Body Worn Cameras, Public Records

Two Key Law Enforcement Transparency Bills Become Law in 2019

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In a rebuke to the state’s powerful law enforcement unions, California’s governor signed into law on September 30 two bills that will substantially increase law enforcement transparency.

The first, Assembly Bill 748, authored by SF rep Phil Ting, will mandate the eventual disclosure of police body camera videos when firearms are discharged or use of force results in death or great bodily injury. The bill premiminarily makes footage of critical incidents available after 45 days, with the ability for law enforcement to delay for as long as a year, but no longer.

The second, Senate Bill 1421, authored by East Bay rep Nancy Skinner, makes investigative and disciplinary records available as public records for incidents of firearms discharge, use of force resulting in death or critical injury, sexual assault or falsifying evidence. The bill preliminarily makes the records available after 60 days, with the ability of law enforcement to delay for as long as 18 months.

Both bills were strongly opposed by the Sheriff and Police Officers lobbying associations.

Uncategorized

Stare Into The Lights My Pretties

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Thank you for joining us on September 23rd for Down Under Dystopia!

It was wonderful to see you all. Our feature documentary Stare Into The Lights My Pretties is available freely for noncommercial use.

So for those of you who wanted to recommend it for community or educational use, click on the link to get to the filmmakers authorized online viewer to stream the film.

Our animated short opener, iRony, is not available for online viewing, but if interested in a noncommercial use, contact us via email at contact@oaklandprivacy.org and we can put you into contact with the filmmaker directly.

 

Immigration and ICE

Salesforce: Cancel The Contract

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On Tuesday September 25, activists will move from online organizing to up close and personal at the annual Dreamforce conference at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. Dreamforce is the annual gathering of Salesforce developers and one of the largest tech conferences in the world.

Salesforce is a cloud computing company, whose customer relations management package (CRM) is one of the most heavily used software/tech platforms. The company has a contract with Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) and has faced requests from employees and customers to terminate in the face of the inhumane treatment of migrant families. Immigration support group RAICES turned down a $250,000 donation from Salesforce, saying they wanted the contract cancelled.

Activists will be present at the Dreamforce Conference to insist that language about changing the world for the better be accompanied by real world actions to end complicity with border cruelty.

Join Fight for the Future, Oakland Privacy, Defending Rights and Dissent, Media Alliance, Demand Progress, Greenpeace and many others to tell Salesforce to drop the contract or we’ll drop them.

Tuesday September 25 Moscone Center 747 Howard Street  San Francisco 9am – 11am

Facebook event

 

Police Militarization, UASI

Urban Shield Exercise Tramples Alameda Point Nature Reserve

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Urban Shield, a SWAT exercise and weapons convention held annually with Department of Homeland Security funding and coordinated by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, was held for the last time in its current form from September 6-10, 2018. The event has come under intense criticism for militarizing local police forces, cozy ties with weapons vendors and glorifying violent public safety response.

One of the 2018 SWAT team drills, which focused on dignitary protection and modeled a bomb going off by a motorcade has drawn fire from local Alameda residents, because it took place on Alameda Point Shoreline in land that was permanently ruled off-limits for development after the closure of the Naval facility. The section of Alameda Point where the exercise was held repeatedly over two days is owned by the Veterans Department and is zoned as a permanent wild life reserve for marine birds including terns who nest there. A memorandum of understanding between the US Navy and the VA and the City of Alameda specifically states that the nature reserve is not to be used for preparedness exercises.

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Transparency Ordinance

Surveillance Transparency At BART

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The moment on when BART formally enacted the sixth surveillance transparency ordinance in California, the ninth in the country and the first by a transit district.

 

The Bay Area’s sixth surveillance transparency ordinance was voted in unanimously by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board of Directors this morning in Oakland. The process was not without controversy. It began in 2016, after reports that BART had installed license plate readers at MacArthur BART with no notice to the public. And it ended with a revelation that for a year after the BART Board had ordered the plate readers removed, and months after BART passed a sanctuary transit policy, they had remained in place, transmitting 57,000 license plate scans to the Homeland Security fusion center NCRIC, whose ALPR database has been accessed by ICE.

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Immigration and ICE, License Plate Readers, Transparency Ordinance

BART License Plate Scans Sent To DHS While Board Passed Sanctuary Transit Policy

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At the same time the BART Board of Directors was creating a Sanctuary Transit policy, the mass transit system was sending 57,000 license plate scans from devices installed at the MacArthur BART station to the Department of Homeland Security’s Norcal fusion center and their ALPR database which ICE can access.

The Board had previously instructed BART staff not to proceed with license plate reader technology at the MacArthur station, after word leaked out about an undisclosed pilot program. But despite the board’s instructions, the license plate readers remained in operation and uploading tens of thousands of scans to DHS in what BART described as a mistake to the East Bay Times.

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