Oakland Privacy

Oakland’s Cell Tower Simulator (Stingray) Policy is the Gold Standard.

by JP Massar • February 6, 2017 • 0 Comments

Brian Hofer writes to the Oakland City Council, describing the Cell Phone Tower Simulator (aka Stingray) Use Policy the Oakland Privacy Advisory Committee and the Oakland Police arrived at. The policy was adopted by the Oakland City Council at their February 7th, 2017, meeting.

There is no policy regarding cell site simulators in existence even remotely close to Oakland’s, as to the narrowness of allowable use, oversight, and transparent reporting. Although I was proud of what we accomplished with Alameda County in breaking new ground, the Oakland policy far exceeds all standards at the federal, state, or local level:

Reining in and Raining on the Surveillance State

by JP Massar • January 31, 2017 • 0 Comments

Groundbreaking legislation that will put limits upon the local surveillance state is up for consideration in the Bay Area these next few months. With a new administration being handed the vast resource of existing Federal surveillance capabilities, it is more crucial than ever that localities understand what their police are doing in this regard and take measures to protect the civil liberties of the people…

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Read the full op-ed we wrote that begins as above, published in the Oakland Post

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Transparency Ordinance

Praise for Oakland’s Proposed Surveillance Equipment Regulation Ordinance!

by JP Massar • January 8, 2017 • 0 Comments

Passed out of the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission on Thursday, Jan 5th, 2017, the proposed Surveillance Equipment Regulation legislation (OPAC-Surveillance-Ordinance-Adopted – PDF) received praise from a number of people involved in civil liberties work. Here are some quotes and statements of support taken from tweets:

“Oakland’s surveillance ordinance is good example for local govs to protect civil liberties.” – Professor of Law Catherine Crump, University of California at Berkeley (testifying, right)

“It’s never been more essential for communities to say no to secret & discriminatory surveillance.Oakland took important step tonight.” – Nicole Ozer, Policy Director, ACLU of California

“This proposal achieves the goal of formalizing privacy values” – Nuola O’Connor, Center for Democracy and Progress

Killer Cop Training – Coming Soon To Northern California

by Tracy Rosenberg • December 26, 2016 • 0 Comments

(Send a note to the Folsom Police Department and the Folsom City Council objecting to the municipal sponsorship of Calibre killer cop trainings).

Mother Jones profiles Calibre instructor Dave Grossman: “Are You Prepared to Kill Somebody?” A Day With One of America’s Most Popular Police Trainers; The dark vision of “killology” expert Dave Grossman.

by J.P. Massar

Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who shot Philando Castile in his car in Minnesota took a training course called “The Bulletproof Warrior,” now renamed as the “Street Survival Seminar.”

The evidence suggests that this course, and courses similar to it, offered by a private company called Calibre Press, are even worse than Urban Shield – the organized para-military and terror response training put on for police by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department – if that’s imaginable.

Fusing California

by Tracy Rosenberg • December 21, 2016 • 0 Comments

The winter edition of Utne Reader features an article by Media Alliance ED and Oakland Privacy member Tracy Rosenberg on California’s network of fusion centers.

http://www.utne.com/politics/fusing-california-zm0z16wzsel

Welcome to the terrorism database. You’re in it.

By Tracy Rosenberg, from Peace Review
Winter 2016

Transparency Ordinance

BART must be open about how its spies on its riders…

by JP Massar • December 12, 2016 • 0 Comments

Image result for bart surveillance An op-ed appeared in the December 12th edition of the East Bay Times, authored by former Oakland City Councilperson Wilson Riles, regarding the surveillance equipment regulation ordinance now being created by the BART Board and its staff in consultation with the ACLU and Oakland Privacy. It begins:

In the aftermath of the election, many have come to understand a powerful surveillance state in the hands of the federal government, especially one that will have a CIA director who believes: “Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed” is a serious danger to the freedoms of all Americans.

Surveillance in the Bay Area must be carefully weighed against our civil liberties, and having data fed into federal databases, to be used to target our Muslim and undocumented neighbors, is something we cannot continue to allow…

Read the whole thing here.