It is now past the end of the road for the 2024 state legislative year, so we wanted to report back to you on what happened, what OP did, and what new laws are coming your way. It was the…
Category: Public Records
The Saga of AB 1463 and Other Sacto Tales
The 2023 legislative season in CA’s state capital has come to a close. Oakland Privacy intervened on your behalf on over 65 bills (a world record), piping up in support, opposition or demanding changes. Our final batting average in sign/veto…
SPJ Madison Award for Oakland Public Records Lawsuit
The Northern California chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists has given out their annual James Madison Award in the Advocacy category to the legal team that filed a class action suit against the Oakland Police Department over thousands of…
FBI Will Neither Confirm or Deny the Existence of the Documents I Just Printed
This headline, from reporter Dell Cameron in a Gizmodo article about a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU against the FBI, highlights the public records work of Oakland Privacy’s Mike Katz-Lacabe. Here are 26 of them, compiled by Mike Katz-Lacabe at…
Public Records Class Action Lawsuit Against Oakland Police Department Settled
A class action lawsuit against the Oakland Police Department for outstanding public records, filed by 3 free-lance journalists (Scott Morris, Sarah Belle Lin, Brian Krans) and Oakland Privacy has settled. The City of Oakland agreed to release all outstanding public…
Public Records: Long Beach PD
The Aaron Swartz Police Surveillance Project and Open the Government teamed up to file suit against the Long Beach Police Department for withholding requested records. In response to the lawsuit, a number of records have been released about the Long…
Public Records Suit Against the Long Beach Police Department
Aaron Swartz Day Police Surveillance Project (a satellite public transparency project run by Aaron Swartz Day and inspired by Oakland Privacy) and Open the Government (a DC-based transparency org) have filed a joint lawsuit against the Long Beach Police Department…
Obstructed Public Records Requests at Oakland PD Lead to Lawsuits
A collective of journalists and researchers, including Oakland Privacy and our research director Mike Katz-Lacabe have sued the Oakland Police Department for delaying public records requests – for years and years. A pair of lawsuits, one initiated by journalists Scott…
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…
Surveillance and Secrets
Type Investigations, formerly the Investigative Fund, looked into what happens when a city goes ahead and builds a Domain Awareness Center without a transparency ordinance in place. St Louis did that with their “Real Time Crime Center”. Here is what…