This Open Vallejo podcast focuses on the City of Vallejo’s purchase of a cell site simulator or stingray, a dangerous and expensive piece of surveillance equipment used to track the location of a cell phone by impersonating a cell phone tower.
Oakland Privacy, the Bay Area’s ant-surveillance coalition, sued the City of Vallejo to enforce state law and require the City to allow public comment and a City Council vote on the device’s usage policy.
MA ED Tracy Rosenberg is a contributor to this edition of the Open Vallejo podcast entitled “Tiny Constables.
The Protest Facebook coalition organized a Protect the Results demonstration in front of Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters on the afternoon of November 4th.
That’s the question I asked policing and privacy expert Tracy Rosenberg, Executive Director of Media Alliance, and coordinator of Oakland Privacy.
Ann Garrison: What do you think Trump and his goons might be up to in Portland and the cities with “liberal Democratic mayors” that he’s threatening to invade next? Is this much more than politics, an attempt to win the election with law and order extremes?
Tracy Rosenberg: Certainly, first and foremost, it is a political stunt to capture the law and order crowd and press on divides between the coastal cities and inland voters. But it’s also more sinister than that. The use of federal forces is designed to weaken local accountability by freezing out local government that constituents can reach. Portland’s mayor might not even have opposed some “help” from the feds, but he wasn’t asked. In other words, this wasn’t mutual aid. This was indeed an invasion.
VALLEJO, Calif. – Vallejo Police Department on Tuesday announced a partnership with Atlanta-based startup, Flock Safety that expands surveillance using license plate readers (LPR) throughout Vallejo.
The surveillance technology is being touted as a crime-fighting tool. Police have “strategically placed” 10 LPRs throughout the city at a cost of $2,496 a year each, which includes maintenance and installation. Police said there is at least one privatized installation in a neighborhood through a homeowners association.
by Julia Sulek. Originally published in the San Jose Mercury News
OAKLAND — When Joe Biden’s vice presidential search committee met with a who’s who of California Democrats on a Zoom call late last month, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf used up every second of her turn to make an urgent pitch for Kamala Harris, a self-described proud “daughter of Oakland, California.”
Schaaf has known the U.S. senator since they were both barely 30 years old and extolled her virtues as a fierce advocate for Oakland’s progressive values.
But Oaklanders know that Harris won’t be the only one in the spotlight if she’s who Biden chooses to join the Democratic ticket for the White House. The city of Oakland itself, which has been vilified by President Donald Trump as a miasma of urban horrors, will surely be in the crosshairs too.
When California voters receive their voter guide for the November election, they will see a 53-page measure claiming to improve their privacy rights listed as Proposition 24. What they won’t see, unless they are very diligent at reading lengthy texts, are all the loopholes and exemptions in Proposition 24.
That’s why privacy and consumer protection groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, Media Alliance, Consumer Fed, Consumer Action, Public Citizen, Color of Change, Courage Campaign, California Small Business Alliance, Electronic Frontier Foundation and many others who have fought for you for years won’t endorse Proposition 24. It isn’t what it pretends to be.
Privacy and data expert Mary Stone Ross and Tracy Rosenberg, the Executive Director of The Media Alliance join us to discuss Proposition 24, a so-called “privacy” proposal that would in reality undo key parts of the California Consumer Privacy Act.
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Two years ago, the California Legislature enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act, a tough and expansive piece of legislation meant to mimic Europe’s broad data protections.
The fanfare was short-lived for data-privacy advocates, as lobbyists for various business interests rushed in to water down its protections. Hostile amendments that sought to carve out exemptions to the law were largely defeated after a grueling legislative session in 2019.
