Experts say the Syracuse's Surveillance Technology Working Group has been violating New York's Open Meetings Law. Credit: Patrick McCarthy | Central Current

Former Mayor Ben Walsh created the Surveillance Technology Working Group to ensure Syracuse constituents’ privacy was protected as the city leaned into implementing powerful surveillance tools.

Experts say the city is now ensuring privacy for the group itself.

The working group has met in private since its creation, violating Open Meetings Laws that are meant to ensure transparency and public access to information, according to the New York State Committee on Open Government. COOG is a state agency that advises public bodies on the state’s transparency standards. 

Christen Smith, a senior attorney at the Committee on Open Government, concluded that the group performs duties that are necessary steps in the city’s decision-making process, requiring it to follow New York State Open Meetings Law. 

“If the STWG does in fact perform the tasks and functions set forth in the executive order described above, we believe the STWG would constitute a public body and be subject to the requirements of the (Open Meetings Law),” Smith wrote.

Smith issued her opinion in response to a request from Central Current. Opinions from the Committee on Open Government are not enforceable. 

Smith’s opinion means the Surveillance Technology Working Group for five years has made important decisions in private, even though the group should have deliberated in meetings with public access.

Through this group, the city has implemented several camera systems that built upon the Syracuse Police Department’s existing fleet of hundreds of street corner cameras. 

Together, those systems surveil nearly every public facet of thousands of residents’ daily lives: automatic license plate readers track Syracuse drivers’ movements; red light, bus-arm, and school-zone speed cameras surveil drivers’ adherence to traffic laws; and, if the Syracuse Police Department has its way, “eye in the sky” autonomous drones will record video as they make routine flights over private properties and places of residence.

Two experts agree with the Committee on Open Government’s opinion that the public body has been violating New York’s open meetings laws. 

“For a working group on surveillance technology, it’s highly ironic that they seem to be breaking the Open Meetings Law,” said Rachael Fauss, a senior policy advisor at Reinvent Albany, an organization advocating for transparency in government. “There are ample resources for them to figure this out. The Committee on Open Government was created for this exact purpose, to assist local governments.”

In response to specific questions on the technology group’s apparent noncompliance of state law, city spokesperson Sol Muñoz in a statement to Central Current said the group is an “advisory body operating in compliance with Open Meetings Law.”

Paul Wolf, a legal scholar and president emeritus of the Coalition for Open Government, lamented the city’s apparent indifference to guidance from a state agency created to instruct localities on these exact issues.

“It is unfortunate that the city prefers to exclude the public from these meetings and that they are willing to ignore the opinion of the Committee on Open Government,” Wolf wrote to Central Current.

‘Flagrant abuses’

The Surveillance Technology Working Group has been violating the state’s Open Meetings Law by meeting in private for its entire existence. 

City officials defended the group meeting in private on the basis that the executive order creating the group labeled it as an “advisory body” — a body typically exempt from such laws. 

Smith, the lawyer, wrote that the group performs functions that are necessary to the city’s legislative process, obligating it to follow Open Meetings Law, Smith wrote. 

Those tasks include determining whether a proposed technology constitutes a surveillance technology, evaluating technologies that do meet the threshold of surveillance tools and conducting concurrent public comment periods.

Walsh’s order also charged the group with conducting an “initial audit defining technologies currently used or owned by the City as surveillance or not.”

The city in the past demonstrated the group’s review was a necessary component of its process for implementing powerful new surveillance technology tools.

When the Syracuse Police Department sought a Drone as First Responder program, the department and city tried to skip the surveillance group’s review process, arguing the autonomous drones were exempted from review because the group had already reviewed the department’s other drones (which were tethered and/or manually controlled). 

After Central Current revealed the city had scuttled its own review process, the city rerouted the proposed program back into the Surveillance Technology Working Group’s review process.

The department has yet to earn the Common Council’s blessing to purchase necessary software to implement its long-sought drone program.

City officials have remained steadfast that the working group has a right to privacy. Central Current posed nine questions the city did not answer: 

  • When the STWG was first created, did the City consider whether it would have to comply with Open Meetings Law?
  • Did the City determine that the group did not have to comply with Open Meetings Law?
  • Has the STWG ever discussed or otherwise considered the state Open Meetings Law, and whether the group was in adherence with that law?
  • Why has the group historically met in private?
  • Why has the public historically been excluded from the STWG?
  • How will the City act to align the STWG in accordance with Open Meetings Law?
  • How will the City act to ensure that other internal public bodies are complying with Open Meetings Law?
  • How will the City work to prevent the STWG from making decisions on public matters in informal private discussions, like the discussion that took place on January 12? 
  • Beyond the STWG, how will the City work to ensure members of other public bodies are not making decisions on public matters in private discussions?

When notified of the city’s apparent rejection of its opinion, the Committee on Open Government reiterated its opinion.

“If STWG does, in fact, perform the tasks described in the executive order, we respectfully disagree with the City of Syracuse’s opinion regarding the STWG,” Smith wrote.

Fauss, a senior policy advisor at Reinvent Albany, said the city’s push to ignore the Open Meetings Law leaves it open to lawsuits and erodes public trust in government. If the city were to be sued over an Open Meetings Law violation, a judge could find that the city violated the law and nullify any decisions made in private, Fauss said.   

Smith, the COOG attorney, Fauss and Wolf called on the surveillance working group to end its practice of conducting all-virtual meetings and adhere to transparency laws in the future. That would include:

  • Implementing a physical component of each meeting by having a quorum of members present in at least one location accessible to the public
  • Posting notices when the group is scheduled to meet 
  • Inviting the public to attend those meetings, whether in person or virtually
  • Publishing meeting minutes, transcripts or recordings of any meeting within two weeks of the meeting

The group, which meets virtually, does post slideshows and minutes from its meetings, however it has not proactively made available recordings of its meetings.

Central Current on Thursday submitted a Freedom of Information Law request for any and all recordings of Surveillance Technology Working Group meetings dating back to the group’s first meeting in May 2021. Fauss said it’s “weird” that the city doesn’t publish recordings, and said it would also be “weird” if the city didn’t have recordings of its STWG meetings.

The STWG on January 12 also held an “initial discussion” before scheduling a meeting for further discussion on Evolv weapons detection systems, according to Muñoz. That meeting constituted another breach of open meetings laws, the experts said, because the group discussed public matters outside of a formal meeting with zero public notice before or after.

Smith, Fauss and Wolf said that the group should avoid such informal discussions in the future. 

“This just sounds like pretty flagrant abuse of open meetings law, frankly,” Fauss said. “When decisions are made and they’re not abiding by the open meetings law requirements, someone could sue and invalidate the entire decision.”

Syracuse city government is no stranger to questions about public access to meetings of decision-making government bodies.

Central Current in May 2025 reported on the all-Democrat Common Council’s use of caucus meetings — legal, closed-door meetings intended for members of the same political party to be able to speak privately from members of an opposing party — to make decisions on cuts to the city budget in private.

Wolf placed the Syracuse Common Council on a “Naughty List” for having the private budget discussions and refusing to release an audit of the mayor’s proposed budget.

Fauss seconded Wolf’s opinion that the city should bring itself into compliance with state transparency laws. The city should also make recordings and meeting minutes as accessible as possible, Fauss said, to ensure that the public understands how the city is making policy on surveillance in Syracuse.

“This is local government — if our most local levels of governments are not open to the public, then our democracy is truly in rough shape,” Fauss said.

Related reading on the Surveillance Technology Working Group

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...