Police departments across
California spent more than $45 million on surveillance equipment over the
course of a decade with little to no legislative or public oversight – and
without the public's knowledge, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU report, titled 'Making
Smart Decisions about Surveillance: A Guide for Communities,' reveals how
California law enforcement took advantage of millions of dollars’ worth of
federal surveillance gear to sidestep city council oversight and boards of
supervisors. Police also avoided consideration of costs and benefits and left
the public in the dark as to how law enforcement was using the equipment to
track their lives.
“After revelations of mass
surveillance by the NSA, the public isn’t buying the ‘just trust us’ approach
anymore. The public expects to know why surveillance is being considered, how
it is going to be used and what safeguards are in place to guard against misuse
before any decisions are made,” Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties
policy director for the ACLU of California, said in a statement.
The report surveyed 118
California cities and towns and found that 90 were using surveillance
technology. Only five had carried out public debate before acquisition, and
four had public policies concerning use and limits. In total, the 118 cities
and towns had spent over $45 million on equipping their police departments.
The majority of police units were using
license plate readers (57) and video surveillance (62), but many were using a multitude
of devices to track and survey people.
For example, the automatic
license plate readers (ALPR) is a camera system mounted to a police car or
light that scans license plates that come into view. They are often used to
look for stolen vehicles, but they can record the time and place of every
single vehicle that drives by.
Facial recognition software,
meanwhile, identifies a person in photos or video based on various
characteristics of the person’s face. The accuracy of facial recognition,
however, can vary widely.
Automated social media
monitoring consists of software tools that collect posts and other information
on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. These tools may also analyze the
collected data in order to learn information such as the social connections or
political views of individuals.
Another device – the
International Mobile Subscriber Identity catcher (IMSI) – emulates the
functionality of a cell phone tower in order to interact with a nearby mobile
phone. Commonly known as Stingrays, a popular brand name, they can be used to
capture and intercept the contents of communications, including calls, text
messages, or internet activity. Many IMSI are used in dragnet fashion, scooping
up information about every phone in range.
In one instance, the report
said the San Jose Police Department obtained a drone with federal funding with
no public debate and no policy safeguards in place. After protests, the police
department apologized, grounded the drone, and initiated public outreach.
ACLU California is proposing a
measure called the Surveillance and Community Ordinance to provide
transparency, accountability, and oversight. The ordinance is being drafted and
will be introduced in the coming weeks.
The Council on American-Islamic
Relations, as well as the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus,
have also both joined the ACLU to endorse the need for oversight ordinances.
They are quite familiar with how unchecked surveillance often has a
disproportionate impact on communities of color and religious minorities.
“Communities are increasingly
concerned about making sure that time, energy and resources are not spent on
expensive, ineffective and overly intrusive surveillance systems that create
more problems than they solve,” San Francisco supervisor John Avalos told the
ACLU. “That’s why public transparency and engagement are key to any decision
about whether to use surveillance technology. If surveillance technology is to
be used, clear rules must be in place to ensure transparency, oversight and
accountability.”
