Police Militarization, UASI

Urban Shield SWAT Drill and Weapons Expo Suspended for 2019

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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 exercise.

The Homeland Security funding body indicated a new RFP for a regional emergency exercise would be issued in 2019. The suspension, and practical end, of Urban Shield, follows five years of escalating community complaints about racism, xenophobia, sanctuary violations and the event’s violent scenarios.

Alameda County Board Chair Richard Valle, who attended the DHS meeting, asked Homeland Security to “forgive him for his compassion” and read aloud several of the recommendations for change, saying he had been “driven to vote for them.”

Oakland Privacy press release 3-15-2019

Immigration and ICE

Operation Stonegarden – Police On The Border Post SB 54

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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 several California cities and counties including Sacramento, San Diego, Monterey, Ventura, Fresno, Long Beach, Oxnard, Calexico and Bakersfield.

One of the items being researched is MOU’s with other law enforcement agencies. Calexico participates in Operation Stonegarden, a DHS program that deputizes police officers in border-adjacent counties to assist Customs and Border Patrol. California passed the California Values Act -SB 54 (“sanctuary state”) legislation in the fall of 2017 limiting the state’s role in immigration enforcement. Imperial County’s MOU was signed after SB54 was enacted by former Governor Jerry Brown in October of 2017.

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Facial Recognition, Transparency Ordinance

SF’s Stop Secret Surveillance Act

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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 Yee, adds a total ban on the use of facial recognition software by city government.

This is the first time a SERO ordinance has pre-emptively declared that the use of a particular kind of surveillance tech is, ipso facto, unacceptable for use by the government.

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Police Militarization, UASI

“You Can’t Shoot or Arrest a Wildfire.”

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Just Saying No [More] Urban Shield

So said truly one of many speakers during a seven hour meeting in Oakland on the 26th of February, 2019, at which Urban Shield had a heart attack. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors kept their word from a year ago and voted to end Urban Shield “as it is currently constituted,” approving recommendations from the Ad Hoc Committee it created that would give Urban Shield a new heart, a new name, and a new purpose.

Thank the Board of Supervisors for their vote right now!


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Immigration and ICE

2019 Law To Protect DMV Records May Not Be Working

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**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 bill protected documents submitted to get a driver’s license or state identification card from disclosure to any third party, including ICE or CPB, without a subpoena, court order or a written certification describing the specific circumstances of a health or safety emergency and why there wasn’t time to get a court order.

The law was particularly important because, 5 years earlier, California had implemented AB 60, which authorized the State to issue drivers licenses and ID cards to undocumented residents.

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