Adoption of drones for use by Cambridge police wasn’t an option Monday, but a surprise dispute over how the city’s surveillance law functions added work before the topic does return to city councillors for a vote: pinning down whether they can shut a program down if they think police have run amok.
“Once the council votes on a matter, they cannot revisit that matter or revote on substantially the same question. So once the Stir is approved, then the Stir is approved,” said Kate Kleimola, first assistant city solicitor, referring to a surveillance technology impact report. “We looked at the surveillance ordinance, and it did not explicitly give the council the authority to revoke its approval.”
A Stir is the form the city uses to request tech that might invade residents’ privacy, and its need was established in Cambridge’s 2018 antisurveillance law. A Stir for police drones was the topic of the Public Safety Committee meeting because the council hesitated on them even as it approved use of license-plate readers and phone-hacking devices Feb. 3.
The Law Department’s opinion was news to Cambridge’s partner in writing the antisurveillance law, Kade Crockford of the technology and civil rights program at the ACLU of Massachusetts.
“The ACLU was deeply involved with the formulation of this ordinance,” Crockford said. “I’m very interested in the city’s legal analysis here, because it definitely was not the intention when we were formulating the ordinance that the council would not have the power to claw back authority.”
“It was, in fact, the explicit intention that the council would have the authority to claw back any surveillance technologies that were approved that events later demonstrated to the council was a mistake,” Crockford said.
Regardless of that dispute, neither Crockford nor fellow adviser Alex Marthews, of the Boston civil liberties organization Digital Fourth, supported adoption of drone technology in Cambridge before there was an actual policy for the council to examine. “What we have before us today is not a policy. We have a set of suggestions and recommended uses,” Marthews said. “I am not seeing in the materials presented or the discussion that we’ve had an emergency need that requires the policy to be brought only in draft form.”
It was a question by councillor Ayesha Wilson that surfaced the dispute over whether the council could undo use of drones, while committee chair Paul Toner offered direction several times throughout the meeting meant to move a decision forward.
Negotiations and expense
Considering police unions need to sign off before tech is used, and those negotiations can be long, it makes sense for the council to work off a draft, he said. “We would not have voted for police body cameras if we were waiting for them to finish the negotiations with the union,” Toner said. “We voted on that two years ago and they’re finally moving forward.”
Crockford and Marthews were invited experts at the committee meeting with Kleimola and a panel of police officials led by commissioner Christine Elow; some of the same group met Friday to talk through issues around drone use. Police presented on the need for the drone and the limits that would be set to respect residents’ privacy – especially at a time many at the meeting expressed more fear and mistrust of the federal government than local police. The technology would likely be paid for by federal grant, officials have said.
https://embed.documentcloud.org/documents/25549865-250303-public-safety-committee/?embed=1
The bill estimated by police was $20,000, covering an indoor version of up to around $1,200; an outdoor version costing $10,000 to $12,000; and their carrying cases, recording media and batteries, since drones fly for between 25 and 40 minutes on a charge. The indoor version would be used by a special response team for tactical purposes such as searching a scene where there might be dangers such as bombs or armed suspects. The outdoor drone would be for accident investigations, a look at crime scenes, safety assessments at outdoor crowd events such as the annual City Hall dance party and search-and-rescue missions.
Drones in widespread use
Police offered examples of drone use such as a search for a missing person in Framingham and a 2024 standoff with a man in Cambridge believed to be armed with a knife or gun. “We need this drone now for a number of different practical reasons,” Elow said, but some uses were more vital than others. “If people are hesitant about [drones overhead at] big events, we can table that for a little while.”
Toner asked who in the area had drones, and Elow answered to some laughter: “Everybody but Somerville.”
Forty-three surrounding law enforcement agencies including police, state police, university police, sheriff’s departments and environmental police use drones, according to the ACLU.
“Our goal is to harness drone technology strictly as a safety and operational tool while maintaining rigorous safeguards to protect our privacy and civil liberties,” Elow said, assuring that feedback from Digital Fourth and the ACLU would be included in a policy.
Expected limitations
The outdoor drones will go “up to 400 feet” to see the surroundings of a large event for threats, but “we’re not going to be able to see things like text messages, even the faces of individual people,” Elow said. “We’re not looking inside bags. Under clothing. There’s no facial recognition, no automated tracking.” The drones will not be equipped with any form of weaponry or capture audio, she said.
They also will not record automatically, and every recording must be logged and becomes subject to public record laws – though even the federal government would have to file a request for access, police said. (Crockford noted that a court order could also force the city to hand over data. “One of the reasons it’s really important to look at what kinds of information cities and towns are collecting and how long they’re retaining it is that it’s not really up to the City of Cambridge whether they may be forced to hand over information to ICE, for example,” Crockford said.)
The amount of recording going on privately, whether by doorbell cameras or on a phone, made some officials skeptical about political privacy concerns, with one police expert pointing out that he has been recorded at a protest on a drone brought by the protesters.
Delay … or start immediately
The tech request continued to feel jarring to some. “It’s scary having this capability during the Trump administration, when we don’t know what’s going to happen, and we certainly don’t want to have footage that could be used to prosecute our residents,” said councillor Cathy Zusy, wondering if it was possible to review the idea for three or four years “and come back to it.”
Vice major Marc McGovern believed public outreach and meetings could start almost immediately to hammer out policies so drones could operate yet residents felt safe from Cambridge police and the federal government.
“I do question why the council couldn’t change an ordinance if it felt it needed to or rescind a permission if we find that it’s not being used in the way it was intended,” McGovern said.
A stronger
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Apparently President Trump now thinks it’s a good idea to shut down “illegal protests” and “arrest” protesters.
If Cambridge PD deploys drones, and then Trump’s FBI wants their footage of protesters to investigate them, like happened with BLM, then nothing I’ve seen so far in the STIR would prevent Cambridge PD from sending it over.
No. The peace of mind the police would get from having “overwatch” via drone, will come at the cost of making every Cambridge resident who opposes this administration more afraid.
Time to stop this before it starts; the City should deny permission for drones.
Police love expensive toys, especially expensive toys that allow them to surveil and harass the citizens of the areas they patrol.
Um, a plain reading of the ordinance reveals that there is no ambiguity about this at all:
“2.128.060 – Submission to the City Council of Annual Surveillance Report
…
(C)Based upon information provided in the Annual Surveillance Report, the City Council shall determine … and/or (3) disapprove further use of the Surveillance Technology.”
https://library.municode.com/ma/cambridge/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TIT2ADPE_CH2.128SUTEOR