Transparency Ordinance

Vallejo Sets Up Police Surveillance Advisory Board – Searching for Members

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Now that the year-long process of establishing a Police Surveillance Advisory Board in Vallejo is drawing to a close, it is time to turn our attention to seating members on this board. Vallejo is a small city, with only 141,000 people, and the SAB is an important first step in changing the culture from police impunity to one of oversight and civic empowerment. The SAB is advisory and is charged with guiding the City Council regarding the acquisition and use of surveillance equipment and technology, collecting public input from Vallejo residents and recommending policies and legislation regarding such use. Each City Council member appoints one member to the body and it meets as often as needed but no less than bimonthly.

Each Council district in Vallejo represents approximately 20,000 people, so people who live in Vallejo who care about privacy protections, civil rights, law enforcement overreach, and civilian oversight should seriously consider if they can throw their hat into the ring to help this SAB get off to a good start. The SAB has the ability to consult experts for assistance in crafting their recommendations and advice, and will have our support as well as that of the ACLU and others. 

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Cell Site Simulators, Facial Recognition, Public Records

Public Records: Long Beach PD

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The Aaron Swartz Police Surveillance Project and Open the Government teamed up to file suit against the Long Beach Police Department for withholding requested records. In response to the lawsuit, a number of records have been released about the Long Beach Police Department’s use of facial recognition and cell site simulators.

The entire cache of documents is available for review here.

Celebrity Training Images from LACRIS manual

In this blog, we’ll highlight a couple of specific documents.

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Announcing: OP Privacy Rights Fellowships

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We are thrilled to announce that thanks to the generosity of the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment and the fiscal sponsorship of the Omni Commons, OP will be hosting paid part-time fellowships in 2021-2022 and again in 2022-2023.

Fellows will be working on a variety of special projects, including functional global privacy controls, public records and rapid response structures. Please see application below.

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Shotspotter Gunshot Detection

Surveillance Vendor Shotspotter Alters Forensic Reports After Police Requests

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The gunshot detection technology Spotshotter has recently been the subject of investigations by Vice and the Associated Press stating the company routinely changes their forensic reports at the request of police department customers. The modifications include the reclassification of sounds not originally classified as gunshot fire by the company’s algorithm and changing the location records. In the case of Michael Williams, who was charged with first degree murder during Chicago’s George Floyd protests, spent a year in jail and then was released due to lack of evidence, the Shotspotter report altered the location by a mile.

In the 2020 annual report on the use of the technology in Oakland, the report stated the city used Shotspotter’s expert witness and trial preparation services under the contract 8 times in calendar year 2020. This practice must cease immediately.

This is not the first time Shotspotter has altered their data to align with a law enforcement narrative and frame an innocent man. We wrote about the Rochester NY case when Sylvon Simmons, who was shot 4 times by the Rochester Police Department in a case of mistaken identity, was charged with felony murder and jailed for more than a year based on a modified Shotspotter report. Simmons was acquitted on all charges after a judge threw out the Shotspotter evidence that had “found a fifth shot” and is now suing Shotspotter and the city for malicious prosecution and fraudulent evidence.

A Shotspotter alert was also the proximate cause of the fatal shooting of 13 year old Adam Toledo by the Chicago Police Department.

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Surveillance and Mental Health

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by Ursula Curiousa

“Do you think you’re being watched?” This question is as loaded as a gun, but commonly pops up in mental health screening protocols. So what if I do think multiple law enforcement agencies have access to the cameras I sit in front of on the bus or train? So what if I think that tech lords in Silicon Valley mine my data to find marketable weaknesses? What if I’m correct? Does that make me paranoid or well-informed?

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