Organization has concerns about ShotSpotter, surveillance tech in Cambridge and Somerville

The world’s collective witnessing of George Floyd’s murder sparked the uprisings of 2020. In March the world watched as Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts graduate student living in Somerville, was abducted by masked, plainclothes Ice agents. Her “crime”? She spoke up about an issue she cared about, the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. Rumeysa’s abduction and many more abductions of ordinary working immigrant people compelled us to examine whether sanctuary city laws truly protect us.

On paper, Cambridge and Somerville are sanctuary and welcoming cities – committed to protecting immigrants, resisting federal overreach and upholding justice. And while current policies often fall short of those promises, we believe our cities have the tools, values and people power to close the gap between what we say we are and what we hope to be.

As part of this vision, we wish to address a major concern: the use of audio surveillance technology, specifically ShotSpotter. Though marketed as a gunshot detection system, ShotSpotter is a citywide network of microphones capable of monitoring public spaces, and evidence suggests it can and does capture street-level conversations. In Greater Boston, including Cambridge and Somerville, this technology is funded by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, the same agency that oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement – the entity responsible for carrying out the recent abductions. The deployment of ShotSpotter poses a direct threat to democratic principles.

Speak out

Use your voice to speak out against ShotSpotter at Cambridge’s upcoming Public Safety Committee hearing from noon to 2 p.m. Monday: tinyurl.com/June2Hearing

Sign up to provide testimony starting Friday: tinyurl.com/June2Testimony

Participatory democracy is one of the greatest promises of local government. It means that decisions are shaped not just by officials, but by residents. It means that safety and justice are defined not from above, but from within – by neighbors, families and communities. We believe that every person, regardless of immigration status, has the right to shape the future of Cambridge. That means having a say in how our neighborhoods are kept safe, how our public funds are spent and which technologies can be deployed toward these aims. In 1985, Cambridge led the state and was the fourth city in the country to establish sanctuary protections. This city stood boldly in solidarity with immigrant neighbors.

What “sanctuary” means

For many immigrants, the term “sanctuary” signals safety and refuge, an intentional invitation – a reason to choose to live and work in Cambridge and Somerville over other cities. To them, “sanctuary” evokes the protection offered by places of worship: a shield from pursuit, persecution or danger. In our dialogues, though, it became clear that this group holds a wide range of incorrect and partially correct interpretations of what it means to be a “sanctuary city,” including that Ice cannot physically enter the city, local police would neither participate in nor support Ice activity, even under federal pressure, and local police would not voluntarily collect or share immigration status information.

In recent conversations within our community – including with immigrants, radical Bipoc organizers, scholars and journalists – we encountered further troubling inconsistencies in how these policies are understood, especially regarding the role of local law enforcement in relation to DHS, Ice and other federal agencies (e.g., the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and more). This lack of clarity is deeply concerning, particularly in a political climate in which immigrant communities are under very real and imminent threats and sanctuary cities and states are under attack by the federal government.

In Cambridge and Somerville, the intention behind the “sanctuary city” (and “welcoming city”) status is that the city government limits or denies its cooperation with federal immigration law enforcement. But this intention is undermined by the policy itself:

• In Cambridge, the ordinance aims to ensure that individuals are treated equally by local law enforcement and served by local public servants without consideration of their immigration status. It also indicates that local law enforcement and public servants will comply with the law. This compliance exception allows for the sharing of citizenship or immigration status information with federal law enforcement agencies.
• Furthermore, if presented with a subpoena, administrative request or some other legal mandate (such as an executive order), police and city officials will again “comply.” This means that they will share information with DHS and ICE upon request, directly contradicting the parts of the policy that say they will not take law enforcement action based on immigration status.
• The policy also allows for police to engage in “support services.” These may include blocking streets for Ice. They may also include sharing data from surveillance technologies such as ShotSpotter. Although Cambridge police may not be physically involved in raids, the data these technologies collect can help Ice find and detain community members. This reality directly undermines the spirit and intent of sanctuary and welcoming city protections.

ShotSpotter concerns

The ShotSpotter contracts that cover Cambridge and Somerville are not held directly with these cities, but rather with the Department of Homeland Security via the City of Boston. These indirect contracts raise serious questions about oversight, accountability and data sharing. Crucially, the ShotSpotter contracts define data sharing broadly, allowing information to be accessed by “law enforcement” – a term that includes the Cambridge and Somerville police departments as well as federal agencies such as DHS and Ice. We are deeply concerned about how such a contract may be enabling federal surveillance in our communities without local oversight.

In Cambridge, ShotSpotter microphones are heavily concentrated in The Port and Riverside neighborhoods. In Somerville, they are spread throughout the city, but are most densely located in Ten Hills, Winter Hill and East Somerville. In both cities, the technology is disproportionately deployed in Black, brown and immigrant communities – which is exactly why we are concerned about its potential use to target vulnerable immigrant populations. As University of Chicago professor Robert Vargas notes, “ShotSpotter technology gives the appearance of impartial policing, but its placement is anything but neutral.”

ShotSpotter is always listening – supposedly for gunshots. The marketing around ShotSpotter’s purpose shifts frequently, though: At various times, its developer SoundThinking has claimed it reduces gun violence, improves response times or helps secure convictions. None of these claims hold up to peer-reviewed study. In fact, Northeastern University professor Eric Piza, who is often seen as an objective voice sympathetic to law enforcement, found no compelling evidence that ShotSpotter deployments are associated with reductions in gun violence or improvements in police response times.

Surveillance capability

So what is ShotSpotter good for? And why does DHS want it in our communities?

We know the microphones are always on. Legal scholars such as Maneka Sinha have documented instances in which ShotSpotter recordings captured conversations that prosecutors tried to use in court.

ShotSpotter’s surveillance capability poses serious privacy risks. At a Spanish-language community workshop we held in October, the top concern among Spanish-speaking Cambridge residents was whether their conversations could be shared with federal agencies. If we fail to protect these residents and share their concerns now, we will pay the price. History has shown us: First they come for undocumented migrants – then they come for the rest of us.

Cambridge’s voting residents made clear in 1985 their desire to protect undocumented, nonvoting residents. Like those under intense scrutiny because of poverty, racism or other criminalization, undocumented residents have always had less of a voice in local participatory democracy. But they have been able to speak out and complain among themselves and to their neighbors, some of whom could be heard. By blanketing their neighborhoods in microphones, we risk silencing these groups further. The less we hear from them, the more our democracy falls apart – and each new surveillance technology will make it harder for them to speak.

For-profit company

Our loss of collective voice is SoundThinking’s gain. The company has shown repeatedly that it prioritizes profit over ethics. It is in the business of surveillance and police militarization. With no regulations to hold it accountable, transparency will never be in its interest. The sense of safety that its technologies create is false. It is a tool that results in the heightened and aggressive presence of law enforcement, including Ice, in Black and brown communities. Further, it diverts public funds and attention from real solutions: housing, health care, education and community care. Worst of all, it has been adopted without public input – undermining democracy and eroding trust.

The company’s lack of transparency and accountability is a threat to us all. The spirit of our sanctuary city ordinances says that sharing data between local law enforcement and DHS, via ShotSpotter, should not happen. But by the letter, these policies are vague and offer no oversight of federal data sharing or consequences for violations.

Those of us who can still speak must act. Call on Cambridge and Somerville to cancel their ShotSpotter contracts, remove the devices, and confirm these actions through a public safety hearing.

We are living in a moment of profound contradiction – and powerful possibility. Let this be the moment we choose people over fear. Let us say clearly: our safety is not for sale.

The Cambridge City Council holds a Public Safety Committee hearing on ShotSpotter at noon Monday. This is a chance for our community to rise to the moment. We urge you to attend, share your concerns, and speak your truth.

When we act together, we remind our city of its promise – and we shape a future that honors the dignity of all who call it home. This is how we defend democracy.

Let us make Cambridge and Somerville not Sanctuary Cities on paper, but sanctuaries in practice, spirit and law.

The Black Response

The Black Response is an organization grounded in abolitionist principles that works to replace policing and other carceral systems in Cambridge with community-grounded solutions.

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