Raul Mas Canosa

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Coral Gables, Florida 33146
(305) xxx-xxxx

May 17, 2018

Coral Gables City Commission

405 Biltmore Way
Coral Gables, Florida 33134

RE: Massive and unwarranted surveillance of Coral Gables residents and visitors

Ladies/gentlemen:

In recent weeks I have become aware of the constant (and massive) surveillance of
automobiles and individuals in the City Of Coral Gables primarily through the use
of fixed and mobile automatic license plate readers (ALPRs).

By the City’s own admission, it is on track to capture 30 million license tag images
this year in a town with a population of 51,000 people. The City openly boasted
that it is number one out of twenty seven municipalities in South Florida using the
monitoring systems provided by a company named Vigilant Solutions.

I am not opposed to modern technology being used to safeguard our community

and identify and capture criminals. Unfortunately, the system that Coral Gables
has implemented does not discriminate between innocent citizens and
lawbreakers. Again, by the City’s own admission, it is casting an enormous
“dragnet” which has already captured close to 50 million images of privately owned
automobiles since inception…and that information is being stored for three years.

To make matters worse, it appears that City leaders are not adequately
monitoring or auditing the system as required by state standards (and common
sense). The fact that the City is keeping information on innocent citizens long
after it has served any useful purpose (to identify a criminal suspect) is incredibly
disturbing.
As the Mayor has refused to list this topic as an agenda item, I respectfully request
that I be given the opportunity to voice my concerns in the personal appearances
portion of the agenda at the next City Commission meeting scheduled for May 22 nd.

Specifically, I would like for the City to answer these following questions:

1. Has the Coral Gables City Commission discussed the ALPR system recently? If
so, when? Was the public given prior notice of this program and was public input
sought? Is the system being reviewed regularly by the Coral Gables Commission?
2. Whose idea was it to implement this system in Coral Gables? It appears the
original contract with Vigilant Solutions was signed during the Cason
administration. How has it expanded over the years? Have any written documents
or presentations or videos been made outlining the strategies, objectives and
implementation of this surveillance program? Have those been shared with the
public? I suspect that most Coral Gables residents are oblivious to the extent that
they are being monitored and tracked by their own municipal government.
3. How is this program being funded? Are Federal or State grants involved? If so,
which ones? If grants are involved are there any conditions or requirements
involved in using that grant money? How much money is being spent to purchase,
install, monitor and repair this surveillance system. Bottom line, how much is the
bill and who is paying for it and are there any strings attached?
4. How many fixed cameras have been installed so far? How many more are
planned? Where are they located? What is the decision-making process in
determining where those monitoring cameras are installed? How many mobile
units have been obtained and how many are operational? How many more
cameras is the City planning on acquiring? From documents I have seen the City is
interested in creating a so-called “geo-fence” surrounding the nearly 190 points of
entry and exit into our City. Is that the ultimate goal? Why?
5. In addition to Vigilant Solutions, what other vendors are providing cameras and
surveillance systems including data storage? How were they vetted and selected?
Were the vendor contracts based on a fixed practice, cost plus or “pay as you go”
arrangement? Most importantly, does Vigilant sell or share this information with
other governmental or private sector clients? I strongly suspect that Vigilant is
really in the data-mining business more so than in the security business.
6. It appears that the images being captured are being stored for up to three years.
Why are they being stored for such a long time period of time? What is the
justification for keeping the data that long? Once again, is any information
gathered being shared with other government or non-government organizations?
If so, for what purpose? Does the City stand to make money by the sharing of
captured information?
7. Why is the City of Coral Gables monitoring the movements of residents
OUTSIDE of City limits? Apparently they are being tracked in other municipalities
and this information is being shared with the City of Coral Gables. Why?
8. Who in Coral Gables government has access to the information gathered? How
is it being utilized? Where is the data being stored? Does Vigilant store it in “the
cloud” somewhere? What safeguards are in place to avoid unauthorized use or
a data breach? Is the stored information encrypted? What other government
agencies are the captured information being shared with? How is the captured
data cross-referenced with other databases including those of federal and state
agencies? What future data sharing relationships are anticipated or planned for?
9. Please describe the so-called “hot lists” and what sort of criminal or civil
infractions are being sought? Who determines what information goes into the “hot
list”? How often are those “hot lists” updated?
10. Finally, how is the information being gathered being monitored for
effectiveness? How many crimes have been solved and how many criminals (not
expired auto tags) have been caught as a result of this program? How do we
know whether the program is producing tangible results given the massive data
being collected? Is the information being audited by an independent source
outside of law enforcement? How can the public know that such information is
not being abused or tampered with? Bottom line, who is monitoring those who
are doing the monitoring?
No doubt these are a lot of questions. However, I think every Coral Gables resident
is entitled to total transparency and accountability on how this massive city-owned
surveillance system works, how it is being used, how the information is being stored
(and shared), and whether it has indeed been quantitatively proven to be effective
in reducing crime and catching criminals.
Like most residents of Coral Gables, I value my privacy. It is bad enough that “big
brother” i.e. the federal government is monitoring our daily communications. I
don’t need “little brother’, namely the City of Coral Gables, doing the same thing
by tracking my daily movements and saving that information for three years. I
consider that a violation of my privacy and apparently courts around the country
are now viewing it the same way: https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-
technology/location-tracking/virginia-supreme-court-sees-through-police-claim-
license
I hope that as our elected officials you will move quickly to curtail this program and
ensure that proper safeguards are placed on the collection and storage of captured
data. This Orwellian intrusion into our daily movements needs to be brought under
control.

Very respectfully yours,

Raul Mas Canosa