The full city council rejected a last-ditch effort by Councillor Timothy Flaherty to rescind a previous vote to remove ShotSpotter, an acoustic sensor system used to detect gunshots. It had been in use by the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) since 2014. Flaherty put forth a policy order asserting that the council skipped steps in its required analysis of the technology, but it was voted down during the June 8 city council meeting. Other councillors and the city’s own law department have stood by the legality of council’s prior vote to rescind its approval of ShotSpotter under the Surveillance Technology Ordinance the council passed in 2018.
The policy order to cease using ShotSpotter, sponsored by Councillor and Public Safety Committee Chair Ayah Al-Zubi, was passed June 1. Al-Zubi made the policy order after a bevy of concerns about data privacy and over-policing were raised at an April 29 committee hearing and during multiple public comment periods. Representatives of CPD supported its use. The police now have until the end of August to remove the network of sensors across the city.
Flaherty’s policy order was co-sponsored by Councillor E. Denise Simmons. They were also the two “no” votes on the initial ShotSpotter vote (Councillor Cathie Zusy and Vice Mayor Burhan Azeem voted “present”). Flaherty said in introducing his policy order, which greatly resembled an amendment he attempted to introduce during the June 1 meeting, that the council had made a “procedural failure” by holding hearings and analyzing the city’s Annual Surveillance Report in committee rather than during a full council meeting.
In speaking about the Surveillance Technology Ordinance, which gives city council veto power over any surveillance technology the city deploys, Flaherty said “It doesn’t talk about public safety committee hearings. It talks about the City Council … there’s no ambiguity.”
The ordinance, passed in 2018, does not specify whether these steps to revoke the approval of a surveillance technology must be completed in a full meeting of the city council or in committee meetings. The Public Safety Committee typically reviews the findings of the Annual Surveillance Report each year, as is required by the Surveillance Technology Ordinance.
Councillor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler called Flaherty’s proposal “out of order,” noting that council had already voted on the matter with the advice of the Law Department.
“To [make] a sports metaphor,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said, “You lose a game and then you’re mad you lost, and you accuse the other side of cheating. That gets boring after a while.”
Sobrinho-Wheeler then moved to call the question, a motion that ends debate and brings the matter immediately to a vote. The policy order was voted down 2-6, with Flaherty and Simmons voting in favor and Councillor Patty Nolan absent.
“We have an ordinance that was drafted with specific care for a reason, and it was not followed. The language is clear and unambiguous, but obviously, the opponents of ShotSpotter are not interested in following the ordinance,” Flaherty told Cambridge Day afterward via email. “The rule of law has never been more important than at this moment in history. It’s very ironic to me that the opponents of ShotSpotter are quick to ignore it.”
The Cambridge Law Department, led by City Solicitor Megan Bayer, weighed in via city spokesperson Jeremy Warnick, who said the legal analysis of the ordinance disagrees with Flaherty’s conclusions.
“The Council’s vote to disapprove the use of ShotSpotter complied with the requirements of the City’s Surveillance Ordinance,” Warnick said in an email to Cambridge Day.
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