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Some can sometimes candidates choose their issues sometimes the issues choose them
We look at a few items in the news this week from flot cameras to election integrity to the name of a great lake
This is inside Wisconsin politics
I'm showing Johnson here with my colleagues on you've been weked in Don Zach Schultz and rich Kramer in Eau Claire
Hey everyone
So flot cameras these cameras run by a private company that are used by law enforcement for vehicle
Surveillance have been one of those slowly building issues in the US. I gotta say I was not
Terribly aware of them until about April. It seems like they have entered our politics here though as we enter September
Zach where do they fit when it comes to this year's elections?
They are the new issue and it feels like they're a build-out from the data center argument this idea of AI
Surveillance state how in control are we of our own destiny and these really interesting political topics that don't fit into the typical partisan narrative
So they not only do we have to figure out how do people think about them?
But the candidates have to figure out
Where do we think about these issues because they don't fit into the usual pockets where they can say this is a Republican issue?
This is a Democrat issue. They fall across all of them the idea that
License plate readers which is essentially what these cameras are have been around for a long time
Wisconsin doesn't allow them but many other states do red light cameras people have argued about whether those are fair
Not you can get a ticket in the mail if you've driven through Illinois
It had to pay a toll and write about the toll camera catching you or your license plate having something on it
Those are old issues, but the idea now that some data center can just collect all that and automatically track you without any
Idea that it's happening or people can use it for nefarious purposes or outside of a subpoena is bringing it into legal territory
It builds off these questions about how involved should our government be when it comes to these and where should our politicians stand?
And right now what we're seeing is the gubernatorial candidate saying I need to think real quick where I want to be on this because
This could be the next thing to bite me in the butt in a few weeks
If I don't have a strong position that falls in line with where my voters are and independent voters
so on yeah, where are our candidates on these and you know
What kind of political bedfellows are we seeing here? Yeah?
I mean as I said, it doesn't fall into these kind of clear political narratives
And so we are seeing kind of both candidates much like the data center issue kind of use this to go after one another
So in particular Tom Tiffany this week has been trying to call David Crowley big brother David Crowley
so first he was data center David Crowley knows big brother because of
The ways in which flock was used in Milwaukee County for his part David count David David Crowley is now trying to
Reduce the use of them in Milwaukee County. There's been changes to the policy in Milwaukee City as well
And so both
Candidates are really trying to kind of leverage people's feelings on both the right and the left sort of against this tool for their own political
names
Rich it strikes me that there is not a really clean
Line of where conservative stands on this, you know, there's not a Republican position when it comes to flock cameras
What's the sort of spectrum of where they stand on this?
Yeah, it is surprising because you know, typically you think of the GOP as as
You know
lockstep with law enforcement and law enforcement has been using this technology for
Homicide investigations all sorts of things, but we've also seen stories including two in Milwaukee
Situations where officers are using it for personal reasons or just not for what it's intended unauthorized
Use and that is what is part of what's getting people really upset
So on the Republican side, it seems like you've got the more libertarian people who just don't like this idea of
Surveillance at all you've got some on in the Republican Party that are saying
Look, this is just another tool. It's been around for a long time
They don't understand why it's a big deal right now and then you've got Tom Tiffany who's trying to thread that needle as Anya mentioned
He's been attacking David Crowley claiming that Crowley is all about these things and and is a is a big
supporter of them Crowley has said they are an important tool, but he said quote unchecked surveillance
Isn't the answer so that speaks to the limits that the county is putting in place now and with regard to the sort of
Valence Tiffany's position is kind of interesting. He says he would block state funds
Going towards shared revenue to local governments
He would essentially say this money can't be used to purchase these types of cameras or these systems
Until we have a committee a task force take a look at it
And that's interesting because in Congress Tiffany has voted to restore or to continue the the FISA
surveillance which is
essentially
warrantless mass surveillance of cell phone conversations text messages electronic communications and that back in its days in the early
2000s was a very
Big political issue, but that's kind of died down somewhat in more recent years
so we could imagine a different world right rich where
This issue comes up and Tom Tiffany who's trying to run as this tough on crime candidate
And wants to say let's not be Milwaukee since he's running in some Milwaukee candidate
You could definitely imagine a world where he's saying we need to give police every tool that they want to fight crime
Has there been any hint of that in what Tom Tiffany's saying?
Well, he's he's essentially not saying he's gonna take this tool away, but he wants to put more safeguards in place
Just in my social media stream
Last night I saw two posts back-to-back on Twitter
And one was Tiffany
Calling David Crowley big brother Crowley or you know flock camera Crowley and the next post was someone with Tiffany's campaign
Talking about a third-party ad highlighting the the fights in the melee
We saw at the state fair and talk about talking about how
Crowley is soft on crime, and it just struck me as as kind of ironic because you're saying he's
Too supportive of this technologies that
Land person uses but also soft on crime. So which isn't is there something
Zach about Wisconsin's politics being sort of a little libertarian that makes this issue different than then in other states
I mean, I think about you kind of referenced it there
But there has been a push for years to have red light cameras here and that has been defeated in the legislature every time
You know there was a time in the
More distant past when there was resistance to giving police the ability to write tickets for not wearing a seat belt here is
Wisconsin kind of a unique place when it comes to issues like flock
Potentially is and there's the history that goes about your individual liberties a member of the motorcycle helmet issue in Wisconsin
Being the home of Harley Davidson you didn't have to wear a helmet in Wisconsin for a long time
And there were debates about whether it was okay to ban the use of cell phones and cars
And there was already laws that covered that all these things that we've covered at the Capitol over the years
And there is this mentality that we don't go too far or wait to see where other states go first
And then figure out if it makes sense for Wisconsin
And there's a lot of independence that just don't like the idea of being watched or being
Followed and a lot of these came from like the sci-fi movies that we watched as kids that are now in reality
And it's scary for some people because we've been trained for decades that when these things happen
It's the bad times and they're happening now
So people are hearing it from both the left and the right that hey
This isn't what I signed up for even if it is a tool that has helped law enforcement
track down people that have committed crimes the question is does it go too far and in this era of
ice
Bursting in the cities the question of whether police are going to come through your door. There's been left and right debates over
warrantless
Breaking into apartments to arrest people then they got the wrong door and all sorts of things that go beyond this where people are just scared of
Hey, what if they get it wrong? I don't trust AI. They can't even repeat my my answer into my phone correctly
How are they going to get this right when it comes to arresting someone?
On yet, do we have any evidence that this is going to be an issue that moves people in November is or are people going to be voting on flock?
You know, I don't know if in the same way that the data center issue is you know
Kind of a rich text of an issue that a lot of people can read many different sort of problems or concerns into
Flock it seems a little bit narrower and so I think it'll be up to the candidates to really try to
Connect concerns with flock to other things in order to drive that
So one of the arguments we've seen in other states because Wisconsin is not the only state kind of grappling with this right now
Is that these contracts are very expensive?
And so at a time that a lot of communities are really struggling and certainly a lot of people are really struggling financially
And then your your town, you know, maybe can't pave your potholes
But has a ten million dollar flock contract that is a connection that I think will register with voters
I'm not sure if this issue in and of itself just the kind of AI and surveillance aspect will necessarily sway voters
But as we always say, you only need to sway a few in Wisconsin to win the election
Sure, I do feel like on something like this
I have to take a step back sometimes because you know, we're journalists. We see a new issue out there
We don't know how people are going to respond so exciting, you know, we feel like this must be the next big thing
Marquette had that poll last week asking people about, you know, their most important issues
5% said data centers and it was like about around 40% or so
Plus that said the cost of living so I think the old issues may be still carry a little bit more weight
We did get some other news this week that feels a little more familiar. There's an investigation
CNN reported being launched by the Department of Homeland Security into
non-citizen voter fraud in nine states including Wisconsin rich. Tell us about that
Yeah, so this comes from an internal memo from the federal government that CNN obtained
It listed the states of course, Wisconsin also George and Pennsylvania those two got my attention as well
But a number of states included so
This is essentially
in a
plans for a big investigation into non-citizen voting fraudulent voting ahead of the election and
Traditionally, you know, this is what CNN reported historically the Department of Justice doesn't
Launch these sorts of big announcements right before
Intellectual just as a matter of kind of it's not a formal policy, but just best practice
Department of Homeland Security doesn't have to follow that and it's got its own investigative unit that is going to be doing this work
so
But the backdrop here is that president Donald Trump has been
You know making these broad claims without any evidence that there was massive voter fraud in 2020
And that was why he lost the election to president Joe Biden
and since then, you know more recently we see the
Wisconsin I mean the US Department of Justice is suing Wisconsin to force us to force the state to turn over
Sensitive voter registration
documents and they're saying well, there could be
Fraud we need to check and we're not sure Wisconsin is checking. That's the gist of the argument and
You know the DOJ has sued dozens of other states as well
They haven't won a single case and also the US Postal Service is has finalized a policy that would essentially
Tell its people to not send absentee ballots to people who aren't on these federal lists
That is held up in court right now, but it all serves as kind of this
this
backdrop of of what's happening with regard to this latest investigation news reported by CNN and
Anya I can't think we've gotten kind of used to hearing about these types of investigations now even if they don't go anywhere
Is there anything you know particularly unusual about this one though in terms of who's leading it?
Yeah, I mean we've certainly as rich said there has been this kind of steady drumbeat since 2020
It's the water that we swim in is this kind of allegations of election fraud
I think at this point in my sleep I could type out the list of sort of nonpartisan and partisan investigations that all showed
There was no election fraud, but that has not diminished the claims coming from the Trump administration
What makes this so different is that this is DHS is like an arm of DHS that normally goes after
human traffickers drug smuggling this kind of thing and they are looking into non-citizen voting
Which is essentially a thing that does not happen. It is against state law. It's against federal law
But we've been hearing sort of claims around the the possibility of this for a long time
Wisconsin has has looked to pass a constitutional amendment about this, but now using this kind of
Quite militarized quite intensive arm of the government to go after it
First of all, they don't sort of have to follow DOJ guidance around what you can do around an election and I'll note
You know, we're less than two months out from our election
DOJ has guidance that says don't do really intense investigative things unless you absolutely have to do this close to an election because it can chill voting
Etc DHS doesn't have to follow any of that and then meanwhile as they've been ramping up this action
They've been saying at one point. They said that they found 250,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in four states
And then upon further investigation they've released a hundred and eighty
ID numbers tied to people. They won't give any more information
So they're kind of just at the very least
Significantly muddying the waters with a huge amount of resources from the federal government again going into these critical midterm elections
Zach, I don't feel like there's been a November election that goes by when there isn't some election issue that is
You know tied up in the courts or fought over in the courts or in the court of a public opinion
Is this one the big one in your 2026 or will we forget about this in a few months?
Well in a few months, it'll still be being brought up because no matter what happens afterward someone's gonna cry foul
The the question is of all the things that rich listed off
And there's a lot of different avenues in which the Trump administration is clearly pursuing to push their narrative of false voting or fraud
Which as we must repeat every time there is no evidence that has ever existed or does exist
It does not change the outcome of any elections anywhere
But that doesn't stop them from putting it out into the public consciousness and there's these the is it the postal service potentially?
Not delivering ballots. Well, obviously that would have a tremendous impact on voting in Wisconsin
That one seems like the courts are gonna hold it up. It seems less likely to come to fruition
We've heard rumors from more than a year that Trump's gonna send ice in around the polls to try and scare voters
There was kind of hand-waved away by a lot of Republicans saying no, of course that wouldn't happen
This is America, you know that that's just you know
People have not wanted to look too deeply into what could happen because it's never happened in American history before
So there are legitimate fears that there could be law enforcement there at certain poll sites in certain swing states
And we can all guess which ones they are that might influence the outcome of election
The question is will it actually happen and then who will be the one crying fall afterwards about what that actually means in deterring voters
Literally keeping voters from coming away
But these kind of stories do come up every single cycle the question is will we see people with guns outside polls that represent the federal government?
That's Gareaway voters. That's a big question
Turning to something completely different and something I definitely did not see coming as we enter this, you know
The home stretch of the election the president renamed a great lake
According to an executive order from Lake Ontario to Lake America
Anya when that happens
People react to it candidates have to react to it. It's expected. What are our candidates saying about the president doing this?
Well, most interestingly is Tom Tiffany again a close ally of President Trump and he essentially said
I don't know that I like this. He said you know
He sort of turned into a joke. He said unless we're changing Lake Michigan to Lake Wisconsin
Otherwise, I don't think this is a good idea
And so that allows him to put a little bit of air between himself and President Trump
But on an issue that is not super from a policy standpoint not necessarily a super impactful decision
What it is is kind of one of these more ostentatious decisions that Trump often likes to make or maybe a
distracting kind of moment during a time like this
So it allows Tiffany to put that air between them, but not necessarily on an issue that you know, it's very consequential
And David Carly said oh come on
This is the one that you picked to differentiate with the president on
Zach just real quick as we wrap up here any sense that voters will take note of this in November
I can't imagine this being the deciding issue for someone in an election
But I'm sure there's one person out of three million voters that will say this is what matters to me most and they're probably a sailor
Going after that sailor boat
Crucial demographic in Wisconsin
That's all the time we have for today. This has been inside Wisconsin politics
Be sure to follow us on PBS Wisconsin org wpr.org YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts
I
Still looking at two on the clothes
Okay, thanks
Okay
Okay
sailor
That's all the time we have for today. This has been inside Wisconsin politics
Be sure to follow us on PBS Wisconsin org wpr.org YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts
Okay
Sure
Sometimes can't but that word sometimes never knew
Sometimes candidates choose their issues sometimes the issues choose them
We look at a few items in the news this week from flot cameras to election integrity to the name of a great lake
This is inside Wisconsin politics
You