Outrage over surveillance technology is continuing after the Oakland County Commissioners voted earlier this month to approve a nine-month pilot program to expand the sheriff’s office’s use of Flock technology to include drones.<\/p>\n
Watch the latest update in the video below<\/p>\n
Outrage continues over drone surveillance technology in Oakland County<\/p>\n
It’s been a topic that people throughout the county have been very passionate about, and on Thursday night, they got to make their voices heard and did not hold back.<\/p>\n
“We’re spending $3,000 per camera per year on God knows how many cameras, and soon we’re going to be spending $2.5 million a year on a bunch of drones that no one wants,” one resident said. <\/p>\n
Watch below: Past coverage on Oakland County Flock approval<\/p>\n
Oakland County commissioners approve 9-month Flock pilot program for police drones<\/p>\n
It was a fiery meeting a few weeks ago, and it was another fiery meeting on Thursday night as some members of the community are still voicing concerns over the controversial program.<\/p>\n
The 19-member Board of Commissioners approved, in a 13-4 vote, the nine-month pilot program to expand the use of Flock technology to use drones. <\/p>\n
Flock will provide Oakland County with free use of seven drones, but only for case-related investigations. After nine months, commissioers would need to approve a contract, which would include language ensuring that Flock doesn’t retain customer data.<\/p>\n
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard supports the technology. He says his department has used drones for years with real results.<\/p>\n
However, there’s still considerable pushback on the program. Last night, District 19 Commissioner Charlie Cavell attempted to introduce a resolution to put a one-year moratorium on the program. <\/p>\n
\u201cI move to suspend the rules for immediate consideration of the resolution to establish a one-year moratorium on the acquisition and expansion of surveillance technology in Oakland County,” Cavell said. <\/p>\n
District 10 Commissioner Kristen Nelson interjected. <\/p>\n
\u201cExcuse me, Mr. Chair, before you proceed to that, I just have a quick question. Umm, have you ever had or currently had any financial or continuing relationship with Flock?\u201d Nelson said. <\/p>\n
Oakland County Board of Commissioners Chair David Woodward said that the item was out of order and moved on to the next item. <\/p>\n
Several attendees also spoke against the Flock program. <\/p>\n
\u201cI see Flock cameras everywhere I go in this county. And, they are just as unacceptable as the drones because it is a form of mass surveillance,” one resident said. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re too quick to trust a curated sales pitch and too slow to acknowledge the perspectives of those who understand the horrors and dangers of this technology,” another added. <\/p>\n
Despite all the pushback from the meeting, the sheriff’s office will move forward with the program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outrage over surveillance technology is continuing after the Oakland County Commissioners voted earlier this month to approve a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[4551,794,4553,143,145,144,4552],"class_list":["post-294740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-7-action-news","tag-detroit","tag-metro-detroit","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-wxyz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}