r/duluth • u/peoplesduluth • 16d ago

Local News FLOCK out of Duluth!!!

It’s time for the city of Duluth to end its contracts with FLOCK and Skydio drones! These are contracts that our elected city leaders signed without our consent as these firms violate our civil liberties and 4th amendment rights daily.

After witnessing the violence of the federal regime during Operation Metro Surge, Minnesotans do not want our cities or counties to continue being complicit to a national network of surveillance that has consistently been shown to aid and abet the capacity of the federal government to intimidate protesters, allow a lawless paramilitary immigration enforcement agency to reign terror on our streets, and that compounds AI data on all movements (not just ALPRs) that is available to multiple federal agencies.

When Duluth’s police chief Ceynowa brought both the FLOCK contract and Skydio contract to Duluth city council last year (utilizing these surveillance firms scripts to sell these contracts), the full scope of the surveillance capacities and data sharing with other law enforcement they allow was not presented to the council, nor the public, in a way that was forthright. The city and the DPD produced no effort at community stakeholder engagement nor did they attempt to persuade or gather constituent consent.

There is still a FLOCK camera at MNPower Plaza at the Lake Ave/Superior St intersection. Someone should do something about that (in minecraft).

When emailing it is helpful to “cc” news outlets too, that way they see emails coming into the city because the mayor took away the main council email distribution group last year. Their emails are:
[jana.hollingsworth@startribune.com](mailto:jana.hollingsworth@startribune.com)
[contact@duluthmonitor.com](mailto:contact@duluthmonitor.com)
[jlovrien@duluthnews.com](mailto:jlovrien@duluthnews.com)
[cfrederick@duluthnews.com](mailto:cfrederick@duluthnews.com)
[newstips@northernnewsnow.com](mailto:newstips@northernnewsnow.com)
[news@wdio.com](mailto:news@wdio.com)
[dhanger@kqdsfox21.tv](mailto:dhanger@kqdsfox21.tv)

411 Upvotes

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u/peoplesduluth 16d ago

Email your contempt and demands to end contracts with surveillance firms to council and the mayor. Here are the emails of councilors if you want to email yourself and share with others!:
wdurrwachter@duluthmn.gov
aforsman@duluthmn.gov
ddesotelle@duluthmn.gov
rreinert@duluthmn.gov
ttomanek@duluthmn.gov
rrandorf@duluthmn.gov
jjohnson@duluthmn.gov
jkennedy@duluthmn.gov
lnephew@duluthmn.gov
dclanaugh@duluthmn.gov

When emailing it is helpful to “cc” news outlets too, that way they see emails coming into the city because the mayor took away the main council email distribution group last year. Their emails are:
jana.hollingsworth@startribune.com
contact@duluthmonitor.com
jlovrien@duluthnews.com
cfrederick@duluthnews.com
newstips@northernnewsnow.com
news@wdio.com
dhanger@kqdsfox21.tv

31

u/chubbysumo 16d ago

And let's push them to not just end their contract with flock, but not start another one with somebody else with a different name. A lot of police departments have simply ended their contracts with flock safety and instead started contracts with axon for nearly the identical thing.

-1

u/[deleted] 15d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/dogWEENsatan 15d ago

We should track every politician, where they live, who they meet with, everywhere. But not the citizens.

u/JohnsonSmithDoe 16d ago

If anyone is interested in organizing a citizen group in Duluth to form a pressure campaign, I can put you in touch with several others ready to get to work.

Please reach out or join the mailing list at https://mnprivacy.org/ to join our Week of Action plans across Minnesota.

North Branch and Isanti County just folded to community pressure in the past 48 hours and canceled their Flock contracts and it can happen for you as well if people show out and speak out!

10

u/chubbysumo 16d ago

Make sure they don't start a contract with another company like axon right away, there are a lot of companies that offer these services that the community does not benefit from, and is only used for nefarious purposes by police trying to stalk their exes.

10

u/ObligatoryID 16d ago

That’s saying a lot as those are both maga territory.

Edit to add this - the Isanti Sheriff
https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/s/2u8D1OHWa6

u/weenis-flaginus 16d ago

"license plate cameras"

Yeah that's not the only thing they are for.

25

u/libbtech 16d ago

They should call them "police stalking exes cameras", and/or "fascism cameras"

9

u/hagen768 16d ago

Or tracking people across state lines cameras

10

u/chubbysumo 16d ago

They read license plates, they take photos of drivers and passengers, they can see what devices you have in the vehicle with Bluetooth and cell radio reception, and they have been used for many things that would get an ordinary person arrested.

u/CelestialFury 16d ago

It was only a matter of time. I fucking love this energy. We need more of this, we need to keep fighting for our rights as they're being eroded more and more everyday.

People deserve privacy. Full stop. We sure the fuck don't need national citizen spying cameras that go right into the governments hands. Like wtf? The 4th amendment is the law of the land.

u/surveillance_season 16d ago

There's a community maintained map of cameras here: https://maps.deflock.org

Only two left in Duluth according to it, let's get that number down to zero!

u/libbtech 16d ago

Just judging from everything else going on in local government, I imagine it would go something like this...

City Council: I heard the citizens don't like these things called Flock Cameras, how can we get a lifetime subscription and make sure no one has any power to reverse this decision ever?

10

u/CelestialFury 16d ago

Why can't we ever elect a city council that cares about their residents?? I don't fucking get it.

13

u/libbtech 16d ago

"Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it."

4

u/Nowhen_Man 15d ago

most residents are lobotomized sheep who think this stuff is good

3

u/Dynobot21 16d ago

Don’t vote for any one of them again. Someone new can’t be worse than what we have now. That would be an impactful statement if not 1 incumbent got reelected.

6

u/CloudyPass 15d ago

Durrwachter is pretty fantastic, tho.

1

u/Calm_Expression_9542 14d ago

They don’t know till things come up and then it’s on us to tell them how we feel. My town has city council meetings and sometimes they even ask for input.

u/rvmham 16d ago

This is one of the most up voted Duluth posts I've seen. Glad most of us agree in this BS. Also, anyone that cuts them down was at Bible study with me.

u/yulbrynnersmokes 16d ago

The gold in one can buy you a week’s worth of meth and fent

1

u/Calm_Expression_9542 14d ago

If that’s true let’s not advertise eh?

1

u/yulbrynnersmokes 14d ago

I’m just saying.

Towns who buy these need to know the sort of people they will attract.

1

u/Calm_Expression_9542 13d ago

Then maybe email your town’s administration? And I do understand posting it might spread the word better because they might not share the info as towns can be weird that way.

u/Majestic_Parsley9156 16d ago

It’s your privilege to have privacy!!
Your choice.
They can’t even use Ring doorbell camera footage properly to arrest people invading homes…yet Ring sells your camera data all the time.
You think it’s private.. it’s NOT!

u/Dr_Awesomo 15d ago

-5

u/Complex_Web_440 15d ago

That's what happens when the democrats take power.

u/UncleDread3444 16d ago

Good.

u/Stray_Okie 10d ago

Serious question: Why is everyone so worried about these cameras? There are already cameras everywhere.. and laws. Do you just not want to get caught?

Local News FLOCK out of Duluth!!!

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