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Maui County Council Member Tamara Paltin brought two bills before the Disaster, Recovery, International Affairs and Planning Committee in early September seeking to put some guardrails on how and when the police can use footage collected from real-time surveillance cameras. Instead, Bills 112 and 113 raised compelling questions about the dangers and implications of mass spying on community members in real time as they go about their daily business.
The Maui Police Department is in the process of building out and launching a countywide "state-of-the-art" surveillance system, presumably to identify crimes and other dangerous phenomena as they occur. It is unclear how much of this system has already been built, what the system can and can't do, how much it has already and will cost taxpayers, and finally, how and with whom images and information collected by MPD will be shared.
Communities across the U.S. have already rejected at least 226 projects like the Maui plan. Documented cases of these systems being used for nefarious purposes continue to pile up. Investigations and court records show dozens of law enforcement officers nationwide have used Automated License Plate Recognition networks to track current or former spouses, family members or women they met in the community.
For example, five Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers face over 60 criminal charges for allegedly making thousands of unauthorized searches targeting intimate partners and acquaintances. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
There's a lot we don't know about the Maui County real-time crime center and spy apparatus, but we know MPD has received millions of dollars from President Donald Trump's Department of Justice to buy surveillance cameras and build out the project.
On Sept. 3, citing overwhelming community concern, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen sent a memo instructing Police Chief John Pelletier asking MPD to "pause" the entire surveillance project so the County Council and community can get clear answers about its scope, purpose and reach.
Maui Indivisible is calling on the Maui County Council to investigate the many unanswered questions that residents are posing about the project's goals, current use and safeguards against abuse, and to share their findings with the public. It should go without saying that public transparency is essential to establish and grow public trust. Maui Indivisible lead organizers and members are calling on the Governance, Ethics and Transparency Committee to hold hearings and release all documents to the public.
Questions that still need to be addressed include:
• Did MPD make an agreement with the federal government, particularly Trump's Homeland Security and FBI, to secure the substantive funding?
• Where does our data go (intentionally and not so intentionally)?
• How can we detect a data breach or inappropriate use?
• Why do we even need real-time community surveillance on Maui?
In the last two months, ICE has regularly grabbed our neighbors on Maui without a judicial warrant. We do not know if MPD is formally or informally sharing real-time data to facilitate these "stop and grab" operations or if ICE is able to hack into MPD's system without the department's knowledge.
The Maui County Council Budget Committee has already allocated millions of our tax dollars to this far-reaching domestic spying project without first building in any guardrails or oversight, and without thoroughly investigating any of these questions. We know of two County Council members who have toured MPD's "real-time" facilities. They praised and subsequently rubber stamped whatever it was they saw during their respective tours.
But what did they see? In candidate forums and other hearings on a related subject, County Council members either admitted or demonstrated a weak grasp of the project. This may be why the DRIP Committee just voted to pause further deliberation on MPD's use of facial recognition technology. MPD, however, has not said it will not use facial-recognition technology without the council's consent.
Clearly, there's a serious disconnect between budget allocation and accountability when it comes to this comprehensive domestic spying program and its associated equipment and systems. Maui Indivisible hopes to help repair this disconnection and to advise the County Council as it establishes more appropriate processes and protocols.
Maui Indivisible is also calling upon Maui County Council member Kauanoe Batangan to bring the issue before the GREAT Committee and hold public hearings before the end of the year. The GREAT Committee should also audit MPD to ensure all federal grants have received the proper approval through County Council and require MPD to release all financial documents. Projects like the Real Time Crime Center, and all its tentacles, necessitate trust. Trust cannot be established without full transparency.
In the meantime, we expect MPD and the County Council to respect Mayor Bissen's call to pause the Real Time Crime Center buildout until the public has an opportunity to better understand what it means, what it does and how it affects our right to privacy. The project has already been funded, and MPD has made it clear the department intends to put up many more cameras soon. The County Council needs to amend the budget and declare a more formal pause.
Marnie Masuda is a Lead Organizer for Maui Indivisible. For more information about Indivisible, log on to indivisiblehawaii.org/chapters/maui/ or request to join Maui Indivisible: Fighting for a People Powered Democracy on Facebook.