement. “Make no mistake, this is a citizen surveillance initiative put forward by the CBP and Homeland Security,” said resident Michael Hoy.
FILE: A sign on the San Clemente Train Station Platform marks the coastal California town and points to locations north and south. (Laser1987/Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Others pointed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other Department of Homeland Security issues in Minneapolis and Los Angeles as justification for not moving forward with the lease agreement. “DHS has become an arm of a terror regime and cannot be trusted to act within the law or in the best interest of our residents and visitors,” said resident Sarah Phillips. “Please do not approve police state surveillance in our Spanish village by the sea,” she added, referring to the coastal city’s longtime nickname.
Resident Lise M. Strom said that the cameras are “clearly a step to further the Trump administration’s egregious terror tactics that are horrifying Americans around the country.” Later in her two-minute speaking time, Strom called ICE and Homeland Security “lawless thugs.”
The few who spoke out in favor of the cameras, including onetime city council candidate Amanda Quintanilla, were often met loudly with boos and jeers. Mayor pro tem Steve Knoblock was the most vocal supporter of the camera lease, pushing back forcefully against those in attendance who opposed the evening’s agenda item. “A lot of comments about police state and invasion of privacy,” Knoblock said. “Our privacy is not being invaded. None of your privacy is being invaded. None of your liberties are being invaded.”
FILE: An aerial view of San Clemente, Calif. (MCCAIG/Getty Images)
Ultimately, the measure passed despite the vocal in-person opposition, with Knoblock, Victor Cabral and Rick Loeffler voting yes. Mark Enmeier voted no, and Zhen Wu abstained. The council directed the city manager to move forward with the lease agreement, which could be signed and initiated at any time.
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This article originally published at Border Patrol surveillance cameras approved over California city.