Residents called on the city of Bakersfield to end its contracts with Flock Safety and other AI-powered surveillance technologies Wednesday, during a short City Council meeting.<\/p>\n
There were more public commentators than time allowed Wednesday. According to the city clerk, there were seven remote requests to speak and 17 in-person.<\/p>\n
Several of the speakers \u2014 including all but one of the remote speakers \u2014 called on the city to end its contracts with Flock Safety and other AI-powered surveillance technologies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhose cameras are being fed into the (city), and what third-party integrations receive that data?\u201d said Jason Kosper.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m asking the council to pause new surveillance purchases until that request has been answered, and until the city adopts a public-use policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ward 2 City Councilman Andrae Gonzales made a referral to staff to have the city develop a policy regarding Flock and other cameras.<\/p>\n
Several other speakers called on the council to declare Bakersfield a rule-of-law city, rejecting calls for the city to adopt \u201csanctuary\u201d status committing to non-cooperation with federal authorities on immigration issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the rule of law falters, the consequences are felt across every sector,\u201d said Angelo Frazier, a local pastor.<\/p>\n
\u201cInvestors lose confidence, entrepreneurship dries up, corruption and resentment expand, and the public trust erodes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council previously moved to end discussion of sanctuary status during its Aug. 5 meeting.<\/p>\n
More than one speaker called on the City Council to do both: declare Bakersfield a rule of law city and cancel contracts with Flock.<\/p>\n
The council only had one item on its action agenda Wednesday, and that item \u2014 an appeal over a 40-acre housing development in the northwest \u2014 was continued to a future meeting.<\/p>\n
After issuing honorary proclamations for the Kern County Fair, September as Hunger Action Month and Sept. 21 as the International Day of Peace, the council adjourned after taking public comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents called on the city of Bakersfield to end its contracts with Flock Safety and other AI-powered surveillance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-467185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467185","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=467185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}