This petition is for Sunset Valley residents. 200 Sunset Valley Elementary parents have signed a sister petition.

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Federal and state agencies have the ability to track vehicles into and out of Sunset Valley. This opens up our fellow residents, workers and school families to harassment, discrimination and detention. 

Cameras cover the streets into and out of the City of Sunset Valley from Brodie to Westgate, automatically reading the license plates of all passing cars. This is used by the SVPD to get notifications when cars on their “hot list” are spotted. 

Our city does not control the data these cameras collect. Because they belong to a national network from a company named Flock, other cities’ police departments can also search for license plates using Sunset Valley's cameras. As a result, these things have happened:

• ICE and other branches of the federal government are asking police departments (PDF) to look up vehicles across the national Flock network.
• ICE has taken people at school pickup/dropoff, and has attempted to get into elementary schools as well.
• The state of Texas has used Flock to search for a woman suspected of having an abortion (PDF).
• Flock gave Customs and Border Protection direct access to its national network of cameras (PDF) without disclosing it to its law enforcement customers. The company now says it has "paused" that access.
• There’s a federal lawsuit going to trial this year challenging Flock cameras as unreasonable warrantless surveillance.
• Austin has recently suspended their contract with Flock due to the above concerns.

The city council is considering whether to renew their contract with Flock, though that would keep the cameras up until next spring. We are Sunset Valley residents who want the contract to be ended, and the cameras taken down immediately.