All posts by Midnightschildren

Press Room

Leading The Nation On Broadband Privacy

 

July 27, 2017

For Immediate Release

Contact: Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director, Media Alliance  Email: tracy@media-alliance.org  Tel: (510) 684-6853

Leading The Nation On Broadband Privacy 

California Poised To Protect Consumer Search and Browser Data with AB 375

Sacramento-California, perhaps the state most identified as resisting federal overreach by the Trump administration, is acting to reinstate popular broadband privacy protections enacted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) at the tail end of the Obama administration. The Republican Congress, in one of their few actions to date, invoked rarely used Congressional Review Authority (CRA) to revoke the regulations after passage, an act wildly unpopular with Americans who opposed it by a 74% margin according to You Gov’s April 2017 poll.

Assemblyman Ed Chau, the chair of the Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee and 49th Assembly District representative (Monterey Park/Alhambra) late-introduced AB 375 to allow California Internet users to affirmatively consent to the sale of their browser and search data by their Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) and to prevent pay-for-privacy schemes like that recently floated by AT&T, that condemn less affluent customers to the potential involuntary sale of their browser data at the discretion of their ISP.  Continue reading Leading The Nation On Broadband Privacy →

Accountability and Representation

Stopping STOPS: Urban Shield Vendor Vetoed Due To Racist Stereotyping

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On August 1, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, which has been under fire for several years over the police militarization expo Urban Shield, took its first action to enforce 12 reform principles the Board embraced in January of 2017, four months after two dozen people were arrested at the 2016 expo.

After being notified only hours before the meeting by MA executive director Tracy Rosenberg and American Friends Service Committee Wage Peace Coordinator John Lindsay-Poland of extreme racial stereotyping on the website of Urban Shield vendor Strategic Operations of San Diego, the board of supervisors refused to authorize the use of the vendor. Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern’s request to contract with Strategic Operations for $45,000 in “hyper-realistic training” for the 2017 Urban Shield event failed for lack of a motion, with none of the five supervisors willing to support the request. Supervisor Keith Carson removed the item from the board’s consent calender. Supervisor Richard Valle indicated he would not vote for it and Board President Wilma Chan also spoke in opposition.  Continue reading Stopping STOPS: Urban Shield Vendor Vetoed Due To Racist Stereotyping →

Accountability and Representation, Surveillance

Deporting ICE

 

On July 18, Oakland’s City Council voted unanimously to terminate the Oakland Police Department’s federal law enforcement agreement with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), formerly known as ICE. The unanimous vote on CM Rebecca Kaplan’s resolution followed previous unanimous votes at the City’s Privacy Advisory Commission (OPAC) and the Council’s Public Safety Committee.

Continue reading Deporting ICE →

Surveillance

Section 702

 

Although writing to the Trumpian Congress is a pyrrhic pursuit at best,  22 civil rights groups wrote to the House Judiciary Committee in pursuit of reforms to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The groups wrote: “Section 702 is a warrantless surveillance authority that allows monitoring of non-US persons abroad for broad foreign intelligence purposes, including these individuals’ communications with individuals in the United
States. This powerful tool—subject to far fewer checks than domestic surveillance—was passed to combat threats from hostile foreign powers and international terrorism, and was not intended for domestic law enforcement investigation of U.S. persons for matters unrelated to foreign intelligence.” Continue reading Section 702 →

Accountability and Representation

Private Prison Information Act of 2017

 

(From Human Rights Defense Center)

45 civil rights and criminal justice groups joined together to demand greater transparency from private prisons that contract with the federal government. H.R. 1980, the Private Prison Information Act, reintroduced by U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) earlier this year  would require private prisons to comply with the same FOIA requirements as their government-operated counterparts.

Almost one out of every five prisoners held by the federal government, and two out of every three immigrant detainees, are housed in for-profit prisons that contract with federal agencies. Unlike government-operated facilities that are required to comply with federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, private prisons operate under a veil of secrecy.

Continue reading Private Prison Information Act of 2017 →

Accountability and Representation

Oakland Police – It Isn’t Getting Better

 

13 years into a federal consent decree after the Oakland Police Department’s “Riders Divison” planted drugs on scores of West Oakland residents, nothing has gotten better.

Court-appointed independent investigators Edward Swanson and Audrey Barron issued a scathing report on the OPD sex scandal involving a dispatcher’s daughter doing sex work as a minor and getting entangled with multiple Oakland officers.  Continue reading Oakland Police – It Isn’t Getting Better →