Following up on the Privacy Commission’s recommendation that OPD sever ties with ICE, Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan quickly showed leadership by agreeing to sponsor the Resolution necessary to rescind the prior Council authorization to enter into such an agreement.
On June 1, Oakland’s Privacy Commission, the first citizens municipal commission on privacy in the country, recommended the termination of the memorandum of understanding between the Oakland Police Department and the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Division (ICE).
The recommendation is two-pronged. Firstly, to exercise the 30 day termination provision in the existing agreement and secondly, to rescind previous City Council authorization to enter into any agreement with ICE which would prevent a new agreement from being signed.
The recommendations will move to the city’s Public Safety committee and then to the full City Council. To date, every recommendation from the Privacy Commission has been adopted unanimously.
How Cities Can Protect UnDocumented Immigrants From ICE Data Mining – The Intercept
SB-21 is a bill that would end secret surveillance by CA law enforcement agencies by mandating use polices, impact reports and biannual audits for all surveillance equipment and technology used in CA. SB-21 subjects all spying to an upfront process for local government approval and disclosure to the public. Before it’s used, not afterwards.
The bill just passed the CA State Senate on May 31 by a 21-15 vote and is headed to the Assembly. If you haven’t already emailed your state reps, do so here.
San Jose Mercury News Editorial Board endorsement of SB-21.
A California Mayor’s First Hand Account Of The Need For Surveillance Transparency
San Diego Tribune Op-Ed on SB-21
President Trump issued a proclamation on May 15 dedicating last week to law enforcement officers, saying he would make it a “personal priority” to ensure police are “finally treated fairly.” Meanwhile, around the country, a different set of priorities is taking shape: Cities, counties and even one state are working to push legislation that would force police agencies to disclose their acquisition and use of surveillance technologies to local lawmakers and communities.
by Cristina
On October 26, 2001, “in the name of national security, the Patriot Act was the first of many changes to surveillance laws that made it easier for the government to spy on ordinary Americans by expanding the authority to monitor phone and email communications, collect bank and credit reporting records, and track the activity of innocent Americans on the Internet.” (from an ACLU page) source: https://www.aclu.org/
In 2006, I ran into an article (source: https://arstechnica.com/
A FAQ ABOUT PROPOSED SURVEILLANCE EQUIPMENT TRANSPARENCY LEGISLATION
Q. Why is this legislation necessary? Why isn’t the Fourth Amendment enough?
A. The short answer is that the law has not kept up with technology.
The longer answer is that our constitution, written in the 1780’s, could not have conceived of the technological capacities we now have for observation and communication. While some legal opinions have extended fourth amendment protections to include newer technologies, others have gone in the opposite direction (e.g., a recent decision, USA v Matish, said that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to your home computer if it is connected to the Internet!).
We have the very real possibility of soon living in a society far beyond what even George Orwell imagined – where we will be tracked whenever we leave our house through facial recognition integrated with surveillance cameras; where everything we do online will be cataloged, stored and run through algorithms for “thought crime” analysis, and where our conversations may be overheard and analyzed – even in our own homes if we choose to use voice-enabled gadgets. These things are all well within our technological capability today, and who knows what will be possible in five or ten years?