After Portsmouth said no, Bristol chief makes the case to RITBA for Mount Hope cameras

JAMESTOWN — Bristol Police Chief Kevin Lynch presented his case for installing Flock Safety cameras in Portsmouth at the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority’s Aug. 17 board meeting, requesting the quasi-public state agency consider partnering with Bristol by installing two automated license plate reading cameras on the southern end of the Mount Hope Bridge after the Portsmouth Town Council voted against participating in the Bristol-led project.

After the Portsmouth Town Council rescinded on July 13 its approval to place two cameras on Portsmouth town property, Lynch approached RITBA and requested two cameras be placed on Portsmouth’s side of the bridge anyway by having them installed on state property immediately adjacent to the bridge.

RITBA discussed the proposal at its Aug. 17 meeting, hearing remarks from Lynch in favor of the cameras and from Portsmouth resident John McDaid against them, but did not vote or discuss any decision.

No official representative of the town of Portsmouth attended the meeting, but McDaid has actively led a local campaign against the cameras which is largely aligned with ACLU concerns about Flock Safety centered around surveillance, civil liberties issues including the right to privacy, and data security.

“The citizens of Portsmouth spoke; the town council of Portsmouth rescinded their approval of a plan to put cameras on the bridge for reasons of privacy, and I know that our state Sen. James Seveney has spoken to folks here at the authority … the people of Portsmouth have spoken, and in our opinion it would be unfortunate for the state to impose something on Portsmouth that the residents and the town council have spoken against,” said McDaid in his opening statement to the board.

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Seveney, who represents both Portsmouth and Bristol, confirmed he had spoken with RITBA executive director Lori Caron Silveira ahead of the meeting.

"I would hope and expect as senator for both communities that the two town councils would get together on this rather than (one town) going straight to RITBA," he told The Daily News.

Lynch had first approached Portsmouth Police Chief Brian Peters to collaborate on a first-of-its-kind suicide prevention program utilizing four Flock cameras to more effectively respond to potential jumping situations on the Mount Hope Bridge.

Peters in turn sought the Portsmouth Town Council’s approval, which was first given in a 6-1 vote on June 13 but later rescinded unanimously on July 13 after public backlash to the cameras, chiefly due to concerns brought forth by the RI ACLU and members of the general public about unregulated surveillance, data security and the extensive crime prevention applications of the cameras which the police included in their ALPR policies alongside the more publicly emphasized goal of suicide prevention.

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In his presentation to the RITBA board, Lynch stressed the high degree of transparency he and his department had consistently applied throughout their request to use the Flock technology, drawing a contrast between himself and other police chiefs in the state by pointing out his inclusion of ACLU material expressing opposition to the cameras in his initial briefing to the Bristol Town Council (the Portsmouth Police Department also included the ACLU material in its town council briefing), his decision not to share data with other municipalities utilizing Flock technology, and his decision to publicly announce the intended locations of the cameras.

Addressing concerns about the crime prevention applications available to cameras requested for suicide prevention, Lynch suggested the cameras proposed for RITBA property could be purpose-limited to suicide prevention hot lists, Amber alerts and Silver alerts, in contrast to his intention to use the two cameras on Bristol town property for crime prevention applications including recovery of stolen vehicles and tracking of wanted criminals.

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He also assured the board of the Flock technology’s constitutional legality, saying, “If these cameras were illegal, (RI ACLU executive director) Steven Brown would have already gone to court.”

He and RITBA’s legal counsel William O’Gara both shared the view that there is little if any expectation of privacy on a public road, and that a license plate number is not a privately owned and protected piece of information.

The board, chaired by James K. Salome, asked questions of both Lynch and McDaid and allowed the two men to respond to some of each other’s points, which they both did respectfully and in turn.

McDaid did take issue with one of Lynch’s remarks, when Lynch stated he had heard “through informal rumors” that the Portsmouth Town Council’s reversal on its decision to collaborate was due to the pressure of electoral politics and was tied to individuals making political calculations about upcoming elections.

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McDaid rebuked Lynch in person at the meeting, saying, “I take serious issue with the chief characterizing this as (a political decision) … the town council listened to the people of Portsmouth and made a decision not to proceed. The police chief in Portsmouth immediately backed off. What I am not seeing from Bristol is a similar respect for the decision that was made by the people of Portsmouth and our town council.”

He also sent an email to the Bristol and Portsmouth town councils, his state legislators and the board of the RI Police Chiefs Association (of which Lynch is a member of the executive board). In it, he called Lynch’s comments “an enormous show of disrespect for the duly elected body of a neighboring municipality.” He posted the full text of the email to the All Things Portsmouth Group on Facebook.

Salome told The Daily News any vote or final decision on partnering with Bristol on the proposed cameras, if such a decision were to happen, would happen at an open session in full transparency. The next RITBA meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 21, but is likely to be rescheduled for Friday, Sept. 23.

This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Mount Hope Bridge license plate reading camera proposal made to RITBA