Oakland Privacy is pleased to announce that Jessica Ramos will be joining us as the 2023 Privacy Rights Fellow. Jessica is Oakland born-and-raised and is currently pursuing a Ph.D at the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California. She wrote her senior dissertation at UC Berkeley as an undergraduate on Oakland Privacy’s work. Welcome Jessica!
When I was learning to read and write, my teacher gave me homework to devise my very first survey to deploy with three people. Question 1 for all of us in the class: “What is your name?” Question 2 was of my own design: “What is your favorite animal?” I was six years old. I had already written down the answer to Question 1 for my second respondent, a small-town attorney who usually humored me, when he refused to participate in my survey. “No, I’m not going to answer your questions.” I was so shocked that I remember the scene 29 years later. He smiled wryly and touched his long eyebrows.
“So you’re reading and writing now?” he asked me rhetorically. “Be careful with that. Don’t write everything down.” As a kid, I thought this behavior was bizarre. As I get older and bare-bones privacy protections get stripped away (like the recent over-turn of Roe v. Wade-based abortion protections with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision), I think I am starting to understand.
In September, the next door cities of Berkeley and Albany hold a street fair called the Solano Stroll, along the avenue that crosses both cities. The event attracts thousands of people. Areport filed with the Berkeley City Council due to the requirements of Berkeley’s surveillance ordinance framework revealed the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office flew drones “unobtrusively” over the event, focusing on the perimeter of the rooftops. The use of the sheriff’s department drones would not have been known to the public without the 2018 surveillance ordinance, which requires reports to the City Council after the temporary use of unpermitted technologies for exigent circumstances.
Oakland Privacy, founded in 2013, is an activist group devoted to fighting against both government and corporate surveillance and in defense of privacy rights and government transparency. We concentrate on state, regional and local matters, while advocating with other like-minded organizations at the national level.
We applied for and obtained a grant from the Rose Foundation to hire a part-time fellow to aid us in our work and help us expand its scope. The fellowship begins on October 31st, 2022 or as soon as possible thereafter for a duration of one year. Compensation is $1000/month for 40-45 hours per month.
This is a unique opportunity to do hands-on implementation of enhanced privacy rights and enact social change beyond research and white papers.
The Freeway Security Network was established to reduce freeway shootings after a number of high profile freeway shootings on Interstate 80 and Highway 4 in 2016, with $3.5 million from the California State Transportation Agency. However the number of freeway shootings actually increased after the system was in place.
By October 2019, the Freeway Security Network was operating with 24 surveillance cameras, 165 Shotspotter microphones, and 32 automated license plate readers (ALPRs) installed along State Highway 4 and Interstate 80.
Four Vigilant Solutions automated license plate readers on eastbound Interstate 80
As part of the Memorandum of Understanding establishing the Freeway Security Network, the CHP is required to submit an annual fiscal report documenting “the productivity of the Freeway Security Network in the investigation of freeway shootings, the recovery of felony vehicles, in Amber Alerts, in outside assists in criminal investigations and all other relevant data.”
To date, only one report has been submitted by the CHP to the California State Transportation Agency. The report shows that freeway shootings have actually increased since the Freeway Security Network became operational. According to the report, there were eight freeway shootings each in 2018 and 2019, but in just the first half of 2020, the number of freeway shootings increased to 14.
3 privacy activists, including OP member Mike Katz-Lacabe, have filed a class action lawsuit against Oracle Corporation for ongoing privacy violations. The plaintiffs are represented by the Lief Cabrasar law firm, which has worked on major privacy litigation.
The lawsuit, in federal court, alleges violations by data broker Oracle of the UCL (Unfair Competition Law), the California Invasion of Privacy Act and the Federal Wiretap Act.
