San Francisco’s surveillance transparency ordinance with a twist (a ban on municipal use of facial recognition software) took a giant step today towards…
Stop Secret Surveillance SF Act
Author: Tracy Rosenberg
Using Criminal Databases On Observers: Urban Shield and CLETS
On April 12, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Media Alliance filed a request for investigation into possible misuse of the CLETS database and a request that the agency cease all similar background checks on journalists and advocates engaged in oversight…
Feinstein Says “Opt-In, Not Opt-Out”.
At Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Hearing on consumer privacy regulation, California’s senior Senator Dianne Feinstein called for affirmative opt-in requirements for sales of consumer data, rather then the more conventional ability to opt-out. The change to an affirmative opt-in requirement is…
Urban Shield SWAT Drill and Weapons Expo Suspended for 2019
At the March 14 meeting of the DHS Approval Authority in Dublin, the Urban Shield SWAT drill and weapons show was suspended for 2019, after the Alameda County Board of Supervisors endorsed a 60-recommendation package to demilitarize the disaster preparedness…
Operation Stonegarden – Police On The Border Post SB 54
The Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project is a public records project that seeks to find out and transparently report on surveillance equipment in use in the State of California. The project has filed over 200 public records requests with…
SF’s Stop Secret Surveillance Act
This spring, the city of San Francisco will consider Oakland Privacy’s signature surveillance transparency regulation legislation, but with a twist. The Stop Secret Surveillance Act, introduced on January 29, 2019 by Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Board of Supes prez Norman…
2019 Law To Protect DMV Records May Not Be Working
**Update: Assembly Bill 1747 was introduced in the CA Legislature to specifically forbid the use of any state databases for immigration enforcement. In 2018, then State Senator Ricardo Lara authored a bill, SB 244, that was signed into law. The…
2019 Bay Area UASI Grants
Every year, law enforcement agencies go to the Homeland Security till and ask for some new crime fighting gadgets. Here’s the list of what Bay Area law enforcement agencies want in 2019. *Sonoma County wants an LRAD (long range acoustical…
Taser Forum: San Mateo County
Following community pressure after the October 3 death of Chinedu Okobi a 36 year old Black man who was tasered by San Mateo County Sheriffs after being stopped for “walking erratically”, San Mateo’s Board of Supervisors is convening a community…
Contra Costa Judge Affirms Release of Police Misconduct Records
In the first substantive ruling on whether Senate Bill 1421 applies to investigatory and disciplinary records on use of force and misconduct incidents that occurred prior to January 1, 2019, Contra Costa Superior Court judge Charles Treat ruled that it…