In Asheville, the largest city in western North Carolina, the last few months have been marked by a controversy that divides and worries the community: the federally funded construction of a new Real Time Intelligence Center (RTIC).
Who monitors those cameras and at what times? Are the videos stored? Can Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access that information today or in two years? What if the rules change tomorrow? Above all, how will this new RTIC operate once it's launched?
To learn more and ask the questions we've heard most often from the community in the area, Enlace Latino NC He toured the Asheville Police Department facilities and interviewed Lieutenant Josh Meindl, who oversees the technology and intelligence section, and James Wingo, the department's technology manager.
A project that is still under discussion
The City Council approved the financing of the RTIC In May, the measure passed by a vote of 6 to 1 in a session that stretched until nearly midnight and ended amid public protests. Councilwoman Kim Roney was the sole dissenting vote, and she is now a mayoral candidate in the November election, with opposition to surveillance as one of her key platforms.
Months later, the issue remains unresolved. Residents continue to question who will control the system, what will happen to the data, and whether that information could fall into federal hands.
Even within the department, they acknowledge it. When we asked them what the most difficult part of this process had been, both officials gave the same answer: preconceived notions. “There are many people who, for political or personal reasons, are spreading things that are simply false,” Wingo said.
What will the new intelligence center be like?
The new RTIC will operate in what was once the 911 operations center and is now a large, empty room. There, the real-time intelligence center will be built, funded with federal funds whose acceptance has already been approved by the City Council.
Much of the technology that the RTIC will use already exists and is currently operational in various parts of the department. The police already use it. dronesBody cameras, patrol car cameras, and automatic license plate readers.
Meindl further explained that since 2022 the city has been paying the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office for access to its intelligence center. The new RTIC, he said, will allow the department to operate from its own facilities.
Why the RTIC is necessary, according to the Police
“Everything we do is part of a community service request for the police to respond to a situation,” Meindl explained in an interview with this media outlet.
According to him, the goal of the RTIC is to concentrate everything in one place. tools which today operate separately, to provide officers and supervisors with "the most accurate information possible" while responding to an incident.
This is made possible by Fusus software: the platform that will integrate the cameras, alerts, and transmissions the department already uses into a single map. It is also the most expensive part of the project: a contract estimated at $467,602 that would cover seven to eight years of service.
The budget also includes about $500,000 for the screen wall and $174,000 for operating expenses, according to the department's presentation to the City Council.
According to the information provided during the tour, the new center will have capacity for eight workstations and a wall of screens much larger than the one currently used by public safety analysts: there will be 12 screens, each three times the size of the current ones.
“Nobody is sitting around looking at cameras”
One of the main concerns expressed by residents during the RTIC debate has been who will be able to access the cameras and under what circumstances.
“People think we have live monitoring of our Flock cameras, the license plate readers“We don’t have it,” Meindl replied when we asked him how the system works.
The lieutenant explained that, when they are not supporting an ongoing response, the civilian analysts handle requests from detectives investigating open cases: they are looking for information about a vehicle, a plaque.
During the tour, we repeatedly asked what controls are in place to prevent arbitrary access. Officials responded that the videos cannot be freely accessed: there must be a reason related to an incident or investigation, access requires supervisor authorization, and only 11 people within the department have access to the system.
The department also states that these searches are audited every three months. Wingo told the network WLOS that the reviews are internal —done by system administrators, the professional standards unit and the chief of police— and that there is no oversight from outside the police force.
The question the community keeps asking: What about ICE?
This is the point that matters most to the readers of this publicationAnd it was one of the questions we raised in different ways during the tour.
"You don't we share "Our information is not shared with ICE. They don't have access to it. And we don't allow searches of our data for that purpose," Meindl responded.
As he explained, the system requires a reason to be registered for each search, chosen from a predetermined list. Immigration status is not among the options. Neither is anything related to reproductive health care—a prohibition, he said, that is part of agreements with other law enforcement agencies that use the same platform.
When we pressed them—is this a filter? Is it possible to bypass it?—the answer was this: “It’s not even a filter. It’s turned off,” Meindl said. “Any word. ‘Alien,’ immigration, anything anyone can think of,” Wingo added. “It’s blocked. Nothing.”
The department had already informed the City Council in April that the lockdown was activated at the agency's own request. Neither the department nor the City Council provided a technical demonstration during the tour, and it was not possible to independently verify how the lockdown operates in practice.
Meindl further reiterated that the police do not know the immigration status of the people they interact with. “They’re never going to come in here to file a complaint and have someone ask them about their status,” he stated, addressing the Latino community. “We’re not interested in their papers,” he said.
The network that the police don't control
The city operates 11 Flock cameras, according to Wingo. But most of the automatic license plate readers in the area don't belong to any public agency: they're installed by retail chains and neighborhood associations.
“We don’t share our data with them,” Wingo explained. “But they can share their data with us.”
The technology manager described how that private network operates. If someone steals from a store in a chain in another state, the store of that same chain in Asheville receives an alert when the vehicle enters its parking lot.
In other words: there are license plate reading cameras in parking lots and streets of Asheville that are not owned by the police, but whose owners can provide that information.
You may be interested: These are the state laws that most affect immigrants in North Carolina
Today's rules
The department confirmed it will continue offering tours "for as long as necessary and as long as there is community interest." To participate, people can contact the city's police headquarters directly.
Meindl insists that it's worth going and seeing before forming an opinion. He maintained that the department's practice has been to consult with the community and that they hope more people will come and learn about the project for themselves.
But when we asked him what protections residents have if policies change, he was clear. “I’m not going to speculate on what policies will be in the future,” he replied. And he added, “Ten years from now, I can’t tell you what the policy will say.”
Editor's Note: The interview with Lieutenant Josh Meindl and James Wingo was conducted in English at the Asheville Police Department facilities. The quotes were translated into Spanish by [name missing]. Enlace Latino NC.
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