South Orange Surveillance Gang

Watching the Watchers since 2021

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In October 2020, South Orange's previous Board of Trustees passed an ordinance to spend $50,000 to install 11 Verkada surveillance cameras around town, operated by the Police Department. They budgeted another $50k for another batch of cameras in the next year. An IT department presentation proposed repeating this for 5 - 6 years. There was budget approval, but no debate or special consultation with the public, nor consideration of civil liberties. In their defence, they truly didn't realize that the public would have serious concerns.

This group formed to influence the plan. Some police cameras may be OK. Our call is for

Update July 2024: The Village Council and police proceeded with original plans from before our protests.

Update June 2021: Our new Board of Trustees are sincerely listening. They:

Our next request is more substantive: taking down the Verkada cameras, and replacing them with nothing, or with a less-scary system. This will be harder for them, and thus harder for us. Let's try to make it easy for them to fix this, and hard not to. 

Our Demands

Talking Points 

Remarks to CPC

Response to Police Department FAQ