Kettering University student sues Genesee County, alleges they withheld records on Flock cameras

Filed 2d ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

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Marty Gots a Plan

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: AnonymousUnknown author · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Kettering University student Joshua Tewolde has sued Genesee County, Michigan, alleging it illegally withheld records about its Flock automated license plate reader system after he filed a public records request. Tewolde sought the county's contract with Flock, audit logs, data-sharing policies, camera locations, and his own vehicle's reader records.

The county turned over some contract-related records but refused others, telling Tewolde that data within the Flock system 'does not belong to' the county — despite the contract itself stating the county retains legal ownership of that data, including footage. Tewolde's lawyers, from the free-market Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, argue the case tests whether governments can dodge FOIA by routing surveillance through private vendors.

County communications director Jared Field declined to comment on the pending litigation. The lawsuit, filed August 18 in Genesee County Circuit Court, asks the court to force disclosure of the withheld records.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Claiming you don't own data that your own signed contract says you own is an impressively self-defeating legal strategy, though a familiar one when the alternative is admitting what the cameras are actually tracking. Routing surveillance through a vendor doesn't launder away the public's right to ask questions about it.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Marty Gots a Plan · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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