Boston Council Hears Calls to Abolish BRIC Surveillance Center

BOSTON -- June 4, 2026, Boston City Council committee hears four hours of testimony demanding abolition of the city's regional intelligence fusion center. The Committee on Civil Rights, Racial Equity, and Immigrant Advancement, chaired by District 7 Councilor Mignard Culpepper and co-sponsored by Councilors Julia Mejia and Henry Santana, convened a June 4 hearing on Docket 0409 examining the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, automated license plate readers, and BPD's participation in federal joint task forces. Brenda McQuaid, associate professor at the University of Southern Maine, testified that the BRIC employs 50 personnel, holds a $4 million contract with Centra Technology that is the largest in the BPD's budget, and that 84 percent of its intelligence products are crime blotters with no analysis. Ali Finn of the AI Now Institute testified virtually that the city of Boston has in some years allocated more than 50 percent of its UASI grant funds to law enforcement activities, well above the federal 35 percent floor, and that the city's own 2025 grant application lists the BRIC itself as satisfying new Trump-era border enforcement requirements. Sarah Sherman Stokes of Boston University School of Law described the case of a student deported to El Salvador after an unsubstantiated high school rumor placed him in the BRIC gang database, and noted 98 percent of database subjects are people of color. Mejia called for a second hearing to include the administration and BRIC command before a council vote on the $13.47 million pending UASI grant, stating plainly: "I haven't even seen the grant, and I'm already a hard no."