The Brief

State capitalism. MAGA Marxism. Crony capitalism.

Those are just some of the terms business and political commentators have used this year to describe how President Donald Trump's policies are reshaping U.S. free-market capitalism. There are some differences in definition — but all of these terms underline how dramatically Trump has blurred the boundaries between business and government, to an extent that could have long-term consequences for the U.S. economy and the country's global standing.

"When the American government appears to favor a company over rival companies, that distorts the marketplace," says Ann Lipton, a veteran business law expert and professor at University of Colorado's law school.

"It means that other firms have less incentive to compete on innovation, which is sort of the opposite of how a free market is supposed to operate," she adds. "It's just bad for the economy."

There's ample evidence this year of Trump actively favoring some U.S. companies and investors, while threatening others. In August, he publicly called for the resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan — until Tan came to the White House to meet with him, and agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% stake in the tech company.

Several other tech CEOs also spent the year appearing to personally court Trump. Take Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who runs the world's most valuable company and is among the donors funding Trump's controversial plans to build a White House ballroom. This month, Trump said the U.S. would grant Nvidia permission to sell one of its more advanced semiconductor chips in China — as long as the U.S. government gets a 25% cut of sales.

Lipton calls this capitalism by "schmoozing," and warns that it could seriously damage the competitiveness of U.S. businesses, thus hurting the overall economy in the long term.

"We're not going to get the best innovations. We're not going to get the best products," she says. "If [businesses] are competing on their ability to schmooze, then that's bad for everybody."

Intel did not respond to an NPR request for comment. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Nvidia said, "In our discussions, President Trump focuses on his desire for America to win as a nation and his efforts to protect national security, American prosperity and technology leadership."

China-style 'state capitalism'

Business leaders have always spent some amount of time trying to cozy up to the White House, no matter its occupant. But Lipton and business insiders across the political spectrum say that Trump's direct influence over private companies this year — and the degree to which some of those companies and their leaders have sought to appeal to him personally — is pushing the U.S. economy away from free-market or "rules-based" capitalism.

This system, traditionally embraced by both businesses and Republicans, has helped make the United States into the dominant global economy.

But now, these business insiders say, Trump's policies are creating a government-controlled style of "state capitalism," in which the government — rather than competition between private businesses — shapes the economy. Some go so far as to call it "crony capitalism," meaning that the U.S. government picks winners and losers based on the president's personal relationships.

"We are seeing a shift away from the type of rules-based capitalism that has made America's economy so robust for so long. And there's a lot of risk in that," says Daniella Ballou-Aares, who co-founded the consulting firm Dalberg and served in President Obama's State Department. She now runs the Leadership Now Project, a coalition of business leaders that has endorsed candidates from both political parties.

In October, her group and The Harris Poll surveyed business leaders across the political spectrum — and found that 84% are worried "about the current political and legal climate's impact on their companies."

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang listens as President Trump speaks at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in November in Washington, D.C. Nvidia has spent the year seeking the U.S. government's approval to sell more of its semiconductor chips in China.

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A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says "this narrative about how [President Trump] reshaped capitalism is significantly overstated" and calls Trump's policies by and large "the traditional free-market policy-making that you would expect coming out of a Republican Administration."

The official dismissed claims that the White House is engaging in "crony capitalism," and says "there are companies that are benefiting [from Trump's policies] whether or not they have a good relationship with the administration."

The official also notes that so far, the U.S. government has largely sought to take ownership stakes or revenue-sharing deals from companies that play a role in economic and national security: For example, Intel and Nvidia both sell the semiconductors at the center of the artificial-intelligence arms race with China. The U.S. government has also taken stakes or other interests in U.S. Steel and MP Materials, a rare-earth minerals mining company, among others.

"What we're trying to do is very much embracing the free market and the growth that it unleashes, but making targeted interventions where there's too much on the line," the official says.

Tech winners vs. everyone else in corporate America

Businesses largely welcomed President Trump's victory in last year's election, in part due to frustration with what they perceived as a harsh and "anti-business" regulatory climate under President Biden.

And some seem pretty happy with his first year in office — especially the tech billionaires whose "Magnificent Seven" companies are powering the A.I. boom.

"The Magnificent Seven and Trump 2.0 are really on the same page to a large extent," says Daniel Kinderman, a political science professor at the University of Delaware who studies what he calls "authoritarian capitalism" and business responses to right-wing movements.

Some of President Trump's policies, including his sweeping tariffs and his changes to immigration policies for highly-skilled foreign workers, have complicated the business of Big Tech. But most tech CEOs have tried to avoid criticizing those policies publicly, and instead focused on donating to Trump's personal projects. Apple's Tim Cook, for example, this summer presented Trump with a gold-plated and glass plaque as his company promised to invest $600 billion in the United States.

Such gifts appear to have helped: Apple's iPhones have escaped the worst of Trump's tariffs.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Kinderman points out that for wealthy and powerful CEOs, Trump's degree of personal involvement in their businesses at least makes it efficient to deal directly with him — if they can keep him happy — instead of wading through the slow and complicated red tape of federal regulatory processes.

"These companies are a huge portion of the American economy," he says. "And I think Trump is also giving them, to a large extent, what they want."

In August, Apple CEO Tim Cook presented President Trump with a gold-plated and glass plaque, as his company pledged to invest a total of $600 billion in the United States.

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Still, he and others warn that, taken to the extreme, codependent relationships between political leaders and CEOs don't always end well for the latter.

In more authoritarian countries, where leaders exert much more control over private businesses, the stakes can be especially fraught. Russia, Hungary, and China all exercise some form of state-controlled capitalism, where an autocratic leader cultivates relationships with oligarchic business CEOs — and can quickly force them out of favor.

As one extreme example, Ballou-Aares invokes Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder who built one of China's biggest tech companies before criticizing the country's financial regulations … and then largely disappearing from public view for several years.

"We know that crony capitalism never really ends well for most companies," she says. "I mean, tell Jack Ma that autocracy is okay for business."

'Most CEOs are pretty frustrated'

Outside of Big Tech, many businesses feel a lot more conflicted about how President Trump is reshaping U.S. capitalism. Some have even filed lawsuits against the administration, over its tariffs and its immigration policies.

"Despite the handful of tech titans that do seem to admittedly genuflect at the White House and at Mar-a-Lago, most CEOs are pretty frustrated with what's happening," says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor who regularly speaks with CEOs.

Pockets of frustration from corporate America have become more visible recently. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the administration over its plans to start charging $100,000 for H-1B visas for highly-skilled foreign workers — although it did so while praising Trump's "ambitious agenda."

And JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon, who runs the country's largest bank and is one of the most prominent non-tech CEOs in the country, recently told CNN why his company had declined to donate to Trump's White House ballroom.

"Since we do a lot of contracts with governments here and around the world, we have to be very careful about how anything is perceived," Dimon said. "We're quite conscious of risks we bear by doing anything that looks like buying favors or anything like that."

That said, most businesses are reluctant to publicly criticize President Trump or his policies. Smaller companies lack the power to effectively stand up to the White House. And even those running the country's biggest companies are unwilling to draw the personal attacks that Trump can often wield, or the ensuing partisan boycotts and financial damage that can follow.

Earlier this month, demolition work continued where the East Wing once stood at the White House. President Trump ordered the East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden leveled to make way for a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom that he says will be paid for with private donations from companies including Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google.

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Many businesses have neither the appetite nor the capacity to take on the U.S. government. They just want to focus on making money, even if that means adapting to dramatic tariffs or other sharp shifts in government policy.

"It's tactical fire-fighting," says Drew DeLong, who advises businesses around the world as head of corporate statecraft for the consulting company Kearney, and who served in the State Department during Trump's first administration.

"Every moment and every hour you spend on tariff mitigation is one less hour that you spend on innovation," he says. "There is an urgency towards fire-fighting as best as they possibly can, but there's also a fatigue."

'Merger review has been weaponized'

The Trump Administration's approach to approving — or not — corporate mergers has drawn some of the highest scrutiny, because of the nexus of political and business issues at stake.

For example, the Federal Communications Commission this year approved several telecommunications mergers only after Verizon and T-Mobile agreed to terminate internal policies around "diversity, equity, and inclusion," or DEI. Then it threatened to take federal action against some ABC affiliates over Jimmy Kimmel's comments about Charlie Kirk's killing on his ABC late-night show; the owners of some of those stations were also seeking federal approvals for mergers. (ABC parent Walt Disney suspended Kimmel's show for almost a week, before reinstating him. ABC did not respond to requests for comment.)

"Merger review has been weaponized into a tool for control," says Elizabeth Wilkins, the former chief of staff to Lina Khan, who oversaw U.S. merger review as chair of President Biden's Federal Trade Commission.

"With those kinds of tools hanging over corporate leaders' heads, we have seen an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear — which breeds silence," adds Wilkins, who now runs the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank.

The exception is, again, for leaders who cultivate close ties with the president. This year, the White House helped broker a deal for a coalition of U.S. investors to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok — and asked for an unusual multibillion-dollar payment to the federal government, which business experts have compared to a "shakedown" or "extortion." Some of those same investors, including Trump ally Larry Ellison and his son, David, are now seeking even more media deals.

Some business experts say now that corporate America has a better idea of President Trump's playbook in this administration, they expect to see companies and their executives feel more confident about how and when to push back against White House policies that they think will damage their businesses and the wider economy.

"I think it is clear that the administration's approach here is broadly unpopular, including with business," says Ballou-Aares.

But Kearney's DeLong, the veteran of Trump's first administration, warns businesses to brace for much more policy change, and uncertainty about what capitalism and the economy will look like in the future.

"This is just year one," he says. "Where do we go [during] the rest of this administration? Where do we go after?"
Copyright 2025 NPR

Two of L.A.’s top elected officials are publicly clashing over one of the public’s top issues — the future of homeless services spending — as city council members weigh pulling $300 million a year out of the troubled L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).

It started just after Wednesday’s meeting of the city council’s housing and homelessness committee, where members discussed the possibility of directing the city’s homelessness spending to the county’s new department. Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement urging the council not to redirect the funds too quickly without a plan.

“The county’s decision to establish its own department and withdraw from LAHSA has created a funding and operational gap, which the city must immediately address in order to ensure life-saving services for unhoused Angelenos are not disrupted,” Bass said.

County supervisors decided last April to withdraw their funding — over $300 million a year — from LAHSA and shift it to a new county department starting this July.

“The last thing we need is a new department and more bureaucracy,” the mayor said, adding the county had been “prioritizing bureaucracy rather than services.”

County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath responded shortly after with a statement of her own, saying the mayor “is living in the LAHSA twilight zone.”

“When the mayor created a new program — spending hundreds of millions of your dollars without prior City Council approval — she called it ‘strategic,’” said Horvath, referring to Bass’ Inside Safe program.

“Now, when the County withdraws hundreds of millions of your dollars from an agency that failed multiple audits, she calls it ‘more bureaucracy.’”

Audits released in late 2024 and last spring found LAHSA failed to properly track the hundreds of millions of dollars the city and county entrusted to it per year.

“Angelenos know the truth: The current system doesn’t work,” Horvath’s statement said. A spokesperson for Bass didn’t respond to a request for comment on Horvath’s criticism.

‘Wasted precious time’

Wednesday’s discussion by the homelessness committee came a year after city and county officials received staff reports about potential alternatives to LAHSA.

County supervisors made their decision last April. The city council is about a year behind in starting its discussion of the options.

City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who introduced the motion two years ago requesting the city report up for discussion Wednesday, said at the meeting the council had “wasted precious time.”

 ”This is a leadership failure,” Rodriguez said. “If you care about the people that are being lost in the street, then you should care to work with urgency and decisive action.”

She has criticized the committee’s chair, Nithya Raman, for waiting more than 300 days after the report was finished before bringing it forward for discussion.

Raman did not respond to the criticism during the meeting or in response to a request for comment from LAist.

At Wednesday’s meeting, council members were told in their official staff briefing that the city lacks officials dedicated to homelessness policy and that it would likely take a year and a half to bring oversight of the spending in house to direct city control.

Homelessness Bureau not ready

Bass’ statement pointed to a forthcoming Homelessness Bureau, a team in city government she said will focus on oversight and accountability over homelessness spending.

Raman said the bureau is not yet ready to monitor homelessness spending or advise the council.

“We have not hired a single person for the bureau yet,” said Raman, who championed the bureau a year ago. City council approved the bureau’s funding nine months ago, for the fiscal year starting last July.

Rodriguez criticized the council’s decision last spring to pursue the bureau instead of discussing options to shift funding from LAHSA. The bureau, she added, still does not have “ an overarching goal, which addresses the concerns around governance” of homelessness dollars.

Raman recently announced she’s running for mayor against Bass, something Horvath openly considered but opted not to do. She is instead running for re-election as supervisor.

The committee plans to hold one more discussion in the coming weeks, before deciding next steps. Any changes to funding would have to go to a vote of the full city council.

The historic Original Pantry Cafe in downtown Los Angeles is reopening under a new partnership with nonprofit Hope the Mission.

The more than 100-year-old diner on Figueroa Street is expected to open in May or June in collaboration with the North Hills-based organization that provides meals, shelter and services to people experiencing homelessness.

When The Pantry first announced its closure last March, thousands of Angelenos from its loyal multi-generational customer base flocked to the restaurant for one last meal.

But now, the greasy spoon will start serving customers again under a new model. All profits will go toward supporting the unhoused community, according to Ken Craft, founder and CEO.

“This creates an opportunity for people to know 'I'm going to go enjoy an incredible meal at an iconic location in Los Angeles, and it's going to be doing good for the city of Los Angeles,'” Craft told LAist.

What’s new

Hope the Mission isn’t a total stranger to food service.

The organization provides nearly 9,000 meals each day and operates 33 shelters and interim housing sites in the region, including five shelters within a few miles of The Pantry.

One of its mottos is that everybody and everything gets a second chance — the historic diner included.

“It is very symbolic of the work that we do where oftentimes lives get beat down, they get worn out and they feel like their usefulness is done,” Craft said. “And so I look at The Pantry and I say, ‘No, your best years are yet to come.’"

The tagline of The Pantry when it reopens under the new partnership will be “a second serving”, as a nod to that second chance.

But the nostalgic draw of the diner is not lost on Craft.

The Original Pantry Cafe in 1979.

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The Original Pantry Cafe, on the northwest corner of Figueroa and 9th streets, in 1978.

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He said Hope the Mission is going to honor the history and legacy of the space (logo and several layers of flooring included) while giving it a new lease on life.

The organization’s chefs have been working on an updated menu. Craft said it’ll include some of the classic food customers came to love, including pancakes and hash browns, along with a new dessert line and some healthier options.

The overall goal is to replicate the feeling people had when they ate at The Pantry decades ago, with the same style and much of the same staff, while the diner evolves into the next philanthropic chapter. Craft said he wants to make sure The Original Pantry Cafe gets back on the map.

“Not only will you get an amazing meal and a wonderful experience, you're going to be actually investing back into the community,” he said.

The counter was full on The Pantry's last day open in March 2025.

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The scene on the last day of The Pantry's operation in March 2025.

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Officials are working to reopen The Pantry between May 1 and June 1, Craft said. All the business’ profits will go toward supporting people experiencing homelessness through Hope the Mission’s shelters, services and meal programs.

What’s old

Kurt Petersen, the co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, the union representing the restaurant’s workers, told LAist they’ve come to an agreement with Hope the Mission so that all the staff who lost their jobs when The Pantry closed will be able to return to their previous positions.

Petersen said the union also reached an agreement that will provide free family health insurance, legal services and training funds for those workers.

“The folks who've been there 10, 20, 30, 40 years — they're really listening to them about what this needs to be in order to be a beloved institution going forward for Angelenos, “ he said.

“At the same time, they have some thoughts about how it should be run and hopefully the marriage of those two concepts will bring The Pantry forward so that it'll be open another 100 years,” Petersen continued.

José Moran, who worked at The Pantry for more than 45 years, told LAist he’s excited to start serving Angelenos again.

José Moran said he's "very happy" to be going back to work at The Pantry.

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“I feel great, I feel very happy,” Moran said. “I never thought I was going to work again there.”

Moran described the restaurant staff as a “family” — both figuratively and literally. His brother, Jesus, also worked at The Pantry a little longer than José.

Moran said he’s been missing his brother since they stopped seeing each other every day when the diner closed. But now, they’re both looking forward to coming back to the greasy spoon.

José and Jesus Moran were both servers at The Pantry for more than 45 years. José Moran said they're both looking forward to returning for the reopening.

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How we got here

The diner shut its doors last year after more than a century of serving breakfast staples.

The owner at the time, the Richard J. Riordan Administrative Trust, told LAist’s media partner CBS LA that the restaurant was never profitable and that selling the property would help keep the foundation’s charitable mission. The trust took over ownership after former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, who bought the restaurant in 1981, died a few years ago.

But UNITE HERE Local 11 said the trust abruptly closed the diner after staff insisted that any new owners must protect their jobs and honor the union.

Kurt Petersen, the co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, said the staff who lost their jobs when The Pantry closed will be able to return to their previous positions.

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“I saw some of the guys crying, and because, you know, we all got families and we have to support them,” Moran said. “I know how they were feeling, because I was feeling too the same. At the beginning, that was very sad.”

Last September, the union announced a “landmark agreement” with the new owner, Leo Pustilnikov, who’s also a real estate developer.

Petersen said because the staff fought for their jobs with the support of residents and city officials, they are now going back to work with an operator and owner who share the mission that The Pantry needs to be one of the great restaurants in Los Angeles.

“So this is all good news,” Petersen said. “and God knows we need good news right now.”

Pustilnikov told the Los Angeles Times last fall that he planned to reopen The Pantry on New Year’s Eve, pending the necessary permits and licenses. Petersen said there were some delays when a car crashed into the building shorty after.

The restaurant’s website still reads “temporarily closed” as of Thursday.

Pustilnikov didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

How to get involved

Hope the Mission is also launching a fundraising campaign with opportunities for the community to support The Pantry’s reopening.

There are various donation levels, with people giving $100,000 or more getting the chance to name a drink or item from the menu. Craft said they’ve already had a few takers.

Gifts of $50,000 or more will get to sponsor a booth at the diner, with the donor's name or business displayed on the table.

People who donate $5,000 or more will have their name permanently displayed on a sign inside The Pantry.

“We're looking to the business community and people that love L.A. to partner with us in helping to make sure that it's a successful launch,” Craft said.

You can learn more here.

Monterey Park voters will decide in June whether to ban data centers citywide, setting up a potential legal battle with the developer behind a proposed project.

The City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved placing a measure on the June ballot that would ask voters to amend the city’s General Plan to prohibit the facilities.

The council, also by unanimous vote, directed staff to begin drafting a city ordinance banning data centers ahead of the June election that could potentially take effect before then. It also extended a 45-day moratorium on data center development to January 2027.

City Attorney Karl Berger said the multi-prong approach would give Monterey Park the strongest legal footing.

“I like the belt, suspenders and girdle approach to most things just to make sure that everything's buckled down,” Berger said.

The council votes come after months of mounting resident outrage over a proposal to build a 250,000-square-foot data center in a business park — a project they fear would bring high energy use, noise and limited economic benefit.

Many said they did not learn about the project until the end of last year through word-of-mouth and social media, and faulted city leaders for failing to properly inform them.

Developer HMC StratCap has threatened litigation over the council’s moves toward banning data centers.

On Wednesday, before the council voted, Bryan Marsh, an HMC StratCap executive, gave public comment to boos from the audience, saying the company purchased the land in December 2024 after the “city provided assurances about the viability of data center development.”

He urged the city to work with the company on finding “alternative land uses” for the property.

“Forcing a ballot proposition with a special election in June 2026 severely degrades our ability to work together,” Marsh said.

The council appeared unmoved. Berger, the city attorney, said the developer currently does not appear to have a legally vested project.

There is an application on file, he said, but no public hearing has been scheduled. Berger added he had been authorized by the council to initiate litigation against HMC StratCap if the company were to file suit.

Opponents of the data center rejoiced over Wednesday’s votes and expressed relief that they had mobilized against the project before HMC StratCap’s application had advanced any further.

“The City Council has listened and is listening,” said Hrag Balian, a resident who helped found the group No Data Center in Monterey Park! “ I feel very optimistic that data centers are going to be banned from Monterey Park in the foreseeable near future.”

A group in South Pasadena gathered Wednesday to urge their city council to end its contracts with Flock Safety, the controversial surveillance company that operates AI-powered automated license plate readers in thousands of communities across the U.S., including many in California.

The small town has 27 Flock cameras that monitor the cars that come and go in the community of around 25,000 people — one of the highest densities in the region, according to the mayor. That information is temporarily stored in a database that's shared with law enforcement agencies across the state.

The South Pasadena City Council is now taking a deeper look at its contracts with Flock, after reports that some local law enforcement agencies in Southern California illegally shared license plate reader data with federal immigration agents. Those included the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, which South Pasadena shares its data with.

"I’m deeply concerned for the safety of our community. Flock has proven to be careless with our data," Olivia Ramirez, a South Pasadena resident, told the city council in public comment Wednesday. “Continuing to work with Flock will erode public trust and, as a consequence, will harm public safety.”

The speakers are part of a growing movement, as residents across California push local law enforcement and city governments to reconsider their ties with the Flock over concerns about surveillance and how their data could be used in the federal government's mass deportation campaign.

How other communities are responding

Santa Cruz killed its contract with Flock in January following reports that the city's data was accessed by agencies outside of California and shared with ICE. Last month, Mountain View Police Department shut off its Flock cameras after an audit found that federal agencies had accessed its data in 2024. Other local governments in the Bay Area have followed suit.

The Oxnard Police Department also suspended its use of Flock license plate readers last week, after an audit revealed that data from the city's cameras was made available to federal law enforcement agencies between February and March of 2025 through a "nationwide query" setting, against the city's wishes and state law. A California law prohibits sharing license plate reader data with agencies outside of the state.

Flock acknowledged the incident in a blog post this week, saying that out-of-state law enforcement agencies' access to some of its camera networks was "inadvertent" and it was not possible in some cases to determine the cause.

The post also said that Flock had strengthened its protections, including by excluding federal agencies from national and statewide lookup networks, and implementing guardrails that keep California agencies from accepting or initiating data sharing with federal agencies or out of state entities.

"Flock sincerely regrets the confusion and mistrust this has created within several communities," the blog post reads. "Flock takes full accountability for this situation, and has made changes and improvements to significantly enhance agency ability to effortlessly comply with applicable laws, regulations, and community norms that govern information sharing."

That wasn't good enough for Sam Gurley, who rallied with his neighbors in South Pasadena on Wednesday night.

“It isn't until they get caught that they say, 'Hey, I know that this is a law in California. We got caught, let's fix it,'" said Gurley, who said he became alarmed when he learned that Flock cameras were deployed. " Now that I have a better understanding of how the system, the city use and share this data with each other, I'm more terrified than I've ever been."

How Flock works

Flock has contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies around the nation that use its cameras and license plate readers. The cameras are sometimes attached to street poles — including one on Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena near the entrance to the 110 Freeway, where cars streamed by the nondescript camera under a small solar panel on Wednesday evening.

There are 27 Flock cameras installed around the city of South Pasadena.

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Flock cameras "continuously scan and record images" of vehicles' license plates numbers, color, and make, according to a report put together by city staff in South Pasadena. The cameras record the date, time and GPS location every time a car passes by. According to Flock's website, the cameras also pick up other identifying features of cars, like stickers and roof racks.

The technology automatically cross references license plate numbers with law enforcement databases and alerts the police department if it detects a vehicle connected with a criminal investigation, according to the report.

Flock's database also allows law enforcement agencies to search the location of vehicles outside of their own city. Flock stores the data for 30 days and then automatically deletes it, although cities can adjust the length of time they retain the data. Flock emphasized to NPR that cities control how the data they collect is shared.

Law enforcement agencies have hailed the technology for helping them locate suspects and stolen vehicles. At a February city council meeting, South Pasadena Sergeant Andy DuBois called the Flock cameras a "force multiplier" for officers trying to solve crimes.

" It allows agencies to share relevant information in a secure and regulated way. By participating in this network, we benefit from broader technological coverage without needing to add additional staffing," DuBois said.

Nick Hidalgo, senior staff attorney with ACLU of Northern California who has done work on automated license plate readers for years, called the technology a "dragnet.”

"What they are collecting is a person's location — because any license plate information can be connected very easily to a driver," he said. "You can capture a ton of information about where a person lives, works, etc. We're talking about truly sensitive information here."

A deeper look at the law

In California, state law SB 34 prohibits agencies from sharing information gathered by automated license plate readers with out-of-state and federal agencies. Police departments also must keep a record of their queries of the system. Another state law, SB 54, limits California law enforcement agencies from assisting with immigration enforcement.

In 2023, the state's attorney general Rob Bonta issued two bulletins to state and local law enforcement on complying with those laws when using automated license plate reader data.

"The majority of California law enforcement agencies collect and use images captured by ALPR cameras, but few have appropriate usage and privacy policies in place," a press release from Bonta's office said at the time.

Last year, Bonta sued the city of El Cajon in San Diego County, saying it had shared data from its system of Flock automated license plate reader cameras with more than 100 out-of-state law enforcement agencies. The mayor of that city responded with defiance, saying it shares data with other states because "crime doesn't stop at the border."

Flock Safety says that it does not work with ICE or any agency within the Department of Homeland Security. It also emphasizes that it is local agencies that own the data that their cameras collect, not Flock.

South Pasadena faces a deadline

The city of South Pasadena pays around $83,000 annually for two contracts with Flock – one which sunsets this month, on March 19. The council has until March 18 to decide whether or not to auto-renew the contract for two more years.

If the city decides to terminate the contract, it will have to repay a federal grant of around $45,000 it used to install 14 cameras. The city could also decide to end its second contract with Flock before its March, 2027 end date. That would cost the city a $6,500 termination fee, but it would receive a refund for the unused days of service, according to a city report.

South Pasadena Mayor Sheila Rossi told LAist that she's concerned about Flock's system and reports about data being shared out of the state of California. She also told the city council in February that South Pasadena had a far higher density of cameras than many surrounding communities, saying it reached "the category of surveillance."

South Pasadena says it's implementing changes to its camera policies, including requiring monthly audits of how the system is queried and requiring agents that search the data include a case number.

Councilmembers in February also raised the idea of reducing their system's data retention to less than 30 days. The state of New Hampshire requires law enforcement agencies to delete automated license plate reader data after three minutes if it does not yield a hit with criminal investigations.

Rossi said the council will look into options including contracting with other automated license plate readers and canceling one of the city contracts with Flock.

" Cities have a responsibility to make sure the safeguards around these tools keep pace," she said.

Susan Seager, a First Amendment lawyer and South Pasadena resident, said she wants the cameras gone, period.

" I don't trust Flock and I don't trust our federal government, and I want to be able to trust our local police department," she said. "I don't think our little small city should be part of that surveillance state."