Immigration and ICE

Internal Affairs Complaint Alleges Oakland Police Chief Untruthful About ICE Raid

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On November 7, 2017, an internal affairs complaint was filed by Privacy Advisory Commission Chair Brian Hofer and 7 fellow complainants (Attorney Margaret Cunningham, Wellstone Club Politics Chair Pamela Drake, Sanctuary Advocate Linda Olvera, Sharon Rose with Block By Block Organizing Network, Media Alliance ED and OP member Tracy Rosenberg, Reverend J. Alfred Smith Jr of Allen Temple Baptist Church, and Sociology Professor Judith Stacey) against Oakland Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick for false statements made to the public and Oakland’s City Council about the August 16 West Oakland ICE Raid.

5 additional individuals and two organizations joined on to the complaint on November 13. The additional signers are No Coal in Oakland activist Michael Kaufman, John Jones III of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), Rebecca Merton with CIVIC, attorneys Mary Vail and Alan Brill, and organzational support from the California Sanctuary Campaign and Citizens Initiating Visits with Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC).

Oakland’s Public Safety Committee will have a hearing with OPD Chief Anne Kirkpatrick in attendance on November 14 at 6pm at City Hall. The public is encouraged to attend.

A copy of the complaint is below.

Kirkpatrick CPRB complaint

East Bay Express coverage

East Bay Times coverage

KTVU Coverage

Splinter Coverage

NBC-Bay Area

Univision Coverage (with Santos, the 25 year old in deportation proceedings due to the raid) 

San Francisco Chronicle coverage

Fox News Coverage

KPIX-TV Coverage

Transparency Ordinance

NYU Law Forum on “Privacy Localism” Features Oakland DAC Victory

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On November 4, privacy experts from around the country convened at the NYU School of Law to talk about “Privacy Localism” or how local communities can fight back against the encroaching surveillance state. Oakland’s fight against the Domain Awareness Center took center stage in several of the presentations. OPAC Chair and OP member Brian Hofer attended, and participated in a 2-hour roundtable discussing best practices across the country.

Immigration and ICE

Border Wall Contract Prohibition

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On November 7, the Oakland City Council will consider a municipal ordinance to prevent any new or amended city contracts with vendors building Trump’s 2,000 mile “border wall” on the US southern border with Mexico. The ordinance was proposed by District 2 representative Abel Guillen.

Oakland Privacy supports this ordinance and encourages passage. Our letter to the City Council is below.

Oakland Privacy Letter of Support for Border Wall Prohibition

Homeland Security

42 Civil Liberties Organizations Endorse USA Rights Act

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Oakland Privacy joined 41 other civil rights groups to endorse the USA Rights Acts which was introduced today to meaningfully reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The USA Rights Act creates a search warrant requirement that closes the “backdoor” loophole, permanently ends the “about” exception which had allowed for warrantless searches of communications that mentioned intelligence targets, requires the government to give notice when using information derived from Section 702 surveillance against US persons or on US soil, declassifies FISA court opinions, and sunsets in 4 years. More details available here. 

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Immigration and ICE

Thomson Reuters $13M Contract With HSI

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A $13 million dollardata broker contract running from 2015 to 2020 between the West Publishing division of Thomson Reuters and Homeland Security Investigations/ICE has come to light. This proposed contract is an additional one that predates a September 2016 contract between Thomson Reuters and ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations.

Thomson Reuters is a multinational corporation based in Canada. Among its products is the news wire copy service Reuters, which provides news headlines and content to most US media outlets, and Westlaw legal research products, used by most law schools and many of the nation’s attorneys and private investigators.

The contract states: “This action is to request the approval to procure database information to identify criminal suspects, businesses and assets of targets of investigations for potential arrest, seizure and forfeiture. These database services shall be obtained from West Publishing Corporation. West Publishing Corporation is the only known source capable of providing the required information. This information will be used by ICE/HSI/AFU offices located not only in Washington, D.C. but also in 26 SAC offices and multiple RAC offices throughout the United States and US territories”.

The contract goes on to state: “The Government’s requirement is that the database must be able to interface with FALCON Palantir systems. West Publishing Corporation’s CLEAR program offers a system to system (S2S) connection that merges CLEAR public and proprietary data with Palantir analytical information to narrow in and locate persons and assets of interest”.

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