News & Commentary

In the summer of 2020, when so many of us joined Black-led protests and peacefully took to the streets to march, mourn, demand an end to police brutality and call for justice for George Floyd and the many other Black lives taken by police, California police spied from above with high-definition video surveillance.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are using incredibly invasive surveillance technology as part of their continued efforts to target and tear apart communities across the country. They're doing so in near-total secrecy and without any public accountability.

The state of California just made it clear: Face recognition surveillance isn't inevitable. We can — and should — fight hard to protect our communities from this dystopian technology.

Last year, California lawmakers passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), a new law to strengthen consumer privacy protections. A few weeks ago, newly-elected Oakland Assemblymember Buffy Wicks introduced AB 1760: Privacy for All, to add critical improvements to current law and ensure privacy is a right we can all exercise in California — and pave the way for other states to do the same — regardless of what we look like or how much money we have in our bank account.

In recent years, the federal government has significantly ramped up its efforts to monitor people on social media. The FBI, for one, has repeatedly acknowledged that it engages in surveillance of social media posts. So it was surprising when the bureau responded to our Freedom of Information Act request on this kind of surveillance by saying that it “can neither confirm nor deny the existence of records.”

In a disturbing trend, government officials and police departments have been thwarting public oversight by using communications apps that automatically delete messages.

Recent stories about Amazon's invasive face scanning surveillance technology and Cambridge Analytica's exploitation of Facebook data have brought the impact of surveillance and data misuse to the fore. But many people don't realize how often local law enforcement agencies acquire and use similar tec

To resist the Trump administration's cruel immigration enforcement policies, Culver City, California declared itself a sanctuary city. The City Council passed a resolution in March 2017 declaring the city's commitment "to protecting the safety, well-being and constitutional rights of its residents

By Matt Cagle