Supplemental Materials for The State of Surveillance

"The State of Surveillance Government Monitoring of Political Activity in Northern and Central California"

A Report by the ACLU of Northern California. Written by Mark Schlosberg, ACLU-NC Police Practices Policy Director, July 2006.

State Anti-Terrorism Documents:

A sampling of CATIC Advisories beginning with CATIC Anti-Terrorism Advisory on “Possible War Protests,” November 7, 2001

CATIC Anti-Terrorism Advisory on Oakland Port,
April 2, 2003

State Terrorism Threat Assessment Center Bulletin,
March 7, 2006

State Terrorism Threat Assesment Center Bulletin,
April 10, 2006

Memorandum from Allen Benitez, Assistant Chief,
Criminal Intelligence Bureau regarding office of Homeland Security,  April 21, 2006

Documents from Federal Agencies:

Excerpt of Defense Department Anti-Terrorism Database obtained by NBC News that includes information on anti-war protests logged in Pentagon's TALON database

Department of Defense documents on anti-war activities at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, obtained through Freedom of Information Act request

Documents Regarding Local Agencies:

ILWU Newsgroup posting on Local 10’s motion against Iraq War, September 21, 2002 from the Oakland Police Department

Memorandum from John Welty, Fresno State University President, regarding surveillance of university events and student groups, May 2, 2005

Complaint regarding infiltration of Peace Fresno filed with California Attorney General, April 21, 2004

Policy Documents:

San Francisco Police Department General Order 8.10, Guidelines on First Amendment Protected Activity

Criminal Intelligence Systems, A California Perspective, California Department of Justice, September 2003

Public Records Survey:

Public Records Survey example, July 25, 2005

• Timeline of Government Surveillance
  
• Profiles of Speakers
  
• Natalie Wormeli Statement
  
• Donna Hardina Statement
  
• Camille Russell Statement
  
• Jack Heyman Statement
  
• Matthew Taylor Statement
  
• Ruth Obel-Jorgenson Statement
  
• Dan Yaseen Statement

Scope and Methodology

Since September 11, 2001, the ACLU-NC has raised concerns regarding government surveillance of constitutionally protected political activity by law enforcement. Over the past several years, we have learned of incidents at the federal, state, and local levels affecting Californians.

This report is not intended to be a comprehensive and all-encompassing account of surveillance activity in Northern and Central California. Rather, it highlights a number of cases that the ACLU-NC has been actively involved in that we believe are representative of a larger trend.

The nature of the incidents led us to conduct a public records survey to determine the extent to which local police and sheriff's departments have policies protecting individuals engaging in First Amendment protected activity from monitoring, investigation, or infiltration.

In June, 2005, the ACLU-NC sent out public records requests to agencies throughout the state. A copy of the records request is available in the Primary Documents section of this website. In January 2006, we sent requests to additional agencies in San Diego and Imperial Counties. In total, we surveyed 103 agencies. A complete list of the agencies surveyed is available.

The information included in the report is derived from the results we received from those agencies at the time we received them. Since that time, some agencies may have modified their policies in some manner; however, those changes are not included in the statistical section. (For example, the Santa Cruz Police Department recently adopted a new policy regulating the use of undercover officers to gather information about organizations engaged in First Amendment activity, but it is not included in the statistical analysis.) The information contained in the survey section of the report represents the state of regulation at the time we issued the request.

The most recent updates and corrections for the report are available.