The Assembly Public Safety Committee refused to vote on SB 1019 on June 26, 2007, dealing a serious blow to efforts to restore police accountability in California. Earlier this month, SB 1019 (D-Romero) was passed in the state Senate in a 22-11 vote, despite threats by police associations of torpedoing unrelated term limit reform if the bill was passed.
Thousands of individuals and sixteen states have already told the federal government to dump the privacy-invasive REAL ID Act, which would standardize drivers licenses into a national ID and create databases linking the IDs together.
But instead of listening to the public, members of Congress are renewing their efforts to force us all to have a national ID card – this time through a backdoor approach of inserting Real
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers.
In reaching its decision in Warshak v. United States, the court closely followed the reasoning in an amicus brief filed in the case by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the ACLU, and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT).
The California Assembly Judiciary Committee passed five important RFID bills today, including the Identity Information Protection Act (SB 30), which ensures that no RFID tags will be embedded into state-issued IDs, without privacy and security protections.
The San Jose Mercury News published a story about the bills on the front page today.
On August 29, 2006, the California Supreme Court in Copley Press v. Superior Court held that records of an administrative appeal of sustained misconduct charges are confidential and may not be disclosed to the public. The decision prevents the public from learning the extent to which police officers have been disciplined as a result of misconduct.
The City of Fairfield and ten families adopted a settlement agreement yesterday providing for comprehensive new policies to address police conduct on school campuses. This agreement resolved a March 2, 2007 incident when the Fairfield police came onto the campus of Rodriguez High School and rounded-up a group of innocent students, accusing them of being gang members.
Sacramento – The state Senate today voted to restore public access to records and public hearings related to complaints about police misconduct.
In a 22 to 11 vote, the Senate approved SB 1019, overturning the state Supreme Court’s Aug. 29, 2006 decision in Copley Press v. San Diego, which blocked public access to records about police complaints and effectively stopped police commissions from holding open hearings.
Google's new Street View service, which allows users of Google Maps to view and navigate street-level images may help some people get around, but it raises serious privacy concerns for individuals who are unwittingly captured by Google's candid cameras.
Several websites have already taken up the sport of posting links to snapshots of the streets preserved by Google's camera vans.
Real change starts with you – and every one of us can help make a difference.