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Speaker 1: Thank you for riding with us here on the show. Ramses Josteel in the saddle along with Bobby Nichols, who is Tempe, Arizona's first Democratic Socialist City Council member and one of the slate of candidates endorsed by Bernie Sanders. Bobby is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America chapter chair and current member. He is the founder of Arizona Works Together, a pro-union political action committee operating at the state level. He's talking to us today about his recently passed automotive license plate reader ban. He is one of the great heroes in that effort in this country at present. I don't think that that's an exaggeration. I think indeed you are. And it takes you and people like you to, A, wake us all up, the rest of us, and B, lead the charge to ensuring that we have some semblance of normalcy as we move into a very uncertain future. Uncertain future. Because of a lot of reasons, AI being one of them. And you talked about that a little bit. I want to share a quick story. You know, recently, so I owned, I had invested in a used car dealership a long time ago. And what that meant was that the cars that I owned, I never had to register them because I owned a lot full of cars. And so I had like a special license plate that allowed me to drive them. had insurance and everything, registration, all that sort of stuff, dealership registration through the dealership. But I, as an individual drove my own cars, um, and I could just put a license, special license plate on. And that was that, um, if I ever got pulled over, which I did, uh, I would just produce all of the dealership paperwork, nothing to see here on about your business. Um, the day came when that business no longer felt as viable as some other opportunities that existed. And so, As you do, you take your money out of this, you put it into that. Which meant that I was in sort of a weird, a weird sort of a gray area insofar as vehicle registration was concerned. Because you can get insurance on any car, but registering it is a little tricky.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Because Ramses never owned these cars before. The dealership owned the cars and the dealership doesn't exist. So who owns the cars, right? So again, it's a weird gray area. I then have to figure out how to drive a non-registered car. Me with this big old Afro had to figure out how to drive a non-registered car. And, you know, I have, I don't want to talk about the cars I have, but they're brightly colored cars, you know, sports cars, you know, big vehicles, that sort of thing. Very noticeable. I think they're really cool and really fun, but it's not like a braggy thing. It's just, you know, you work long enough and you save up and you're able to get what you want.
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Speaker 2: They are really cool and really fun. Thank you, man.
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Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Anyway, so I don't want to be out there with a car that's not registered that everybody can see. And then I found out that they have these license plate readers. And I found out today, based on our last conversation, that that was ALPR technology. And I had no idea until just now. And this like had me like paralytic, frozen in fears. I don't want to drive anything. Fortunately, I don't have to drive that much. Normally I'm out of town. So the cars just sit in the garage or, you know, my friends take them or whatever. Not, not now, but yeah. Um, the thing is I, uh, had a brief conversation with a police officer. Now this guy was a friend of mine before he became a police officer. He is my aperture into that world. He understands how I feel about policing and, And that's his job. He considers himself to be a decent man. I consider him to be a decent man. And I say, as long as you're a man first and a police officer second, I don't see there being any problem here. A lot of people think police officer first and almost sapien sapien second. And therefore they kind of become the worst of the Stanford experiments type of people.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: And a lot of them are like that. And that's the problem. And then they drag the good apples down with them, so to speak. And then there's no accountability. So they're all bad apples at the end of the day.
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Speaker 2: To me, the saying is a bad apple ruins the bunch. That's the whole saying.
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Speaker 1: A bunch of bad apples ruins everything.
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Speaker 2: Exactly.
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Speaker 1: I don't want to get you in trouble because you are an elected official.
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Speaker 2: I'm not. No, I get that. True though. Okay. Right.
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Speaker 1: Well, um, but these people have their own perspective on first off what I should do in my unique situation, but also why those readers are important. Um, how they help police do their jobs, all that sort of stuff. So I would imagine that you had run into a lot of those talking points. And while I might not know them, they might not occur to me, perhaps people listening to this conversation today might say, well, what about this? Or what about that? What are some of the talking points you encountered so that we can inform some of the people that might want to follow in your footsteps, some of the talking points they may encounter, particularly from law enforcement in terms of why they need this technology.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, the first one that came to mind or that was always brought up was, well, these are a tool that make police more effective. And as we sort of discussed a minute ago, that is simply not the case. There's no evidence that show that these This technology actually does make anyone better at being a police officer and certainly does not improve case closure rates. Like I said, in the city of Atlanta, 5,000 ALPRs in that city and case closure rates that have been decreasing over the last four years. And the most troubling ones are homicide rates dropping by a significant amount from like 53% to like mid-low 40s.
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Speaker 1: The solving of homicides. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And then also sexual assault case closure rates dropped significantly as well. Where you did see an increase in a closure rate, it would be from 9.9% to 10.2%, which is less than half of 1%. That's basically a rounding error. And if you look at all case closure rates combined, it was a very significant decrease.
00:06:07
Speaker 1: Mass this while we're here. Is there an argument that having the cameras makes sense? is a preventative sort of a thing? Is that something you've encountered too?
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Speaker 2: That argument was made, but similarly, there's no evidence that shows that the presence of the cameras decreases, uh, criminal activity in any noticeable way whatsoever. Uh, and these are essentially what you end up having to do is you deal with these sort of heart wrenching stories that people will bring up anecdotes or say that, well, if we had had an ALPR in this area, maybe we would have been able to solve it, but it's always in that like hypothetical gray area. And I really don't believe that we should legislate. Based on hypotheticals, based on anecdotes. We have to be data driven. And the data revealed a very troubling truth, which was use of these cameras has made police worse at their jobs. Sure. And that's just because I mean, I don't you could put a number of reasons as to why that is. The leading theory is because it. It's been pitched as sort of this magic bullet that solves all of these problems. And it has led to a decrease in the utilization of proven policing techniques that had allowed police to get their case closure rates to whatever they were before they started using LPRs. And that ties into the sort of second argument that comes through. when people start talking about this and they'll say, well, it makes the job of a police officer easier. And I just don't find that to be a compelling argument. Like it's not supposed to be easy to be a police officer. You are the armed, uh, the armed enforcers of the social structure and your job is inherently difficult. Like that it comes with the territory and, to try and like make that easier to inflict the use of, of state sanctioned violence. Like it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be easy. That's why we have warrants that we have. That's why we have the fourth amendment. Uh, and the other side of the people, one of the other things that people bring up is, well, you have a cell phone with you, you carry your cell phone with you all the time. Like, isn't that surveillance anyway, that way. And the difference is that's voluntary. We choose to have the cell phones with us. We can choose to go in and turn off location services.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: We cannot choose.
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Speaker 2: And nobody knows to turn off an ALPR. That is inflicted upon you from the top down as opposed to from the bottom up. And there is absolutely a conversation to be had about whether the tracking that happens with these cell phones is voluntary or legal. But it is something that we choose to have with us. It's something that we choose to do. And so, again, that argument just sort of falls apart upon the initial. And I had a couple of other council members who brought that up directly. And so I was really glad to hear that that had been said. So you'll hear anecdotes about terrible things that happened that the police say or that police supporters say, well, this could have been solved. But those are hypotheticals. We shouldn't legislate with hypothetical. You'll hear, well, this makes the job of police easy. It's not supposed to be easy to be like running a police department. It's supposed to be a very thoughtful, intensive job.
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Speaker 1: Intentional too.
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Speaker 2: Intentional as well. And then on the other side, you'll hear, well, what about all the other things that track us? And that doesn't make them better, but it's also those are more voluntary than an ALPR.
00:09:32
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that. And again, in the position that I find myself in and Q finds himself in, we do end up having to encounter people that challenge our Takes and views and whatever. And so we do our best to try to anticipate what the opposition would be like. And it's from this perspective that we try to share useful information to our listeners. Still riding with us here on the show. Ramses Jha on your microphone, along with Bobby Nichols. That's my guy over there. Bobby Nichols, if you don't know, you must know. He is Tempe, Arizona's first Democratic Socialist City Council member. Man, I'm so proud of you, dude. I'm so proud of you, man. You did that.
00:10:14
Speaker 2: You did that.
00:10:14
Speaker 1: Man, you pitched your campaign, all this sort of stuff, and then you made it, man. Anyway, Bobby Nichols is also one of a slate of candidates endorsed by Bernie Sanders. He is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America's chapter chair and current member. He is the founder of Arizona Works Together, a pro-union political action committee operating at the state level. And he's here talking to us about his recently passed automotive license plate reader ban. And I say good riddance to those and everyone I will preempt a good riddance to all the rest of them. You know what? I, my listeners know this and you may not know this, but I recently went to Palestine. I went to Israel and you have to fly into Tel Aviv and then you have to lie to them about where you're going to go. And then you end up in Palestine, right? And yeah, one of the things that i learned when i was over there is that these people live in a way that is exceptionally inconvenient like intentionally so by the israeli government um the purpose as as the palestinians put it is for the government to make life so uh challenging for them that they voluntarily leave their homeland yep Um, they have to buy water from their own aquifer in the West bank that is sold to them by the Israeli government at a premium price. They have to store that water on the roof of their houses because, um, they only have access to their own water one day a week sometimes. Um, so they have to store water on that day and the roof. And then of course the Israeli military makes a game out of shooting. the water tanks on top of their houses and let in empty out. So some of the houses, people would have a little bit more means they switched to the rubber ones so that the bullets won't drain out all the water when they shoot them. In addition, there are roads. Of course, everyone knows about the apartheid wall basically, but there are roads that are for their Jewish only. And then there are roads that are Palestinian only. It's very sad and very unfortunate and very racist.
00:12:39
Speaker 2: Deeply.
00:12:40
Speaker 1: And so, you know, around here we say shame on Israel, but we love Jewish people and we always will. And we will always affirm that. Anytime I have a mic in an audience, long time listeners know, that's what I'm about. But the worst of the worst is there's over a thousand checkpoints and gates and physical barriers that limit and restrict the And control the access that Palestinian people have to other parts of Palestine. They don't even have to cross into the Israeli border, if you want to call it that. They're just going from Palestine to Palestine, traveling on Palestinian roads. And there are physical barriers and checkpoints along the way. And they're staffed with military personnel and police agents with big guns. that control the flow. And if the military says, Hey.
00:13:31
Speaker 2: You know what?
00:13:32
Speaker 1: We just want to go home at three o'clock today. And all the cars just stay there until the Israeli military decides to come back the next day or whatever. So there's traffic jams and all this sort of stuff. And you can't get to the hospital. You can't move. Someone's in labor. You get breath on the side of the road. You got to leave the car, come back tomorrow, hope that the gates open or whatever. Um, it's really, really challenging there. So what I say to these people is well, why don't you just go around the barriers if nobody's at the checkpoint? And they say to me something that I should have known, but I had to go there to learn it myself. Well, this is one of the most heavily surveilled places on the planet. Israel, the technology that sold to the United States of America is tested here to see how effective it is. So, if we try to skirt a checkpoint. Like we, in my delegation, we had to get smuggled, I think twice. The rest of the times we didn't need to get smuggled because I was there with the Afro. So I clearly don't look Palestinian, right? So I was like kind of a meal ticket, but there was a couple of times when they didn't really care. There was nobody's coming in here and we needed to go there. Otherwise it's going to be bad for everybody. So we can't just skip a checkpoint because there's cameras. And then of course you don't want to get arrested by the Israeli military because the Israeli military They will arrest you, disappear you. They have, I think something like 90 days and then they can extend that twice. So you're gonna be gone for like six months. Nobody will even know that you're gone or where you went. And you don't have to see a judge because the Palestinians are under a different set of laws. They're under like military law. And the Israeli people are under Israeli citizen law, something like that. And even in the Israeli law, it's like different tiers. If you're a Palestinian Israeli person, like a Jewish or sorry, a Muslim, The person that lives in the in the state lines and and on and on and on. Don't be Ethiopian and brown skinned because they got a long history of being racist against Ethiopians, too.
00:15:32
Speaker 2: So.
00:15:35
Speaker 1: Surveillance is a problem and it keeps everybody in check and keeps everybody limited over there.
00:15:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:15:41
Speaker 1: Now, you talked about the flock cameras creating a mass surveillance system. you used the word dragnet. I'm not sure if that was the word that I'm trying to say now, but talk to us a little bit about how, because obviously people cannot conceive of that. I certainly couldn't until I went over there, but how mass surveillance could be long-term, you know, sort of the first they came for these folks and I didn't say anything, then they came for these folks and I didn't say anything, and then when they came for me, there was nobody to say anything. You know what I mean? So talk to us about the long-term effect of mass surveillance, if left unchecked, why people should get active.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, it is, like we were saying, it doesn't actually lead to the solving of crimes at a higher rate. It doesn't lead to lower criminal activities, but what it does is is it suppresses, um, the, it gives the average everyday person a feeling that they're being watched, a feeling that they should not step out of line. If they do step out of line, they're going to get caught. They're going to get punished. They're going to get, you know, in, in, in Palestine, you know, put in, in detention and exposed to all of the, the terrors that are going on in that space. And then in America you have, or in the United States, especially you have the way that this is connected to, to ice specifically, uh, is sort of the initial look at like what this looks like, um, for us as a society. And it's interesting that you mentioned that the thing that they're trying to do with the checkpoints in Palestine is to make it as. Inconvenient as possible and painful as possible for the residents for the Palestinians there, because the same thing is happening in ice detention centers right now, where they make those because no criminal activity has been committed. They're not, it's not a crime to be in the country undocumented. It is a civil infraction and you are put in these, you know, holding tanks. And essentially what is happening is the guards are intentionally, and that system is intentionally designed to make people as uncomfortable as they can possibly be for the purpose of getting themselves, getting them to voluntarily deport. And that once you reenter the country after voluntarily deporting, that is a crime. And then now you can be subject to a whole separate set of penalties for coming back into the country. And so what we're looking at, the long-term effect of this is the suppression of working class groups. And so working class people in Palestine are the Palestinian people. They're the majority of people there. There are Israelis who are working class as well. But the Israeli government is set up as an extension of international capital in the same way that the American government right now is set up. As an extension of international capital, we live under a dictatorship of capital and they have control over the governments that are deciding how we are operating in the day to day. And so we saw this a little bit with the no Kings protests. And there was actually in Tempe an instance of. a flaw camera system being used to search for a no Kings ATL. So like the idea was that they were looking for a vehicle that had potentially been at a no Kings rally, but rather than saying like, let's find this specific vehicle, let's do this license plate, this sort of broad over this use, this, this was used that could have hit everybody across the board. And what that does, the effect of that is when you're thinking about going to a protest, now you're thinking, well, am I going to get, caught, am I going to get in trouble for this? Like, am I being watched?
00:19:13
Speaker 1: Am I being documented where I'm going, my movements?
00:19:16
Speaker 2: It's dangerous for me as a person. And the long-term effect is the suppression of our rights and our ability to organize as a working class. And I don't mean to bring everything back to empowering the working class, but one of the things that we absolutely have to do if we are going to build class consciousness is let everybody know that until everyone is free, no one is free. While there is oppression in Palestine, while immigrants are oppressed in the United States, There's always going to be a next step because the fascists will not be satisfied with one group. They are required by their ideology to put forward a new other, a new enemy. every time they deal with one because otherwise nobody wants them in power because their policies are incredibly unpopular.
00:19:56
Speaker 1: Still locked in with us here. Ramses Jha on the microphone. Bobby Nichols in the studio with us. That's my man, the man, the myth, the legend himself. He is Tempe, Arizona's first Democratic Socialist City Council member. One of the slate of candidates endorsed by Bernie Sanders himself. Bobby is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America's chapter chair and current member. He's the founder of Arizona Works Together, a pro-union political action committee operating at the state level. And he has been having a conversation with us today about his recently passed automotive license plate reader ban. He got it done, man. Really proud of you. So, we've told people... about democratic socialism. We've told people about block cameras and ALPRs. And we've talked about your process of getting a ban put in place in Tempe, Arizona. You mentioned that the language exists. One more time, plug where the language exists.
00:20:59
Speaker 2: You can go to the Tempe website, so tempe.gov, look up our agendas, and then on the October 15th meeting, I don't remember what the specific ordinance number was, but you can just look up ALPRs, like go copy, like search the page for ALPRs, and it'll show you exactly what we're talking about.
00:21:15
Speaker 1: Okay, so you can copy that language and then present that language as the language in Go ahead.
00:21:22
Speaker 2: You can say that. So reach out to the ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union. They did an incredible job supporting the development of this language along with our community groups. Shout out to everybody who participated.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: So your point was that you gave our listeners today what they needed to and the linguistic framework of what is necessary to get this implemented in cities around the country. Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker 1: We talked about the drawbacks of mass surveillance, some of the talking points one might encounter from people on the ground who say, I'm not committing a crime. Maybe this will catch other criminals. We talked about some of the pushback from police officers, police unions was saying, hey, we need this to do our jobs and whatever, all that sort of stuff. Fantastic, thorough conversation. But there might be some people out there who want to know how to lock in with you because you got the ball and you're running a hundred miles an hour. So before you jump, of course, any closing thoughts, but make sure you leave us with social medias, websites, blah, blah, blah, this, that, and the third, because we need all of that from you. Bobby Nichols.
00:22:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. Closing thoughts. A better world is possible. We have been sort of conditioned to expect that our governments are not going to actually work for us, that they're only going to serve the interests of the very, very wealthy. And it doesn't have to be that way, but we get out and we organize and we force change at the local level, at the state level, at the federal level, whatever that looks like. We can make these things happen. When I got into office, there was nobody supportive of getting rid of ALPRs, maybe me. And then one of the other brand new people who had come in with me, we took no money from, from police unions, from public safety unions, from developers. from corporations, we came in explicitly and exclusively supported and supported by and supportive of the working class people in our city, the people who are fighting every day to make ends meet. And that's just our way of doing this. There's more than one way of fighting for the working class and supporting working class power and building that world that we all deserve. That's mutual aid, that's engaging with politics, that's developing or organizing protests, that's doing... You know, it's where if you're a student, you're building student groups on campus and we see stuff happening out in France and in Romania and in Italy where people are pushing back against the degradation of their public schools and the destruction of their housing markets. Those things are happening in America as well. And we have the this is the we have the capacity to get out and do something about this by organizing, engaging with your community, identifying shared interests and fighting as hard as you can for those shared interests together as a working class. So that's sort of my call to action for people.
00:24:07
Speaker 1: I love that.
00:24:07
Speaker 2: Get involved in your community. If you want to join DSA, find your local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America or join a union, another great opportunity to do stuff and fight at your local level for your own, you know, your rights as a working class person. And then if you want to get in touch with me, you can always reach out to my social medias. That's at Bobby for Tempe. That's the number four B O B B Y the number four T E M P E. My website is bobbyfortempe.com. If you want to reach out to me as is my capacity as a city council member, then my information is available on the tempe.gov website. You go there and you look up Bobby Nichols or you look up city council and it'll show you my contact information. My email address is a city council member. My assistant's email address is a city council member. Shout out to Morningstar. Morningstar does incredible work. None of this gets done without Morningstar. Just need to make that very clear. That's my assistant. She's the best. And yeah, please reach out because I want to help other people do the same things that we're doing in Tempe. I want to help other politicians, but not just politicians. I want to help movement leaders and movement builders around the country. Obviously, Arizona, Tempe, the East Valley, Maricopa County, that has a special place in my heart because that's where I live. but our fight is United. It is intersectional from Palestine to turtle Island until everyone is free. No one is free. And we got to stand on that. And as a working class, you know, fight for our liberation from the systems that oppress and make it more difficult for us to control the outcome of our lives.
00:25:39
Speaker 1: Uh, you're an inspiring man. I know that these fights don't need to be yours. The fact that you make them yours means that, uh, Man, if I get to heaven and you're not there, then I'm in the wrong place. All right. Bobby Nichols, ladies and gentlemen. And don't forget to lock in with me on all social media at RamsesJaiQ. You can find it. I am Q Ward. You can find both of us at CivicCypher. That's C-I-V-I-C-C-I-P-H-E-R. Today's show was brought to you by Chris Thompson and Dan Pavlish. Those are my guys. And to find out what we are contributing to the hip hop culture at large, find us on the Internet. at hiphopweeklymagazine.com. And until next time, y'all, take care of each other and peace.
00:26:39
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Speaker 1: Thank you for riding with us here on the show. Ramses Josteel in the saddle along with Bobby Nichols, who is Tempe, Arizona's first Democratic Socialist City Council member and one of the slate of candidates endorsed by Bernie Sanders. Bobby is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America chapter chair and current member. He is the founder of Arizona Works Together, a pro-union political action committee operating at the state level. He's talking to us today about his recently passed automotive license plate reader ban. He is one of the great heroes in that effort in this country at present. I don't think that that's an exaggeration. I think indeed you are. And it takes you and people like you to, A, wake us all up, the rest of us, and B, lead the charge to ensuring that we have some semblance of normalcy as we move into a very uncertain future. Uncertain future. Because of a lot of reasons, AI being one of them. And you talked about that a little bit. I want to share a quick story. You know, recently, so I owned, I had invested in a used car dealership a long time ago. And what that meant was that the cars that I owned, I never had to register them because I owned a lot full of cars. And so I had like a special license plate that allowed me to drive them. had insurance and everything, registration, all that sort of stuff, dealership registration through the dealership. But I, as an individual drove my own cars, um, and I could just put a license, special license plate on. And that was that, um, if I ever got pulled over, which I did, uh, I would just produce all of the dealership paperwork, nothing to see here on about your business. Um, the day came when that business no longer felt as viable as some other opportunities that existed. And so, As you do, you take your money out of this, you put it into that. Which meant that I was in sort of a weird, a weird sort of a gray area insofar as vehicle registration was concerned. Because you can get insurance on any car, but registering it is a little tricky.
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:02:13
Speaker 1: Because Ramses never owned these cars before. The dealership owned the cars and the dealership doesn't exist. So who owns the cars, right? So again, it's a weird gray area. I then have to figure out how to drive a non-registered car. Me with this big old Afro had to figure out how to drive a non-registered car. And, you know, I have, I don't want to talk about the cars I have, but they're brightly colored cars, you know, sports cars, you know, big vehicles, that sort of thing. Very noticeable. I think they're really cool and really fun, but it's not like a braggy thing. It's just, you know, you work long enough and you save up and you're able to get what you want.
00:02:44
Speaker 2: They are really cool and really fun. Thank you, man.
00:02:46
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Anyway, so I don't want to be out there with a car that's not registered that everybody can see. And then I found out that they have these license plate readers. And I found out today, based on our last conversation, that that was ALPR technology. And I had no idea until just now. And this like had me like paralytic, frozen in fears. I don't want to drive anything. Fortunately, I don't have to drive that much. Normally I'm out of town. So the cars just sit in the garage or, you know, my friends take them or whatever. Not, not now, but yeah. Um, the thing is I, uh, had a brief conversation with a police officer. Now this guy was a friend of mine before he became a police officer. He is my aperture into that world. He understands how I feel about policing and, And that's his job. He considers himself to be a decent man. I consider him to be a decent man. And I say, as long as you're a man first and a police officer second, I don't see there being any problem here. A lot of people think police officer first and almost sapien sapien second. And therefore they kind of become the worst of the Stanford experiments type of people.
00:03:59
Speaker 2: Right.
00:03:59
Speaker 1: And a lot of them are like that. And that's the problem. And then they drag the good apples down with them, so to speak. And then there's no accountability. So they're all bad apples at the end of the day.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: To me, the saying is a bad apple ruins the bunch. That's the whole saying.
00:04:13
Speaker 1: A bunch of bad apples ruins everything.
00:04:15
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:04:16
Speaker 1: I don't want to get you in trouble because you are an elected official.
00:04:19
Speaker 2: I'm not. No, I get that. True though. Okay. Right.
00:04:22
Speaker 1: Well, um, but these people have their own perspective on first off what I should do in my unique situation, but also why those readers are important. Um, how they help police do their jobs, all that sort of stuff. So I would imagine that you had run into a lot of those talking points. And while I might not know them, they might not occur to me, perhaps people listening to this conversation today might say, well, what about this? Or what about that? What are some of the talking points you encountered so that we can inform some of the people that might want to follow in your footsteps, some of the talking points they may encounter, particularly from law enforcement in terms of why they need this technology.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, the first one that came to mind or that was always brought up was, well, these are a tool that make police more effective. And as we sort of discussed a minute ago, that is simply not the case. There's no evidence that show that these This technology actually does make anyone better at being a police officer and certainly does not improve case closure rates. Like I said, in the city of Atlanta, 5,000 ALPRs in that city and case closure rates that have been decreasing over the last four years. And the most troubling ones are homicide rates dropping by a significant amount from like 53% to like mid-low 40s.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: The solving of homicides. Yeah.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: And then also sexual assault case closure rates dropped significantly as well. Where you did see an increase in a closure rate, it would be from 9.9% to 10.2%, which is less than half of 1%. That's basically a rounding error. And if you look at all case closure rates combined, it was a very significant decrease.
00:06:07
Speaker 1: Mass this while we're here. Is there an argument that having the cameras makes sense? is a preventative sort of a thing? Is that something you've encountered too?
00:06:17
Speaker 2: That argument was made, but similarly, there's no evidence that shows that the presence of the cameras decreases, uh, criminal activity in any noticeable way whatsoever. Uh, and these are essentially what you end up having to do is you deal with these sort of heart wrenching stories that people will bring up anecdotes or say that, well, if we had had an ALPR in this area, maybe we would have been able to solve it, but it's always in that like hypothetical gray area. And I really don't believe that we should legislate. Based on hypotheticals, based on anecdotes. We have to be data driven. And the data revealed a very troubling truth, which was use of these cameras has made police worse at their jobs. Sure. And that's just because I mean, I don't you could put a number of reasons as to why that is. The leading theory is because it. It's been pitched as sort of this magic bullet that solves all of these problems. And it has led to a decrease in the utilization of proven policing techniques that had allowed police to get their case closure rates to whatever they were before they started using LPRs. And that ties into the sort of second argument that comes through. when people start talking about this and they'll say, well, it makes the job of a police officer easier. And I just don't find that to be a compelling argument. Like it's not supposed to be easy to be a police officer. You are the armed, uh, the armed enforcers of the social structure and your job is inherently difficult. Like that it comes with the territory and, to try and like make that easier to inflict the use of, of state sanctioned violence. Like it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be easy. That's why we have warrants that we have. That's why we have the fourth amendment. Uh, and the other side of the people, one of the other things that people bring up is, well, you have a cell phone with you, you carry your cell phone with you all the time. Like, isn't that surveillance anyway, that way. And the difference is that's voluntary. We choose to have the cell phones with us. We can choose to go in and turn off location services.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: We cannot choose.
00:08:31
Speaker 2: And nobody knows to turn off an ALPR. That is inflicted upon you from the top down as opposed to from the bottom up. And there is absolutely a conversation to be had about whether the tracking that happens with these cell phones is voluntary or legal. But it is something that we choose to have with us. It's something that we choose to do. And so, again, that argument just sort of falls apart upon the initial. And I had a couple of other council members who brought that up directly. And so I was really glad to hear that that had been said. So you'll hear anecdotes about terrible things that happened that the police say or that police supporters say, well, this could have been solved. But those are hypotheticals. We shouldn't legislate with hypothetical. You'll hear, well, this makes the job of police easy. It's not supposed to be easy to be like running a police department. It's supposed to be a very thoughtful, intensive job.
00:09:20
Speaker 1: Intentional too.
00:09:21
Speaker 2: Intentional as well. And then on the other side, you'll hear, well, what about all the other things that track us? And that doesn't make them better, but it's also those are more voluntary than an ALPR.
00:09:32
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate that. And again, in the position that I find myself in and Q finds himself in, we do end up having to encounter people that challenge our Takes and views and whatever. And so we do our best to try to anticipate what the opposition would be like. And it's from this perspective that we try to share useful information to our listeners. Still riding with us here on the show. Ramses Jha on your microphone, along with Bobby Nichols. That's my guy over there. Bobby Nichols, if you don't know, you must know. He is Tempe, Arizona's first Democratic Socialist City Council member. Man, I'm so proud of you, dude. I'm so proud of you, man. You did that.
00:10:14
Speaker 2: You did that.
00:10:14
Speaker 1: Man, you pitched your campaign, all this sort of stuff, and then you made it, man. Anyway, Bobby Nichols is also one of a slate of candidates endorsed by Bernie Sanders. He is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America's chapter chair and current member. He is the founder of Arizona Works Together, a pro-union political action committee operating at the state level. And he's here talking to us about his recently passed automotive license plate reader ban. And I say good riddance to those and everyone I will preempt a good riddance to all the rest of them. You know what? I, my listeners know this and you may not know this, but I recently went to Palestine. I went to Israel and you have to fly into Tel Aviv and then you have to lie to them about where you're going to go. And then you end up in Palestine, right? And yeah, one of the things that i learned when i was over there is that these people live in a way that is exceptionally inconvenient like intentionally so by the israeli government um the purpose as as the palestinians put it is for the government to make life so uh challenging for them that they voluntarily leave their homeland yep Um, they have to buy water from their own aquifer in the West bank that is sold to them by the Israeli government at a premium price. They have to store that water on the roof of their houses because, um, they only have access to their own water one day a week sometimes. Um, so they have to store water on that day and the roof. And then of course the Israeli military makes a game out of shooting. the water tanks on top of their houses and let in empty out. So some of the houses, people would have a little bit more means they switched to the rubber ones so that the bullets won't drain out all the water when they shoot them. In addition, there are roads. Of course, everyone knows about the apartheid wall basically, but there are roads that are for their Jewish only. And then there are roads that are Palestinian only. It's very sad and very unfortunate and very racist.
00:12:39
Speaker 2: Deeply.
00:12:40
Speaker 1: And so, you know, around here we say shame on Israel, but we love Jewish people and we always will. And we will always affirm that. Anytime I have a mic in an audience, long time listeners know, that's what I'm about. But the worst of the worst is there's over a thousand checkpoints and gates and physical barriers that limit and restrict the And control the access that Palestinian people have to other parts of Palestine. They don't even have to cross into the Israeli border, if you want to call it that. They're just going from Palestine to Palestine, traveling on Palestinian roads. And there are physical barriers and checkpoints along the way. And they're staffed with military personnel and police agents with big guns. that control the flow. And if the military says, Hey.
00:13:31
Speaker 2: You know what?
00:13:32
Speaker 1: We just want to go home at three o'clock today. And all the cars just stay there until the Israeli military decides to come back the next day or whatever. So there's traffic jams and all this sort of stuff. And you can't get to the hospital. You can't move. Someone's in labor. You get breath on the side of the road. You got to leave the car, come back tomorrow, hope that the gates open or whatever. Um, it's really, really challenging there. So what I say to these people is well, why don't you just go around the barriers if nobody's at the checkpoint? And they say to me something that I should have known, but I had to go there to learn it myself. Well, this is one of the most heavily surveilled places on the planet. Israel, the technology that sold to the United States of America is tested here to see how effective it is. So, if we try to skirt a checkpoint. Like we, in my delegation, we had to get smuggled, I think twice. The rest of the times we didn't need to get smuggled because I was there with the Afro. So I clearly don't look Palestinian, right? So I was like kind of a meal ticket, but there was a couple of times when they didn't really care. There was nobody's coming in here and we needed to go there. Otherwise it's going to be bad for everybody. So we can't just skip a checkpoint because there's cameras. And then of course you don't want to get arrested by the Israeli military because the Israeli military They will arrest you, disappear you. They have, I think something like 90 days and then they can extend that twice. So you're gonna be gone for like six months. Nobody will even know that you're gone or where you went. And you don't have to see a judge because the Palestinians are under a different set of laws. They're under like military law. And the Israeli people are under Israeli citizen law, something like that. And even in the Israeli law, it's like different tiers. If you're a Palestinian Israeli person, like a Jewish or sorry, a Muslim, The person that lives in the in the state lines and and on and on and on. Don't be Ethiopian and brown skinned because they got a long history of being racist against Ethiopians, too.
00:15:32
Speaker 2: So.
00:15:35
Speaker 1: Surveillance is a problem and it keeps everybody in check and keeps everybody limited over there.
00:15:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:15:41
Speaker 1: Now, you talked about the flock cameras creating a mass surveillance system. you used the word dragnet. I'm not sure if that was the word that I'm trying to say now, but talk to us a little bit about how, because obviously people cannot conceive of that. I certainly couldn't until I went over there, but how mass surveillance could be long-term, you know, sort of the first they came for these folks and I didn't say anything, then they came for these folks and I didn't say anything, and then when they came for me, there was nobody to say anything. You know what I mean? So talk to us about the long-term effect of mass surveillance, if left unchecked, why people should get active.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, it is, like we were saying, it doesn't actually lead to the solving of crimes at a higher rate. It doesn't lead to lower criminal activities, but what it does is is it suppresses, um, the, it gives the average everyday person a feeling that they're being watched, a feeling that they should not step out of line. If they do step out of line, they're going to get caught. They're going to get punished. They're going to get, you know, in, in, in Palestine, you know, put in, in detention and exposed to all of the, the terrors that are going on in that space. And then in America you have, or in the United States, especially you have the way that this is connected to, to ice specifically, uh, is sort of the initial look at like what this looks like, um, for us as a society. And it's interesting that you mentioned that the thing that they're trying to do with the checkpoints in Palestine is to make it as. Inconvenient as possible and painful as possible for the residents for the Palestinians there, because the same thing is happening in ice detention centers right now, where they make those because no criminal activity has been committed. They're not, it's not a crime to be in the country undocumented. It is a civil infraction and you are put in these, you know, holding tanks. And essentially what is happening is the guards are intentionally, and that system is intentionally designed to make people as uncomfortable as they can possibly be for the purpose of getting themselves, getting them to voluntarily deport. And that once you reenter the country after voluntarily deporting, that is a crime. And then now you can be subject to a whole separate set of penalties for coming back into the country. And so what we're looking at, the long-term effect of this is the suppression of working class groups. And so working class people in Palestine are the Palestinian people. They're the majority of people there. There are Israelis who are working class as well. But the Israeli government is set up as an extension of international capital in the same way that the American government right now is set up. As an extension of international capital, we live under a dictatorship of capital and they have control over the governments that are deciding how we are operating in the day to day. And so we saw this a little bit with the no Kings protests. And there was actually in Tempe an instance of. a flaw camera system being used to search for a no Kings ATL. So like the idea was that they were looking for a vehicle that had potentially been at a no Kings rally, but rather than saying like, let's find this specific vehicle, let's do this license plate, this sort of broad over this use, this, this was used that could have hit everybody across the board. And what that does, the effect of that is when you're thinking about going to a protest, now you're thinking, well, am I going to get, caught, am I going to get in trouble for this? Like, am I being watched?
00:19:13
Speaker 1: Am I being documented where I'm going, my movements?
00:19:16
Speaker 2: It's dangerous for me as a person. And the long-term effect is the suppression of our rights and our ability to organize as a working class. And I don't mean to bring everything back to empowering the working class, but one of the things that we absolutely have to do if we are going to build class consciousness is let everybody know that until everyone is free, no one is free. While there is oppression in Palestine, while immigrants are oppressed in the United States, There's always going to be a next step because the fascists will not be satisfied with one group. They are required by their ideology to put forward a new other, a new enemy. every time they deal with one because otherwise nobody wants them in power because their policies are incredibly unpopular.
00:19:56
Speaker 1: Still locked in with us here. Ramses Jha on the microphone. Bobby Nichols in the studio with us. That's my man, the man, the myth, the legend himself. He is Tempe, Arizona's first Democratic Socialist City Council member. One of the slate of candidates endorsed by Bernie Sanders himself. Bobby is the former Phoenix Democratic Socialist of America's chapter chair and current member. He's the founder of Arizona Works Together, a pro-union political action committee operating at the state level. And he has been having a conversation with us today about his recently passed automotive license plate reader ban. He got it done, man. Really proud of you. So, we've told people... about democratic socialism. We've told people about block cameras and ALPRs. And we've talked about your process of getting a ban put in place in Tempe, Arizona. You mentioned that the language exists. One more time, plug where the language exists.
00:20:59
Speaker 2: You can go to the Tempe website, so tempe.gov, look up our agendas, and then on the October 15th meeting, I don't remember what the specific ordinance number was, but you can just look up ALPRs, like go copy, like search the page for ALPRs, and it'll show you exactly what we're talking about.
00:21:15
Speaker 1: Okay, so you can copy that language and then present that language as the language in Go ahead.
00:21:22
Speaker 2: You can say that. So reach out to the ACLU, American Civil Liberties Union. They did an incredible job supporting the development of this language along with our community groups. Shout out to everybody who participated.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: So your point was that you gave our listeners today what they needed to and the linguistic framework of what is necessary to get this implemented in cities around the country. Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:21:47
Speaker 1: We talked about the drawbacks of mass surveillance, some of the talking points one might encounter from people on the ground who say, I'm not committing a crime. Maybe this will catch other criminals. We talked about some of the pushback from police officers, police unions was saying, hey, we need this to do our jobs and whatever, all that sort of stuff. Fantastic, thorough conversation. But there might be some people out there who want to know how to lock in with you because you got the ball and you're running a hundred miles an hour. So before you jump, of course, any closing thoughts, but make sure you leave us with social medias, websites, blah, blah, blah, this, that, and the third, because we need all of that from you. Bobby Nichols.
00:22:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. Closing thoughts. A better world is possible. We have been sort of conditioned to expect that our governments are not going to actually work for us, that they're only going to serve the interests of the very, very wealthy. And it doesn't have to be that way, but we get out and we organize and we force change at the local level, at the state level, at the federal level, whatever that looks like. We can make these things happen. When I got into office, there was nobody supportive of getting rid of ALPRs, maybe me. And then one of the other brand new people who had come in with me, we took no money from, from police unions, from public safety unions, from developers. from corporations, we came in explicitly and exclusively supported and supported by and supportive of the working class people in our city, the people who are fighting every day to make ends meet. And that's just our way of doing this. There's more than one way of fighting for the working class and supporting working class power and building that world that we all deserve. That's mutual aid, that's engaging with politics, that's developing or organizing protests, that's doing... You know, it's where if you're a student, you're building student groups on campus and we see stuff happening out in France and in Romania and in Italy where people are pushing back against the degradation of their public schools and the destruction of their housing markets. Those things are happening in America as well. And we have the this is the we have the capacity to get out and do something about this by organizing, engaging with your community, identifying shared interests and fighting as hard as you can for those shared interests together as a working class. So that's sort of my call to action for people.
00:24:07
Speaker 1: I love that.
00:24:07
Speaker 2: Get involved in your community. If you want to join DSA, find your local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America or join a union, another great opportunity to do stuff and fight at your local level for your own, you know, your rights as a working class person. And then if you want to get in touch with me, you can always reach out to my social medias. That's at Bobby for Tempe. That's the number four B O B B Y the number four T E M P E. My website is bobbyfortempe.com. If you want to reach out to me as is my capacity as a city council member, then my information is available on the tempe.gov website. You go there and you look up Bobby Nichols or you look up city council and it'll show you my contact information. My email address is a city council member. My assistant's email address is a city council member. Shout out to Morningstar. Morningstar does incredible work. None of this gets done without Morningstar. Just need to make that very clear. That's my assistant. She's the best. And yeah, please reach out because I want to help other people do the same things that we're doing in Tempe. I want to help other politicians, but not just politicians. I want to help movement leaders and movement builders around the country. Obviously, Arizona, Tempe, the East Valley, Maricopa County, that has a special place in my heart because that's where I live. but our fight is United. It is intersectional from Palestine to turtle Island until everyone is free. No one is free. And we got to stand on that. And as a working class, you know, fight for our liberation from the systems that oppress and make it more difficult for us to control the outcome of our lives.
00:25:39
Speaker 1: Uh, you're an inspiring man. I know that these fights don't need to be yours. The fact that you make them yours means that, uh, Man, if I get to heaven and you're not there, then I'm in the wrong place. All right. Bobby Nichols, ladies and gentlemen. And don't forget to lock in with me on all social media at RamsesJaiQ. You can find it. I am Q Ward. You can find both of us at CivicCypher. That's C-I-V-I-C-C-I-P-H-E-R. Today's show was brought to you by Chris Thompson and Dan Pavlish. Those are my guys. And to find out what we are contributing to the hip hop culture at large, find us on the Internet. at hiphopweeklymagazine.com. And until next time, y'all, take care of each other and peace.
00:26:39
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