On May 15th, the City Council of Richmond, CA voted 6-1 to enact a Sanctuary City Contracting ordinance, sponsored by Councilmembers Jovanka Beckles and Ada Recinos.
image description
The Sanctuary City ordinance (model legislation can be found here) was developed by the 19-member Deport ICE coalition which seeks to strengthen sanctuary protections in California cities.
Immigration rights activists from Pasos, supported by the San Jose/Sacred Heart chapter of Showing Up For Racial Justice, visited the Livermore, CA headquarters of license plate reader manufacturer Vigilant Solutions on the afternoon of Friday, March 11.
After a rally, activists attempted to deliver a letter to Vigilant asking them to void their January 2018 contract with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Vigilant employees would not answer the doorbell, so the letter was taped to the front door. Oakland Privacy and the DeportICE coalition sent a rep to the Vigilant delegation.
San Francisco Chronicle coverage of the delegation.
One week after the 1st reading of Oakland’s benchmark Surveillance Equipment Regulation Ordinance, here are links to and brief excerpts from all (or at least most…) of the coverage from the media.
Oakland Privacy’s goal of blanketing Northern California with community control of surveillance laws is coming true. But California has 57 counties and 482 cities. What if they all implemented surveillance transparency at once?
That is what Senate Bill 1186 will do.
Closing the circle begun many years ago, the City of Oakland ended the Domain Awareness Center saga, quietly and on consent, by passing the strongest community control of surveillance ordinance in the nation.
Beaten on the calender by Santa Clara County in June of 2016, and then Berkeley and Davis in April of 2018, Oakland rose up to defeat one of the largest Homeland Security projects ever foisted on an American city and sparked a national conversation about whether the people get any say in how they are watched.
The City is finally enacting what they agreed to in concept three years ago at three in the morning: community control of surveillance.
From the canary in the Homeland Security coalmine to national leaders in transparency, disclosure, oversight and accountability.
(with a little help from the people).
Happy Mayday!
KQED Forum devoted a lengthy segment to Palantir, the software engineer of the surveillance state, following a lengthy Bloomberg report on the company. Oakland (and Oakland Privacy’s) work gets a little mention partway through along with some themes we’ve encouraged including the importance of watching those who watch us and the parallels between the Palantir’s of the 21st century and IBM and the Hollerith punch cards in the 20th century.
KQED Forum: A Deeper Look Into Palantir Technologies
Bloomberg: Palantir Knows Everything About You