Review the article: - summarize and evaluate the following article. San Francisco Police Illegally Used Surveillance Cam
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2022 11:25 am
Review the article: - summarize and evaluate the
following article.
San Francisco Police Illegally Used Surveillance Cameras
at the George Floyd Protests. The Courts Must Stop
Them
The authors are community activists who helped organize and
participated in protests against police violence in San Francisco
after the murder of George Floyd. A hearing in their lawsuit
against the San Francisco Police Department over surveillance of
Union Square protests is scheduled for Friday. This article was
first published in the San Francisco Standard.
A year and a half ago, the San Francisco Police Department
illegally spied on us and thousands of other Bay Area residents as
we marched against racist police violence and the murder of George
Floyd. Aided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the
ACLU of Northern California, we have taken the SFPD to court.
Our lawsuit defends our right to organize protests against
police violence without fear of illegal police surveillance. After
the police murdered George Floyd, we coordinated mass actions and
legal support and spent our days leading the community in chants,
marches and protests demanding an end to policing systems that
stalk and kill Black and Brown people with impunity.
Our voice is more important than ever as the mayor and Chris
Larsen, the billionaire tech executive funding camera networks
across San Francisco, push a false narrative about our lawsuit and
the law that the SFPD violated.
In 2019, the city passed a landmark ordinance that bans the SFPD
and other city agencies from using facial recognition and requires
them to get approval from the Board of Supervisors for other
surveillance technologies. This transparent process sets up
guardrails, allows for public input and empowers communities to say
“no” to more police surveillance on our streets.
But the police refuse to play by the rules. EFF uncovered
documents showing that the SFPD violated the 2019 law and illegally
tapped into a network of more than 300 video cameras in the Union
Square area to surveil us and our fellow protesters. Additional
documents and testimony in our case revealed that an SFPD officer
repeatedly viewed the live camera feed, which directly contradicts
the SFPD’s prior statements to the public and the city’s Board of
Supervisors that “the feed was not monitored.”
Larsen has also backpedaled. Referencing the network, he
previously claimed that “the police can’t monitor it live.” Now,
Larsen is advocating for live surveillance and criticizing us for
defending our right under city law to be free from unfettered
police spying. He even suggests that we are to blame for recent
high-profile retail thefts at San Francisco’s luxury
stores.
As Black and Latinx activists, we are outraged—but not
surprised—by rich and powerful people supporting illegal police
surveillance. They are not the ones targeted by the police and
won’t pay the price if the city rolls back hard-won civil rights
protections.
Secret surveillance will not protect the public. What will
actually make us safer is to shift funding away from the police and
toward housing, healthcare, violence interruption programs and
other services necessary for racial justice in the Bay Area. Strong
and well-resourced communities are far more likely to be safe than
they would be with ever-increasing surveillance.
As members of communities that are already overpoliced and
underserved we know that surveillance is a trigger that sets our
most violent and unjust systems in motion. Before the police kill a
Black person, deport an immigrant, or imprison a young adult for a
crime driven by poverty, chances are the police surveilled them
first.
That is why we support democratic control over police spying and
oppose the surveillance infrastructure that Larsen is building in
our communities. We joined organizations like the Harvey Milk LGBTQ
Democratic Club in a successful campaign against Larsen’s plan to
fund more than 125 cameras in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood.
And we made the decision to join forces with the EFF and the ACLU
to defend our rights in court after we found out the SFPD spied on
us and our movement.
On January 21, we will be in court to put a stop to the SFPD’s
illegal spying and evasion of democratic oversight. We won’t let
the police or their rich and powerful supporters intimidate
activists into silence or undermine our social movements.
following article.
San Francisco Police Illegally Used Surveillance Cameras
at the George Floyd Protests. The Courts Must Stop
Them
The authors are community activists who helped organize and
participated in protests against police violence in San Francisco
after the murder of George Floyd. A hearing in their lawsuit
against the San Francisco Police Department over surveillance of
Union Square protests is scheduled for Friday. This article was
first published in the San Francisco Standard.
A year and a half ago, the San Francisco Police Department
illegally spied on us and thousands of other Bay Area residents as
we marched against racist police violence and the murder of George
Floyd. Aided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the
ACLU of Northern California, we have taken the SFPD to court.
Our lawsuit defends our right to organize protests against
police violence without fear of illegal police surveillance. After
the police murdered George Floyd, we coordinated mass actions and
legal support and spent our days leading the community in chants,
marches and protests demanding an end to policing systems that
stalk and kill Black and Brown people with impunity.
Our voice is more important than ever as the mayor and Chris
Larsen, the billionaire tech executive funding camera networks
across San Francisco, push a false narrative about our lawsuit and
the law that the SFPD violated.
In 2019, the city passed a landmark ordinance that bans the SFPD
and other city agencies from using facial recognition and requires
them to get approval from the Board of Supervisors for other
surveillance technologies. This transparent process sets up
guardrails, allows for public input and empowers communities to say
“no” to more police surveillance on our streets.
But the police refuse to play by the rules. EFF uncovered
documents showing that the SFPD violated the 2019 law and illegally
tapped into a network of more than 300 video cameras in the Union
Square area to surveil us and our fellow protesters. Additional
documents and testimony in our case revealed that an SFPD officer
repeatedly viewed the live camera feed, which directly contradicts
the SFPD’s prior statements to the public and the city’s Board of
Supervisors that “the feed was not monitored.”
Larsen has also backpedaled. Referencing the network, he
previously claimed that “the police can’t monitor it live.” Now,
Larsen is advocating for live surveillance and criticizing us for
defending our right under city law to be free from unfettered
police spying. He even suggests that we are to blame for recent
high-profile retail thefts at San Francisco’s luxury
stores.
As Black and Latinx activists, we are outraged—but not
surprised—by rich and powerful people supporting illegal police
surveillance. They are not the ones targeted by the police and
won’t pay the price if the city rolls back hard-won civil rights
protections.
Secret surveillance will not protect the public. What will
actually make us safer is to shift funding away from the police and
toward housing, healthcare, violence interruption programs and
other services necessary for racial justice in the Bay Area. Strong
and well-resourced communities are far more likely to be safe than
they would be with ever-increasing surveillance.
As members of communities that are already overpoliced and
underserved we know that surveillance is a trigger that sets our
most violent and unjust systems in motion. Before the police kill a
Black person, deport an immigrant, or imprison a young adult for a
crime driven by poverty, chances are the police surveilled them
first.
That is why we support democratic control over police spying and
oppose the surveillance infrastructure that Larsen is building in
our communities. We joined organizations like the Harvey Milk LGBTQ
Democratic Club in a successful campaign against Larsen’s plan to
fund more than 125 cameras in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood.
And we made the decision to join forces with the EFF and the ACLU
to defend our rights in court after we found out the SFPD spied on
us and our movement.
On January 21, we will be in court to put a stop to the SFPD’s
illegal spying and evasion of democratic oversight. We won’t let
the police or their rich and powerful supporters intimidate
activists into silence or undermine our social movements.