PART 2
THE CASE AGAINST SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY
There’s little question that surveillance technology intrudes on peoples’ privacy. “The increasing use of surveillance technologies by local police across America,” says the ACLU, perhaps the leading voice against use of those technologies, “especially against communities of color and other unjustly targeted groups, has been creating oppressive and stigmatizing environments in which every community member is treated like an enemy of the state or a prospective criminal.” In a town as highly politicized and progressive as Oakland, such warnings have been taken seriously.
In 2014, the City Council created a mechanism “to develop and advise on citywide privacy concerns” through the formation of the Privacy Advisory Commission (PAC), a volunteer group that advises the City Council. Each City Council district has a representative, appointed by the Council; the Mayor also appoints a representative. The Board meets once a month.
PAC’s head since 2016 has been a paralegal, Brian Hofer. (Mr. Hofer did not respond to questions I posed to him through email, although he did promise to do so eventually.) PAC’s duties, according to their website, include providing advice on best practices to protect citizen privacy, drafting model legislation for the City Council, analyzing federal, state and local laws affecting surveillance, and conducting public hearings. It’s safe to say that the PAC has been a speed bump—and often a severe one—in preventing OPD from implementing these surveillance technologies.
Indeed, Hofer himself has made a career of fighting government use of surveillance and other things he believes impinge on civil liberties. In addition to overseeing Oakland’s PAC, he is Chair and Executive Director of “Secure Justice,” a nonprofit organization “advocating against state abuse of power, and for reduction in government and corporate over-reach.”
In his biography on Secure Justice’s website, Hofer says that, shortly before becoming head of the PAC, he “became aware that an Orwellian-sounding $11 million-dollar city-wide surveillance system…was being planned for Oakland.”
It’s not only in Oakland that Hofer does his anti-surveillance work. He was “The man behind San Francisco’s facial recognition ban,” headlined a New York Times in a 2019 profile. According to the article, “Over the past five years, [Hofer] has drafted 26 privacy laws for cities and counties in California. All were approved, 23 unanimously.” And “his campaigns are just beginning,” the article said presciently.
It should be noted that, currently, Hofer is suing the City of Oakland and OPD “in his individual capacity” (i.e., not as Chair of the PAC) for what he alleges have been “multiple violations of the city charter.” (He’s also suing the City of Berkeley for similar reasons.)
It seems to me, in my individual capacity, that this represents something of a conflict of interest for Hofer, and I brought this to Noel Gallo’s attention when we Zoomed with him earlier this week. (Gallo had not known of the Oakland lawsuit.)
All the same, neither Hofer nor the ACLU and most other critics are calling for a total ban on surveillance technology. At issue is striking a balance between crime prevention/prosecution, on the one hand, and protecting the public’s privacy as much as possible. The ACLU, for example, recognizes the need “to plac[e] cameras at specific, high-profile public places that are potential terrorist targets, such as the U.S. Capitol.” But the organization balks at “the impulse to blanket our public spaces and streets with video surveillance.” OPD Captain Roland Holmgren, whom I quoted in yesterday’s blog, agrees. “I’m not talking about arbitrarily lacing the community with cams all over the place, or surreptitiously having them all over the place,” says the head of Oakland’s surveillance efforts. “I’m talking about overt examples of cameras in identified areas that have shown to be areas where significant violence occurs.”
Viewed from this perspective, it would seem that a compromise can be reached here in Oakland: to find the sweet spot that maximizes public privacy protection and at the same time gives OPD to ability to fight crime. City Council member Loren Taylor has introduced his own plan to combat gun violence; included in its recommendations is for the Council to provide “The initial investment into the planning and deployment of surveillance camera technology to aid in criminal investigations while minimizing privacy concerns.” Taylor’s proposal seems likely to be hotly debated in the City Council’s Dec. 21 meeting. Opponents are likely to be Carroll Fife and Rebecca Kaplan, who are staunch PAC supporters.
The Coalition for a Better Oakland supports Taylor’s initiative. You can sign our petition urging the City Council to approve it. Here’s the link.
Steve Heimoff