May 7’s Flock vote was a partial victory. Flock “Safety” will continue surveilling our community for another year with the 52 cameras that currently exist across the city of Berkeley. However, the city’s proposed $2 million expansion contract with Flock—which would have enabled the creation of a database consisting of footage collected from individual security cameras, and introduced Flock’s drone technology to Berkeley—failed in an 8 to 1 vote. Councilmember Shoshanna O’Keef

On May 7th, the City Council will decide whether or not Berkeley continues its relationship with a company that has a well-established history of violating privacy and sharing data with ICE. It all began on March 24, 2026, the Berkeley City Council called a meeting to hear out the Berkeley Police Department’s proposal to renew and expand their contract with the surveillance company Flock. The council had planned to vote during that meeting, but after an extensive period of pu

On Tuesday, March 24, the Berkeley City Council held a meeting to vote on expanding the contract with Flock in Berkeley. Representatives from the Berkeley Police Department requested a $2 million dollar expansion of the contract while neglecting to consider the life-and-death risk that Flock poses to Berkeley’s community because of its history of sharing data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The community mobilized so effectively that the public comment lasted alm