From MLT to DHS: Connecting the Dots

Hi neighbors,

Throughout all the Flock discussions, we've heard a lot about trust. We've been assured that the Flock camera system won't be misused here in Mountlake Terrace. Commander Scott King stated at a meeting that while some agencies around the country may work with ICE, “we don’t do that here in Washington State.” He said it’s both against the law and against department policy.

But with these systems, trust isn’t a safeguard. It's a gamble. The data we collect doesn't stay in our city. And as we've seen, the data-sharing web is far more complex and far less transparent than we've been led to believe

Flock Safety states that federal immigration agencies like U.S. Border Patrol (UBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are not customers and are not on its nationwide data network.

But the reality is more complex and far more concerning. Recent reporting from 9News Denver, an NBC affiliate, has revealed that federal agencies can and do gain access to this data through a backdoor: direct, "one-to-one" sharing agreements with local police departments.

This is exactly what happened with the Loveland Police Department in Colorado. While not a Flock customer, Flock confirmed that U.S. Border Patrol and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have a direct sharing agreement with Loveland Police, giving them access to Loveland's data. An audit found that ATF had been running searches for ICE in Loveland’s system. In response, the City of Denver immediately cut off Loveland’s access to its data, citing concerns about immigration enforcement.

This model of data-sharing is the real risk and highlights the "backdoor" access that many of us are concerned about. It appears that Loveland, a city with a Flock contract, is giving direct access to its system to federal agencies involved in immigration enforcement, and Flock's position indicates this is acceptable.

Flock's chief communications officer, Josh Thomas, was clear about the company’s position: "It is not the responsibility of a private vendor to be policing the police." According to Flock, everything worked as intended; an audit simply exposed a sharing relationship it had no control over. The company's solution? It's up to the City of Denver to track every data-sharing agreement its partners have.

This lack of control is not a distant problem; it's right here in our own backyard.

Let’s take a look at the City of Puyallup—certainly a potential Mountlake Terrace sharing partner. If you go to Puyallup’s Flock transparency portal, you’ll see that they have granted access to its license plate data to a network of hundreds of other agencies. The portal explicitly lists these as "External organizations with access" to Puyallup's data. That list includes many of our nearby neighbors, such as the Edmonds Police Department, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, and the Everett Police Department.

And the list of partners with access to Puyallup’s data also includes our own: the Mountlake Terrace Police Department.

Just like Loveland, Colorado, the City of Puyallup has granted some sort of access to its license plate data to federal entities within the Department of Homeland Security, including U.S. Border Patrol. This confirms a direct relationship. And with that relationship comes a significant risk.

This raises a critical question: If we share our data with Puyallup, and Puyallup has a direct sharing agreement with a federal agency like U.S. Border Patrol, is our data now also directly accessible to them?

Mountlake Terrace’s police policy may prohibit direct cooperation with ICE, but trust doesn’t travel with the data. Once our information is shared, it is subject to the policies and agreements of our partners, and our city loses control over who can ask for it and how it can be used. Our data-sharing partners can revise or add their own partners, including “one-to-one” partners, at any time—and we would have no idea.

Furthermore, these data-sharing agreements are governed by non-enforceable 'memorandums of understanding.' As a result, the sole remedy for misuse is to terminate access, a step that can only be taken if an audit reveals a violation.

The strongest counter-argument we’ve heard is that such misuse won’t happen here because "it's against the law" in Washington. But this assertion is contradicted by what is happening at every level of our own state's government.

Just this week, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi put our own governor, Bob Ferguson, on notice. In a letter to Ferguson, she stated that Washington is a "sanctuary jurisdiction" that is "thwart[ing] federal immigration enforcement." Bondi demanded that the state commit to complying with federal efforts by next Tuesday or face "serious consequences."

This is a direct threat from the country’s top law enforcement officer. It shows that the pressure to ignore the Keep Washington Working Act is not just local—it's coming from the highest levels of the federal government.

And as we've already seen, some local officials in our state are already giving in to that pressure.

These aren't hypothetical scenarios. These are local officials in Washington State actively and publicly challenging the very laws Commander King cites. Their actions prove that some police and officials will interpret, ignore, or actively defy state law to cooperate with federal agencies.

Given this reality, any assurances that our data will be safe are simply not enough.

During a recent interview, Flock CEO Garrett Langley was asked directly if the company would ever sign a contract with ICE in the future. His response highlights the company’s own ambiguity on the matter:

Langley’s statement reinforces that the threat of a contract with a federal agency is not a fantasy. While he claims it is not a current priority, the door is not closed. This leaves the responsibility of protecting our data squarely on the shoulders of our city and our residents.

We cannot wait until these cameras are installed and the data is already flowing. The time to demand stronger, legally binding safeguards is right now.

The risk isn't what our local police will do, but what a partner agency might do, and what other local officials in our own state are already doing in defiance of state law and under pressure from the federal government.

Let’s not take a gamble with our community’s trust and our neighbors' safety.

— Dustin