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Reportback of Santa Cruz Police Spying Policy Process
Weak severely-limited half-baked policy on police spying on peaceful groups likely to be proposed.
Well, in short: It doesn't look good.
According to Mike Rotkin a new police policy on police surveillance will be published within a week or two. However, we are not terribly confident that it will represents a strong policy with all the needed checks and protections.
As a reminder, here were our bare minimums for a policy:
* Explicit protections for and definitions of First Amendment activities
* Limits on police powers regarding first amendment activities
* Steps the police have to take before considering monitoring a group
* Clear accountability and limited authorization
* Rules of conduct for undercover officers, infiltrators, and informants
* A strong auditing requirement
After the City Council's abrupt turnabout following the police auditor's pan of the internal police investigation.of police spying, the Council assuring us that they would work hand-in-hand with the ACLU to create a policy that protected citizen's first and fourth amendment rights, put limits on police powers and conduct, and provided adequate checks and audits.
But a month into the process, city managers were still stonewalling the process. After pressure by citizens, the process finally got going in fits and starts. Rather than use the draft policy provided by the ACLU of Northern California based on the San Francisco police first amendment policy, city managers based their first draft on the grossly inadequate policy hastily thrown together after the spying scandal.
There has been little back and forth with ACLU lawyers -- only one meeting and one opportunity for their review. Many of the ACLU changes were rejected without any attempt at explanation.
The most important failing of the proposed new policy is that, despite our repeated concerns, the policy only deals with undercover officers, not the greater issue of police monitoring of peaceful groups.
The proposed new policy suffers from many major inadequacies:
1. The policy only covers undercover activities
2. It contains no definition of 1st amendment activities
3. It contains no limits on when to monitor first amendment activities
4. The approval process is quite lax even allowing a deputy chief to make the decision
5. There are no limits on sharing information with outside agencies
6. The audit is weak -- facts of a violation of the policy are not made public in an audit
The policy makers have taken a few of the suggestions made by the ACLU, but have largely ignored the most important aspects of the ACLU advice.
Dick Wilson's letter says that the final policy will be published (but not yet approved) on July 5th. It seems that they will push a weak severely-limited half-baked policy through as soon as possible, claiming that they crafted a good policy hand-in-hand with the ACLU.
In the next few weeks, we'll be trying to meet with councilmembers, the local ACLU, the ACLU of Northern California (who's done the bulk of the work on this), and in general, raising a fuss that they are trying to bury the issue with a half-assed policy that still does not protect the rights of citizens.
We encourage you to convince City Council members that we will never accept police spying on our political and community groups and activities.
Rico
Links to photos related to the Santa Cruz Police Spying Scandal: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/01/25/17981451.php
According to Mike Rotkin a new police policy on police surveillance will be published within a week or two. However, we are not terribly confident that it will represents a strong policy with all the needed checks and protections.
As a reminder, here were our bare minimums for a policy:
* Explicit protections for and definitions of First Amendment activities
* Limits on police powers regarding first amendment activities
* Steps the police have to take before considering monitoring a group
* Clear accountability and limited authorization
* Rules of conduct for undercover officers, infiltrators, and informants
* A strong auditing requirement
After the City Council's abrupt turnabout following the police auditor's pan of the internal police investigation.of police spying, the Council assuring us that they would work hand-in-hand with the ACLU to create a policy that protected citizen's first and fourth amendment rights, put limits on police powers and conduct, and provided adequate checks and audits.
But a month into the process, city managers were still stonewalling the process. After pressure by citizens, the process finally got going in fits and starts. Rather than use the draft policy provided by the ACLU of Northern California based on the San Francisco police first amendment policy, city managers based their first draft on the grossly inadequate policy hastily thrown together after the spying scandal.
There has been little back and forth with ACLU lawyers -- only one meeting and one opportunity for their review. Many of the ACLU changes were rejected without any attempt at explanation.
The most important failing of the proposed new policy is that, despite our repeated concerns, the policy only deals with undercover officers, not the greater issue of police monitoring of peaceful groups.
The proposed new policy suffers from many major inadequacies:
1. The policy only covers undercover activities
2. It contains no definition of 1st amendment activities
3. It contains no limits on when to monitor first amendment activities
4. The approval process is quite lax even allowing a deputy chief to make the decision
5. There are no limits on sharing information with outside agencies
6. The audit is weak -- facts of a violation of the policy are not made public in an audit
The policy makers have taken a few of the suggestions made by the ACLU, but have largely ignored the most important aspects of the ACLU advice.
Dick Wilson's letter says that the final policy will be published (but not yet approved) on July 5th. It seems that they will push a weak severely-limited half-baked policy through as soon as possible, claiming that they crafted a good policy hand-in-hand with the ACLU.
In the next few weeks, we'll be trying to meet with councilmembers, the local ACLU, the ACLU of Northern California (who's done the bulk of the work on this), and in general, raising a fuss that they are trying to bury the issue with a half-assed policy that still does not protect the rights of citizens.
We encourage you to convince City Council members that we will never accept police spying on our political and community groups and activities.
Rico
Links to photos related to the Santa Cruz Police Spying Scandal: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/01/25/17981451.php
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I thought he got a MAJOR makeover or something! ;-) Thanks for the clarification... as well as the amusement!
City Manager Wilson's letter refers to a proposal (or set of proposals by Mark Schlossberg). Have they been posted? If so, where? If not, could they be? Much thanks to the posters for making this information public.
According to the City Council website the last meetings of the Public Safety Committee (which supposedly oversees the SCPD, chaired by Rotkin) met on April 17, 2006 at 4:00 P.M.; May 15, 2006 at 7:00 P.M.; and June 19, 2006 at 7:00 P.M. Did anyone get to any of those meetings?
The next one is supposedly for July 17, 2006 at 4:00 P.M.
According to the City Council website the last meetings of the Public Safety Committee (which supposedly oversees the SCPD, chaired by Rotkin) met on April 17, 2006 at 4:00 P.M.; May 15, 2006 at 7:00 P.M.; and June 19, 2006 at 7:00 P.M. Did anyone get to any of those meetings?
The next one is supposedly for July 17, 2006 at 4:00 P.M.
This is the original draft proposal prepared by Mark Schlosberg. It was based on the very good San Francisco PD policy regarding first amendment activities. It was rejected straight away at the first meeting as "too long." Though I suspect most people would agree that policies should be judged by clarity and content rather than length.
At that first meeting -- postponed twice by the city and called only after much prodding -- was ACLU attorney Schlosberg, Councilmembers Rotkin and Mathews, City Manager Dick Wilson, and City Attorney Barrisone. That is the last meeting this group ever had. The rest of the policy was drafted behind closed doors by Barrisone and Wilson.
At that first meeting -- postponed twice by the city and called only after much prodding -- was ACLU attorney Schlosberg, Councilmembers Rotkin and Mathews, City Manager Dick Wilson, and City Attorney Barrisone. That is the last meeting this group ever had. The rest of the policy was drafted behind closed doors by Barrisone and Wilson.
The two drafts of the proposed police dept policies presented in this thread seem to be a good start, but they don't go far enough. They don't imply that the police can do just any old thing when conducting an investigation. The draft policies need to be broadened and deepened to include more things so that innocent people excercising their first amendment rights don't get caught in the police matrix.
I like what was implied in the letter back to the ACLU spokesperson where it was suggested that the policy cover all criminal investigations, not just first amendment protected activity. I say this because in my own case I may have been the victim of a policy where if you have a bad breakup with a woman, she (or some third party probably unknown to her but claiming to be acting on her behalf) can have you investigated ad nauseum and include various forms of harrassment (them against me) as part of that "investigation". The purely investigational part of this is perfectly legal in CA and I have little or no legal protection against such intrusions under this pretext. It would be all too easy for the police (or Private Investigator) to use a bogus pretext such as that to launch a full blown criminal investigation against an activist as retaliation for free speech activity. I'm not suggesting that the Sant Cruz police did this to me, but I suspect that California law is weak in this area and in fact a non governmental entity did in fact do this to me and may still be doing it ( 7 years later). Certain low probablity events (disruption) continue to occur on a regular, though infrequent basis. Flat tire due to loose valve stem one day after getting new tires. Loose lug nuts one day after getting second set of tires (6 months later). Bogus insurance billing and missed billing for cobra payments. There are other examples of disruption that have happened in the last 6-8 months. I must emphasise again that these people may be claiming to act on someone's behalf, but that claim is likely bogus (or at least so outdated as to be worthless, if they would only check their facts from the horse's mouth as it were).
I like what was implied in the letter back to the ACLU spokesperson where it was suggested that the policy cover all criminal investigations, not just first amendment protected activity. I say this because in my own case I may have been the victim of a policy where if you have a bad breakup with a woman, she (or some third party probably unknown to her but claiming to be acting on her behalf) can have you investigated ad nauseum and include various forms of harrassment (them against me) as part of that "investigation". The purely investigational part of this is perfectly legal in CA and I have little or no legal protection against such intrusions under this pretext. It would be all too easy for the police (or Private Investigator) to use a bogus pretext such as that to launch a full blown criminal investigation against an activist as retaliation for free speech activity. I'm not suggesting that the Sant Cruz police did this to me, but I suspect that California law is weak in this area and in fact a non governmental entity did in fact do this to me and may still be doing it ( 7 years later). Certain low probablity events (disruption) continue to occur on a regular, though infrequent basis. Flat tire due to loose valve stem one day after getting new tires. Loose lug nuts one day after getting second set of tires (6 months later). Bogus insurance billing and missed billing for cobra payments. There are other examples of disruption that have happened in the last 6-8 months. I must emphasise again that these people may be claiming to act on someone's behalf, but that claim is likely bogus (or at least so outdated as to be worthless, if they would only check their facts from the horse's mouth as it were).
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