[00:01.790 --> 00:02.530]  Hey, everyone.
[00:03.350 --> 00:04.490]  My name is Matt Cagle.
[00:04.690 --> 00:07.830]  I am a policy attorney at the ACLU of Northern California.
[00:08.110 --> 00:11.110]  I work on privacy, free speech, and surveillance issues.
[00:11.230 --> 00:17.550]  And today, we're going to talk about surveillance and what you can do to really stop it and roll it back in your communities.
[00:18.250 --> 00:20.510]  And we're going to use three different places as examples.
[00:20.690 --> 00:22.130]  So I'm based out of the SF Bay area.
[00:22.790 --> 00:24.110]  Mariko is here in New York.
[00:24.210 --> 00:25.890]  And then Jared is in the Washington area.
[00:26.050 --> 00:27.570]  I'll have you both introduce yourselves, too.
[00:27.570 --> 00:28.170]  Sure.
[00:29.250 --> 00:29.950]  Hi, everyone.
[00:30.110 --> 00:30.930]  I'm Mariko Hirose.
[00:31.230 --> 00:34.190]  I'm an attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union.
[00:34.770 --> 00:39.390]  And I, like Matt, work on privacy, surveillance, free speech issues.
[00:39.930 --> 00:47.290]  Also work on a range of other issues on our docket, including criminal justice, other discrimination justice issues.
[00:47.590 --> 00:52.870]  And I spend a chunk of my time filing and pursuing freedom of information law requests.
[00:52.910 --> 01:04.430]  And I'm looking forward to talking about how we might set up systems where we can learn about these police surveillance technologies without going the route of pursuing FOIL requests.
[01:05.150 --> 01:06.390]  Hi, I'm Jared Friend.
[01:06.670 --> 01:09.650]  I'm a volunteer attorney for the ACLU of Washington and Seattle.
[01:10.250 --> 01:14.970]  I focus on, like, both Matt and Mariko, surveillance and privacy issues.
[01:15.150 --> 01:18.570]  I do a little bit on the litigation end, so filing lawsuits against the government.
[01:18.890 --> 01:24.150]  But predominantly, my work is focused on policy, legislation, and activist outreach.
[01:25.510 --> 01:31.050]  So we're going to talk about specific surveillance technologies today where examples come up.
[01:31.150 --> 01:34.670]  Things like Stingrays, license plate readers, biometrics, even drones.
[01:35.050 --> 01:36.890]  But we're also here to talk about power.
[01:37.210 --> 01:48.450]  And what surveillance is ultimately about at the end of the day is the power to control people, the power to control information, and, ultimately, the power to bring the criminal justice system to bear on communities, often communities of color.
[01:49.150 --> 01:55.190]  So, you know, to tee it up, I think it's really important to talk about, you know, the communities we're coming from here and the surveillance technologies we're seeing.
[01:56.530 --> 01:59.950]  And Jared, do you want to talk about Seattle, which has a rich history of surveillance?
[02:00.690 --> 02:04.110]  Yeah, so Seattle's an interesting area to think about privacy issues.
[02:04.270 --> 02:09.290]  I mean, it's predominantly white, it's very affluent communities, and very privacy-engaged communities.
[02:09.630 --> 02:23.330]  So there's been a number of cases where activists in Seattle have come out in opposition to acquisition of drones by the Seattle Police Department, deployment of closed-circuit TV cameras, deployment of mesh networks that could be used to, you know, monitor people's MAC addresses,
[02:23.530 --> 02:24.110]  things like that.
[02:24.350 --> 02:31.810]  But the one kink in all this is that Seattle is an area like most of America where white supremacy is a really serious problem.
[02:32.570 --> 02:47.510]  So as soon as surveillance and privacy issues start reaching into context for lower-income people or for communities of color, the engagement level for everyone across the board, whether it's community leaders, you know, activists, or just kind of concerned citizens,
[02:47.690 --> 02:49.910]  drops off really steeply and really quickly.
[02:50.350 --> 03:02.110]  I don't think this should come as any big surprise, but, you know, especially when you think about somewhere like Seattle where, you know, class lines and ethnic groups are kind of drawn along geographic boundaries.
[03:02.290 --> 03:18.010]  But what happens is that these arguments against surveillance and against privacy invasions that are unique or more exacerbated for these marginalized communities, these arguments end up falling by the sideline because they don't get the same type of support,
[03:18.250 --> 03:22.210]  they don't get the same type of airtime as lots of the other generic issues.
[03:22.410 --> 03:37.730]  So if you're talking about, you know, Black Lives Matter protesters and the police department surveilling them on social media, that doesn't get a lot of traction, but talking about, you know, deploying a CCTV camera in the, you know, in a white affluent neighborhoods park does.
[03:38.030 --> 03:46.730]  And so that's, that's a tension and a problem that, you know, we've had to deal with a lot in the, in those communities and something that has been difficult, especially in the last few years.
[03:48.030 --> 03:53.710]  So in New York City, we have the NYPD, which talk about a rich history of surveillance.
[03:54.030 --> 04:02.790]  And even more recently, you know, very concrete examples of the department spying on Muslim communities.
[04:03.530 --> 04:13.290]  Allegations that included putting cameras right in front of mosques and using license plate readers in order to figure out who is going in and out of mosques.
[04:14.230 --> 04:29.790]  We also have a domain awareness system, which is the system that connects surveillance cameras, automatic license plate readers, now shot spotter data, other environmental sensor data, and aggregates it into one system.
[04:30.110 --> 04:43.030]  And, you know, questions about what policies are in place, how it's going to be expanding in the future, and how and whether we'll be notified about the way that system changes.
[04:43.550 --> 04:48.530]  We're also seeing, you know, technologies coming in from the military.
[04:48.750 --> 04:51.090]  I mean, we're seeing this all across our country.
[04:52.290 --> 04:54.310]  Stingrays have been in the news.
[04:54.690 --> 04:58.930]  Those are devices that spy on your cell phones can be used to track people.
[04:59.850 --> 05:08.430]  We recently got documents from the NYPD showing that they've been using Stingrays since 2008.
[05:08.930 --> 05:11.610]  They've used it over 1,000 times.
[05:11.850 --> 05:15.930]  This had not been reported, though, in the media until this year.
[05:16.210 --> 05:19.530]  And they didn't have any written guidelines for their use.
[05:19.670 --> 05:21.170]  And they weren't getting warrants.
[05:21.170 --> 05:24.210]  They were relying on lower level court orders.
[05:25.570 --> 05:30.430]  So Stingray is a very powerful surveillance device that was initially developed for the military.
[05:30.830 --> 05:37.490]  It's coming into the local police departments for use in everyday investigations.
[05:37.990 --> 05:42.650]  And questions arise about, you know, why wasn't the public notified about this?
[05:42.890 --> 05:47.130]  And shouldn't the public have notice about what policies are in place?
[05:48.370 --> 05:53.430]  Shouldn't we all know about whether the police department is using warrants or not?
[05:53.570 --> 05:56.850]  Or what kind of retention practices are in place?
[05:57.570 --> 06:02.710]  And one issue that comes up is all of this also seems like the tip of the iceberg.
[06:03.070 --> 06:10.970]  And there's probably a lot that we don't know about the police acquisition and use of surveillance technologies.
[06:12.090 --> 06:19.810]  In the Bay Area, you know, there's always a desire and tech savviness because of the communities that live there.
[06:20.090 --> 06:25.110]  So many really, you know, tech savvy folks live in the Bay Area.
[06:25.130 --> 06:38.590]  So there's this tension, though, because we also encourage our police departments to be at the forefront of certain technologies in places like San Francisco and Oakland and even Santa Clara County, which is in the heart of Silicon Valley.
[06:39.050 --> 06:49.910]  But there's a tension there because as we encourage that as, you know, communities, law enforcement is like in the Bay Area becomes the first one to always jump at new creepy surveillance technologies.
[06:50.770 --> 06:55.190]  For instance, the Alameda County Sheriff's Alameda County includes Berkeley and Oakland.
[06:55.910 --> 07:05.530]  The Alameda County Sheriff, we just learned a few weeks ago, not only has like one drone, which we had heard about in a surprise sort of public press conference, I think, last year.
[07:05.870 --> 07:10.210]  They don't not only have one drone, they have like an entire arsenal of drones now.
[07:10.370 --> 07:19.850]  I think about half a dozen DJI drones that they've been registered, they've registered with the FAA and that they've been rolling out at routine law enforcement sort of exercises.
[07:20.570 --> 07:31.770]  You'll see when these technologies are adopted and if there's pushback or if there's questions asked of law enforcement, they always say, actually, we're only buying this so we can do search and rescue missions or to like fight terrorism or something.
[07:32.210 --> 07:47.150]  But I mean, the pattern always is that these tools, if there aren't safeguards in place that elected officials and the public can use to really constrain their use, if those aren't in place, then the tools end up being used for routine law enforcement.
[07:47.310 --> 07:53.750]  I think one of the drones was used to break up like a gambling ring that was running or being investigated in the Bay Area.
[07:53.750 --> 07:59.810]  We've also seen this with this tech savviness and like jumping to adopt new tools.
[07:59.950 --> 08:01.430]  We've seen it in social media surveillance.
[08:01.750 --> 08:12.470]  So the same analytics tools that, you know, companies in Silicon Valley and startups use can be repurposed, of course, to just do searches for hashtags on places like Twitter and Instagram.
[08:13.270 --> 08:22.590]  And because it's software, it often ends up being cheaper and easier to adopt than something like a Stingray, which, you know, might cost, you know, in the six figures.
[08:23.050 --> 08:27.330]  In Fresno, actually, in Fresno is the Central Valley there in California.
[08:27.730 --> 08:36.570]  We learned last fall working with local activists, we sent a public records request and we learned that the Fresno Police Department had purchased social media surveillance software.
[08:37.230 --> 08:45.310]  And they'd actually tried out like four different tools because of the trial, like kind of testing periods that these companies were offering.
[08:45.310 --> 09:03.790]  So they didn't even have to pay to really try four different social media surveillance tools that scraped publicly available tweets, publicly available Instagram posts, Facebook, and then allowed for like hashtag and keyword searching, geo, you know, specialization and just kind of like zooming in on certain places where there had been geo tags on the actual posts.
[09:04.170 --> 09:23.770]  And one of the tools that they were working with actually in its promotional materials suggested to the police department that they should search for hashtags like Mike Brown, Black Lives Matter, Hands Up, Don't Shoot, things that were clearly being used for peaceful protests and protected First Amendment,
[09:23.970 --> 09:32.530]  you know, exercise of First Amendment rights were being suggested in the promotional materials that the police chief had received in their work email as search terms.
[09:32.770 --> 09:39.090]  So it just goes to show like when there's no oversight and depending on the community you're in, these things can really kind of rush out of control.
[09:39.090 --> 09:43.650]  I do want to encourage folks to... we're going to take questions as they come, so raise your hand.
[09:44.450 --> 09:47.470]  I don't know if you'll spot them or if we'll somehow spot them.
[09:47.570 --> 09:49.710]  And if not, we'll try to reserve time at the end.
[09:50.930 --> 09:53.690]  Jared, you said there's also challenges with like the criminal defense bar.
[09:53.870 --> 09:55.050]  You were talking to me about this earlier.
[09:55.950 --> 09:55.950]  Yeah.
[09:55.990 --> 10:11.590]  So, I mean, I see this as probably one of the most crucial issues in the surveillance context is that the current surveillance climate creates a set of circumstances where it's next to impossible as a criminal defendant to get adequate representation if you're being charged with a crime.
[10:11.790 --> 10:14.230]  And there's kind of two fundamental reasons for this.
[10:14.350 --> 10:22.990]  The first is the obfuscation that police departments are engaging in to prevent the public from knowing about these types of surveillance activities.
[10:23.170 --> 10:34.610]  So not only is this kind of kept out of the field of view of the general public, that also means that criminal defense attorneys that are representing you also don't understand or know the types of practices that law enforcement are engaging in.
[10:35.070 --> 10:46.370]  This is magnified, of course, by things like parallel construction, where if a police department finds a piece of information using illegal or questionable means, they'll just come up with another story for how they got that piece of information, right?
[10:46.450 --> 10:48.370]  A new narrative for how they came across it.
[10:49.490 --> 10:58.190]  So, for example, in Washington, we found out that the Tacoma Police Department had a Stingray as a result of some investigations done by some activists.
[10:58.850 --> 11:05.730]  Upon learning that, we sent some public records requests to specifically for the list of cases that a Stingray had been used in.
[11:06.470 --> 11:10.330]  Because first and foremost, we wanted to understand what types of cases they were being used in.
[11:10.510 --> 11:20.030]  But as soon as we got that list, we sent it around basically to every venue that we could come across that criminal defense attorneys might see and let them know, hey, this thing was used.
[11:20.090 --> 11:20.870]  This is how it works.
[11:21.050 --> 11:22.970]  These are some of the legal challenges you might raise.
[11:23.090 --> 11:24.770]  And here's like all the case numbers.
[11:25.390 --> 11:26.670]  Let us know if you have any questions.
[11:27.350 --> 11:32.150]  And I got dozens and dozens of emails back from criminal defense attorneys that said, I got this email.
[11:32.390 --> 11:33.870]  My case is in your list.
[11:34.030 --> 11:35.990]  I have no clue what the f*ck you're talking about.
[11:36.310 --> 11:40.470]  Can you explain what's going on and how this works and why I'm seeing this?
[11:41.590 --> 11:51.590]  And it was a good example that these people were being told entirely different stories for how the government had found out where the defendant happened to be at a particular time.
[11:52.450 --> 12:00.610]  And so the second problem here, obviously building upon this first one, is that many of these criminal defense attorneys lack the expertise to really understand this stuff.
[12:00.950 --> 12:12.990]  Even the stuff that's pretty well explained and in public knowledge like Stingrays, even that type of stuff, it's really hard for some of these criminal defense attorneys to mount a good defense to this, much less to find expert witnesses or people that can come in.
[12:13.350 --> 12:30.230]  And so this is a really, really serious problem because the forefront of these types of technologies are these criminal cases where these people are being charged with drug crimes, you know, or routine, you know, property crimes, and they're not able to mount a good defense.
[12:30.390 --> 12:33.550]  And of course, this is magnified if you're someone that can't afford your own lawyer, right?
[12:33.610 --> 12:38.070]  And you're provided one by the state where the expertise, you know, restrictions are still in play.
[12:38.130 --> 12:43.370]  But there's also problems where, you know, public defense attorneys typically don't have a whole lot of time to dedicate to cases.
[12:43.530 --> 12:47.070]  So they're not going to be able to get up to speed on this stuff anyway, even if the resources are available.
[12:48.030 --> 12:50.310]  Can I just comment on one thing on that?
[12:50.610 --> 12:58.630]  You're lucky in the sense, in Washington, that you're able to get the list of case docket numbers, because I've tried to get that before.
[12:58.950 --> 13:02.650]  And a lot of departments don't keep track of this.
[13:02.650 --> 13:12.070]  And so they might have a list of uses, but it's not actually connected to the criminal case that it resulted in, which just magnifies the problems of secrecy.
[13:12.210 --> 13:15.030]  And no one knows how it was used.
[13:15.070 --> 13:18.150]  And then the criminal defendants may not find out about it at all.
[13:18.290 --> 13:20.810]  And often you see the sharing of these tools as well.
[13:20.970 --> 13:32.330]  So it may be that in the community that we believe there's surveillance happening, it's actually not being conducted by the law enforcement that is based in that city.
[13:32.550 --> 13:40.730]  So in Southern California, for instance, a lot of communities, a lot of cities, use the county sheriff or neighboring police departments for their own law enforcement.
[13:40.930 --> 13:50.890]  So last year, we sued the city of Anaheim to get records about their use of Stingray devices because we had suspicions that Anaheim had a Stingray and that they were using it.
[13:51.030 --> 14:06.770]  Well, ultimately, we got documents back through our lawsuit that showed that not only did Anaheim have a Stingray, they also had a dirt box, which is a Stingray, like on steroids that can be put into a Cessna plane and flown overhead to do the same sort of cell phone surveillance as Stingrays.
[14:07.470 --> 14:18.290]  So they were not only using this airborne Stingray called a dirt box, but they also had agreements to where they could make these tools available to neighboring communities across Orange County.
[14:19.010 --> 14:20.870]  I think there's a question right there.
[14:21.790 --> 14:38.790]  But yeah, so we were seeing that, you know, the democratic safeguards that could have been passed by a residence of Anaheim or a residence of a neighboring community to control surveillance in their own communities, those would have been ineffective because Anaheim had behind the closed doors agreed to share the tools with the neighboring police department.
[14:41.090 --> 14:41.670]  Your question?
[14:52.420 --> 14:54.620]  So I'm just confused on how the Stingray works.
[14:54.740 --> 14:54.960]  Exactly.
[14:55.080 --> 14:59.460]  So does it record, like, because I've never heard of it pre this convention.
[14:59.760 --> 15:05.460]  So does it, like, record, like, the conversations or does it record the metadata or, like, what does it do?
[15:06.360 --> 15:06.960]  Go ahead, Jared.
[15:06.960 --> 15:12.200]  So the quick CliffsNotes version, a Stingray pretends to be a cell site.
[15:12.340 --> 15:16.660]  So a cell site is, you know, cell towers that your phone connects to in order to receive service, right?
[15:16.740 --> 15:17.740]  They're on tops of buildings.
[15:17.760 --> 15:18.920]  They're littered all over the place.
[15:19.140 --> 15:23.620]  A Stingray pretends to be one of those cell sites.
[15:23.740 --> 15:26.760]  So it pretends to be AT&T or T-Mobile or whoever you're trying to connect to.
[15:27.640 --> 15:33.520]  And once you connect to it, you share certain information with that cell site or that fake cell site in this instance.
[15:33.540 --> 15:36.080]  You share a unique identifier that's associated with your phone.
[15:36.280 --> 15:38.780]  You share geolocation information.
[15:40.240 --> 15:43.520]  There's other types of information that Stingrays can collect depending on the model.
[15:44.240 --> 15:47.720]  We've seen references to their ability to intercept communications and calls.
[15:48.220 --> 15:54.420]  Most of the cases that I've seen at the local level tend to be just about identifying the phone a person is using or their location.
[15:55.520 --> 16:01.100]  So the two common use cases I've seen for local law enforcement are, we know a person uses this phone.
[16:01.380 --> 16:02.700]  We want to find out where they are.
[16:02.840 --> 16:04.340]  So because we have an arrest warrant for them.
[16:04.540 --> 16:12.800]  So we're going to drive the Stingray through a neighborhood or, you know, through an apartment complex to figure out where precisely this person is so that we can, you know, arrest them or question them.
[16:13.140 --> 16:23.360]  The second case is where you have a suspect and you want to know what phone they're using so that you can use that unique phone number to go to AT&T and say, hey, give us all the records associated with this person.
[16:23.440 --> 16:35.280]  And so what you would do in that context is you would find the person, right, say go to their home, turn on the Stingray, make a note of every single, you know, unique device in that vicinity, and then follow them to the grocery store, turn it on again.
[16:35.520 --> 16:38.020]  You get another list of devices in the area.
[16:38.140 --> 16:40.780]  You cross-reference that list and you say, okay, this person is using this phone.
[16:40.860 --> 16:43.620]  So now we can send a bunch of other requests to get other information about that phone.
[16:44.420 --> 16:50.220]  There's also been, I've seen hints that Stingrays are capable of potentially delivering malware to phones and other things.
[16:50.380 --> 16:55.260]  But in the local law enforcement context, generally, this is about location information or phone identifying numbers.
[16:55.380 --> 16:55.780]  Yeah.
[16:56.080 --> 17:08.700]  And just to highlight from Jared's response, I mean, it was clear from your response, but in the way they work, Stingrays do collect and sort through the information of cell phones in the vicinity using the same network.
[17:08.960 --> 17:17.260]  So that, you know, raises concerns because it's not just the phone that's being targeted or the phone of the person for whom there's an arrest warrant at.
[17:17.260 --> 17:19.280]  It's the phones of people who are around.
[17:19.400 --> 17:21.920]  That's my sign, but I'm just going to jump on one side question.
[17:22.300 --> 17:26.820]  But couldn't you have physical surveillance on that person to file them 24-7?
[17:27.280 --> 17:27.600]  Sure.
[17:27.760 --> 17:38.460]  Why is electronic, I'll play the double advocate, but why should I put a manpower on him 24-7 when I suspect that he's doing something wrong, when there's an easier, smarter way to get it done?
[17:38.640 --> 17:42.860]  So I think the first reason is the reason that Mariko just said, which is that it's indiscriminate, right?
[17:42.940 --> 17:48.520]  You're inherently collecting the information from all sorts of bystanders, not just necessarily the person that's the target in the investigation.
[17:48.600 --> 17:49.720]  And people in their homes, too, potentially.
[17:49.920 --> 17:57.180]  And people in their homes, because you're sending these signals into cars, homes, purses, you know, whatever, collecting information in private spaces.
[17:58.480 --> 18:03.120]  The second reason is that, you know, there's a really good argument for surveillance being expensive.
[18:03.400 --> 18:06.320]  It would be incredibly expensive to follow some around 24-7.
[18:06.460 --> 18:08.620]  You need a team of people, you need lots of resources.
[18:08.880 --> 18:19.320]  And so your desire for that really sensitive information about, you know, every little thing that a person does in every place that they go, that is offset by the dramatic costs that you'd have to undertake in order to do that.
[18:19.500 --> 18:21.980]  With the Stingray, those costs are dramatically reduced.
[18:22.160 --> 18:27.380]  You flip a switch and all of a sudden you're able to collect an enormous amount of information about a lot of people.
[18:28.180 --> 18:30.280]  And then how big is it, just out of curiosity?
[18:30.800 --> 18:33.420]  They vary in size, but they can fit into a backpack.
[18:33.660 --> 18:34.340]  Okay, thank you.
[18:34.400 --> 18:34.800]  Some models.
[18:35.160 --> 18:35.240]  Yeah.
[18:36.320 --> 18:44.460]  So quickly, and we'll take a few more questions in a few minutes, but um, so one thing that is really tied to this is like, how do communities learn about surveillance?
[18:44.620 --> 18:45.860]  We've kind of touched on it a little bit.
[18:45.960 --> 19:02.540]  I know in the Bay Area, you know, we rely on what is a really, um, sophisticated set of activists and advocates to really, um, do things like as simple as going and downloading and scouring agendas and minutes of city council meetings to look for, you know,
[19:02.680 --> 19:11.900]  acronyms like UOC, which is like a DHS program that often funds a lot of surveillance technology, or to search for cell phones or interception or triangulation device.
[19:12.240 --> 19:28.880]  You know, there's an, there's an entire, uh, set of folks who are really great about searching through public records because often at the end of the day, uh, things like Stingrays and license plate readers are attached to like an attachment on like the 400th page of a Tuesday morning agenda for a local city council meeting.
[19:29.080 --> 19:47.000]  Um, and so, you know, often in a lot of these communities, and I think this is true across New York and Washington as well, is that there lacks mechanisms for really, you know, making these things rise to the surface before they're purchased, because once they're purchased and once the grant money often from the federal government has been spent,
[19:47.300 --> 19:48.140]  the cat's out of the bag.
[19:48.280 --> 19:57.320]  It's much more difficult for advocates and the ACLU to come in at that point and to, um, force there to be, or to pressure them to, to adopt safeguards in place.
[19:57.780 --> 20:02.720]  Um, and then often, you know, we discover these things because the cops just brag about them.
[20:03.420 --> 20:17.300]  Um, recently we learned about, I think a new, well, the drones in Alameda County, for instance, the sheriff was on television bragging about the use of the drones and we're like, oh, that's, that's much easier than having to file a public records act request.
[20:17.540 --> 20:27.860]  There's also a lot of, um, there's a rise of, uh, what used to be called like domain awareness centers and I think is now being labeled the more innocuous real time crime centers that are popping up.
[20:27.980 --> 20:41.060]  And often these are kind of like, you know, rooms somewhere in a police department or county building where there's a bunch of TV screens on the wall and it's just like really, there's a lot of flashing lights and like, usually it's just cable and television on the screens.
[20:41.340 --> 20:50.860]  But, um, sometimes, uh, it's, there's, you know, passwords on the wall or something, but they'll often bring in the news and have like a chat about, uh, their new crime center.
[20:51.040 --> 20:55.680]  And then that really provides like an in for local advocates to just be like, wait, what are you doing here?
[20:55.920 --> 21:01.000]  Um, and so that's, and of course we file public records act requests and litigate them.
[21:01.000 --> 21:10.640]  Um, yeah, I think that that's, um, working with, uh, working with activists like many, a few, um, is really important.
[21:10.920 --> 21:19.720]  I actually just met somebody who, um, had alerted us to, uh, an issue that we should investigate, um, and we followed up with a full request.
[21:20.520 --> 21:26.400]  Um, so yeah, and then, and then looking journalists, um, who are covering this issue.
[21:26.720 --> 21:37.600]  Um, we do look at, uh, local sort of, um, procurement notices, um, to see what we can find, but it is really difficult.
[21:37.900 --> 21:48.980]  I mean, there are loopholes in the law that makes it very easy for local police enforcement to get, um, new surveillance technologies in ways that won't show up in the local notices.
[21:49.460 --> 21:52.600]  Um, and even if it shows up, it might be kind of obscure.
[21:52.600 --> 21:55.780]  So we might not realize that it's something that we should be keeping an eye on.
[21:56.320 --> 22:08.760]  Um, so getting to even that first step, step of knowing that the police agency has a certain type of technology has been very difficult, one of the challenges of doing this work.
[22:09.000 --> 22:20.740]  And I think Matt alluded to this, but, um, the value in kind of uncovering this stuff isn't always just in figure out this piece of technology is being used by your police department, but also uncovering collaborations with the federal government.
[22:21.060 --> 22:27.600]  Um, that's because a lot of this money, a lot of these resources are coming from the feds and they often come with strings attached, right?
[22:28.020 --> 22:30.160]  Information sharing agreements and things like that.
[22:30.300 --> 22:42.520]  And so we had an example where, um, a local activist by the name of Lee Colleton in Seattle was walking down the street and he saw a surveillance camera on 23rd and union, which is a historically black neighborhood in Seattle.
[22:42.580 --> 22:44.340]  And he thought, I've never seen that before.
[22:44.540 --> 22:49.720]  And so he tweeted the Seattle city light account, like Twitter account and said, what the hell is this camera?
[22:49.920 --> 22:51.000]  Like what, what's this doing?
[22:51.180 --> 22:55.680]  And it led it over a week long, like multi-week long, uh, period.
[22:56.060 --> 22:59.800]  It sent out this, this firestorm of finger pointing of actually, that's not our camera.
[22:59.920 --> 23:00.920]  That's this person's camera.
[23:00.920 --> 23:11.120]  It turns out we learned that it's actually an ATF camera and the ATF has this practice of posting cameras on local city infrastructure.
[23:11.520 --> 23:17.240]  And that this, this process was essentially sanctioned by our local government in contravention of a local law that we have.
[23:17.480 --> 23:28.240]  Um, and so as much as Lee was interested in this camera, it was actually a much bigger indictment of this kind of collaboration that was going on between local government and federal government that was actually really compelling and led to a lot of controversy.
[23:28.460 --> 23:34.160]  Um, so, you know, those types of kind of small questions can snowball into something much larger very quickly.
[23:35.000 --> 23:36.460]  Um, we'll take another question now.
[23:36.580 --> 23:36.700]  Sure.
[23:37.120 --> 23:42.460]  Any hope of countermeasures associated with Stingrays or similar devices is pretty much a dead issue.
[23:42.640 --> 23:48.680]  There are multiple legal prohibitions against either emitting a signal in those frequency bands or intercepting one.
[23:48.820 --> 23:56.080]  The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 84 prohibits recovering anything out of the air that's used for that purpose.
[23:56.120 --> 24:07.040]  But, if you had a passive device that only measured the strength, the power level of the nearest, uh, cell station, it would not be violating any of those prohibitions.
[24:07.220 --> 24:09.460]  And the Stingray has an Achilles heel.
[24:09.780 --> 24:22.600]  It must, by necessity, be, provide a stronger signal level to the mobile device to capture its receiver and spoof it into believing that the Stingray is the legitimate base station.
[24:22.600 --> 24:32.580]  So, I wonder if this immense boost in base station signal level couldn't be detected and exploited and turned into a warning device.
[24:32.580 --> 24:34.440]  It doesn't tell you, oh, they're listening to you.
[24:34.540 --> 24:35.680]  Maybe they're listening to the guy upstairs.
[24:35.780 --> 24:49.860]  But, it could at least passively, maybe, without violating any existing prohibitions, provide a person with at least a, oh, don't use your phone and go down the street kind of warning.
[24:50.800 --> 24:56.460]  I mean, we're actually seeing the sort of, the, on the, on the issue of, like, the passive reception.
[24:56.760 --> 25:05.720]  In the Anaheim lawsuit that we did, we actually, uh, they not only had a dirt box, they had a, uh, Stingray, but they also had, uh, something produced by, uh, the Key Corporation.
[25:05.980 --> 25:07.040]  I think it's K-E-Y-W.
[25:07.340 --> 25:08.700]  Not exactly sure how to say it.
[25:09.140 --> 25:21.140]  Um, but this was, I think, uh, between a five and ten thousand dollar device that was, um, designed to passively intercept cell phone, um, um, signals, strength, and, and information, identifying information about cell phones.
[25:21.300 --> 25:24.620]  And so, I think that really just goes to show that the issue here isn't for us.
[25:24.920 --> 25:28.980]  Uh, the privacy issue isn't whether it's an active or passive sort of device.
[25:29.500 --> 25:34.540]  Um, it's whether or not the police should be doing this in secret without any judicial oversight.
[25:34.840 --> 25:51.360]  Um, there was a case, the Supreme Court, um, over a decade ago, uh, that, um, involved a heat-seeking, uh, device that allowed, it's called Kylo, uh, and it was a device that allowed the law, law enforcement to look through walls to look for marijuana grows and heat.
[25:51.520 --> 26:03.220]  And the Supreme Court in that case found that, uh, there was a Fourth Amendment search, uh, and then that was, like, there was, there was a serious issue, even though those heat waves were being passively emitted and received by that heat-seeking device.
[26:03.340 --> 26:05.860]  I mean, that device was not generating anything on its own.
[26:06.060 --> 26:13.700]  Um, it was just reading through and, and capable of seeing everything from marijuana grows to the lady of the house taking her steamy shower.
[26:14.020 --> 26:23.300]  So, um, I think the, the real issue for us is, regardless of the, the way in which the Singray functions, is focusing on the, the really, the principles and the, and the privacy interests at, at stake.
[26:24.800 --> 26:37.760]  Um, so, uh, you know, once we've learned about something, the next step is always to, like, explain and talk with, coordinate with, uh, advocates and activists and explain and try to get change made and try to get restrictions placed on these devices,
[26:37.880 --> 26:39.720]  try to get them rolled back all together.
[26:40.020 --> 26:54.280]  Um, and so the challenge there becomes, especially for, um, issues like privacy and, and technologies like Stingrays that are, um, sometimes sort of, like, at a higher level and, and not so easy to just explain in small sound bites.
[26:54.540 --> 26:57.460]  The, the, the challenge becomes, like, how to make these issues resonate with people.
[26:57.560 --> 27:04.180]  So I'm interested in how, and, and how you guys make these issues resonate for people and, uh, what the challenges there are.
[27:04.920 --> 27:09.180]  Yeah, I think, um, one thing is that privacy is, in, in the U.S.
[27:09.240 --> 27:11.680]  especially, is inherently the, uh, a privileged value.
[27:11.900 --> 27:16.680]  I think that, um, relinquishment of privacy is often a prerequisite.
[27:16.680 --> 27:21.480]  And this is a, a legacy, an Anglo-Saxon legacy going back to the 15, 1600s, right?
[27:21.860 --> 27:25.320]  Relinquishment of privacy is often a prerequisite for receiving social services.
[27:25.620 --> 27:36.960]  Um, so in most states, if you want food stamps, if you want assisted housing, if you want child care services, that type of thing, you have to subject yourself to an extraordinary amount of invasion into your personal life by the state.
[27:37.220 --> 27:47.080]  Um, so if we're talking, you know, to, you know, community advocates about privacy as some abstract human right, we'll, people will glaze over really quickly.
[27:47.320 --> 27:50.000]  Because that's not, that's not where their battle is fought, right?
[27:50.120 --> 27:55.600]  It's fought in the day-to-day struggles with bureaucracy that are trying to limit their ability to provide for their families.
[27:55.660 --> 27:59.900]  And so, the, the conversation changes really, really quickly.
[28:00.040 --> 28:06.060]  You get lots of privacy activists that, that believe really strongly in, in the work that they're doing and, and have incredibly good intentions.
[28:06.360 --> 28:12.680]  But there's a major kind of cultural barrier and, and language barrier in talking about these issues.
[28:13.080 --> 28:17.820]  Um, and so, moving from a space where we talk about privacy is this absolute right.
[28:18.060 --> 28:27.040]  And, and coloring that with more of a discussion of kind of the day-to-day political battles that, that many people face is really, really important if, if you want to gain traction with those groups at all.
[28:27.200 --> 28:29.300]  Um, and, and find opportunities for collaboration.
[28:29.620 --> 28:38.280]  Um, and that is useful as well when you bring the conversation from the community leaders and advocates to legislators or, or lobbyists, right?
[28:38.340 --> 28:40.760]  If you're trying to push for legislation or reform.
[28:41.460 --> 28:50.040]  Because those personal stories, those day-to-day stories are often much more compelling to, you know, assuming they're a progressive, you know, democratic lawmaker or whatever.
[28:50.500 --> 28:53.400]  Um, and they're, they care about these issues at all.
[28:53.620 --> 29:03.280]  Um, you, you're gonna have a, a lot better time bringing it down and drilling down to these personal narratives as opposed to, you know, the strictly relying on kind of lofty ideals or constitutional principles.
[29:04.020 --> 29:11.840]  Yeah, I agree that talking about specific technologies and specific issues that communities care about is, is very important.
[29:12.600 --> 29:24.060]  Um, and, and these are very important, uh, issues, uh, for many communities, um, especially for low-income communities of color, where there is more police surveillance.
[29:24.400 --> 29:32.100]  So, I was just, um, talking to a, a local community leader, um, of, of a, um, lower-income community.
[29:32.100 --> 29:41.080]  And she said, yes, surveillance issues, uh, privacy issues are really one of the biggest areas of concern right now.
[29:41.100 --> 29:45.100]  Because they're seeing, you know, some more and more surveillance cameras pop up.
[29:45.260 --> 29:49.000]  They don't know where that's going to, what the policies are in place for those cameras.
[29:49.160 --> 29:52.400]  They have no control over where those cameras are popping up.
[29:52.560 --> 29:56.040]  Um, there are questions about social media surveillance.
[29:56.420 --> 29:59.360]  Um, you know, what the NYPD is looking at.
[29:59.760 --> 30:10.160]  Um, there are questions that have come up over, uh, these Link NYC, um, kiosks that have popped up around the city.
[30:10.460 --> 30:17.180]  Um, and, um, there are going to be communities that are going to be depending on that in order to access the Internet.
[30:17.460 --> 30:24.180]  So, questions about what those kiosks are collecting and how that information is going to be used.
[30:24.460 --> 30:32.180]  Um, there are, these issues, these questions are all going to be very important for, um, for her community.
[30:32.740 --> 30:37.780]  Yeah, I mean, law enforcement often talks about surveillance technologies as a force multiplier.
[30:37.780 --> 30:41.080]  Uh, something that can make, you know, surveillance cheaper.
[30:41.380 --> 30:46.720]  Something that can, um, make up for what is often like cutting budgets at the local level.
[30:47.380 --> 30:58.180]  Like, um, and this is happening in a lot of California communities where law enforcement is, um, struggling to retain folks and, um, and, and seize the need for these technologies.
[30:58.240 --> 31:00.080]  Well, they say this is going to be a force multiplier.
[31:00.300 --> 31:04.600]  But, I mean, it really can be a magnifier of biases as well.
[31:04.900 --> 31:20.120]  Um, and that's what we like to focus on and what we've tried to make a lot of effort doing at the ACLU is to really focus on the human stories and the fact that, um, if you send tools to certain communities and if those tools are collecting, um, information about members in those communities,
[31:20.160 --> 31:27.060]  and if you're following your old patterns of policing, you're going to result in databases that are filled with information about certain communities and not other communities.
[31:27.780 --> 31:36.560]  Um, the, um, EFF did a great Public Records Act request and story a few years ago about Oakland's ALPR program.
[31:36.980 --> 31:51.360]  Um, they requested during the week of Ramadan and they looked for information about the use of, they asked for the hits, all of the hits of the ALPR machines and then they mapped them out and then they overlaid racial data and socioeconomic data and it was so stark.
[31:51.580 --> 32:06.360]  I mean, whether it was deliberate or not, and it likely was not deliberate, all the hits, all the deepest purples on the map were in downtown Oakland, not in the hills of Oakland, not in Piedmont, uh, similarly for, and that, that overlapped with the poorest communities,
[32:06.500 --> 32:09.140]  that overlapped with the, the, the black communities.
[32:09.660 --> 32:19.640]  Um, and so it just goes to show that, like, if these tools are rolled out, they're, they're going to be a force multiplier, but they are also going to multiply the biases that already exist in the way we police.
[32:19.800 --> 32:28.400]  And if there are not safeguards on that data and how it's collected and how it's retained, then it's going to be, you know, uh, an orders of magnitude of amplifying these biases.
[32:28.800 --> 32:30.940]  Um, is there, is there another question?
[32:31.160 --> 32:31.300]  Yeah.
[32:32.100 --> 32:37.520]  I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about parallel construction and the due process issues that raises.
[32:37.880 --> 32:56.520]  I found in DC talking to a lot of congressional staffers, uh, who are more or less willing to sacrifice all of our privacy rights for security against mosquito bites suddenly pause once you get to the part about parallel construction and say, wait, you have police officers lying in court under oath about the origins of evidence.
[32:56.720 --> 33:00.700]  That seems to be perjury on a mass scale.
[33:00.920 --> 33:11.700]  Um, my question is, are you seeing, uh, parallel construction in courts or evidence laundering or perjury or whatever you want to call it at a systemic scale?
[33:11.960 --> 33:25.400]  And if so, what is the response to prosecutors and police officers seeming happy to circumvent due process rights of potentially tens of thousands of defendants?
[33:25.900 --> 33:28.960]  Um, I'd say absolutely systemic without a doubt.
[33:29.280 --> 33:38.300]  Um, whether, and there's, of course, different gradients of parallel construction, you have, you have cases where, yes, you have a police officer lying in open court about where he found a piece of information.
[33:38.680 --> 33:40.060]  You see that all the time.
[33:40.400 --> 33:46.340]  Um, but then you also have cases where the police department or the prosecutors are just misleading in mass.
[33:46.500 --> 33:58.320]  So the classic example of this with Stingrays is, um, and this took place in Washington, as well as many other places around the country, is that you had these police departments going to judges and saying, we just need a pin register.
[33:58.700 --> 34:13.080]  And so what a pin register is, is a, uh, it's a device that is, is a relic of when, you know, we had actual phones with wires and, and what the pin register would do is basically just monitor kind of outgoing and incoming calls like this number dialed this at this time,
[34:13.400 --> 34:14.560]  the, the call lasted this long.
[34:15.040 --> 34:17.540]  So that type of metadata about landline phone calls.
[34:17.760 --> 34:23.920]  So they were using existing pin register laws to request the information collected by a Stingray.
[34:23.920 --> 34:32.040]  Obviously these technologies do not map to each other, but they didn't bother to clarify this point to anyone, criminal defense attorneys, judges even.
[34:32.300 --> 34:43.820]  So we had this fantastic kind of incident in, in Washington where it became apparent that, um, thanks to some activists that, that Tacoma had a Stingray, that they were using it kind of persistently.
[34:44.120 --> 34:53.600]  Um, and a local journalist by the name of Kate Martin, who works for the Tacoma News Tribune, had the wonderful idea to basically call up the judge and say, Hey, do you know what a Stingray is?
[34:54.540 --> 34:56.080]  And the judge said, a what?
[34:56.900 --> 34:57.900]  And had no idea.
[34:58.560 --> 35:16.460]  And you know, the fact that he had been misled willfully and intentionally by the police departments, coupled with the fact that a reporter called him to ask about it led to basically a very, very upset judge who got a bunch of other judges very, very upset and changed the rules internally for how they would process these types of requests.
[35:16.780 --> 35:21.980]  But to answer your question, you know, yes, absolutely systemic across the board.
[35:22.420 --> 35:22.780]  Yeah.
[35:22.940 --> 35:33.780]  And these systemic problems stem from, uh, the confidentiality agreement that the FBI has been making these local police departments sign before getting the Stingrays, right?
[35:33.960 --> 35:40.460]  So, um, we got one of these, uh, documents in one of our public records request litigation.
[35:40.460 --> 35:56.020]  And one of the paragraphs is, um, you will not essentially not disclose any information about Stingrays, uh, in a number of circumstances, including in response to court order disclosure, unless you get prior written consent of the FBI.
[35:56.340 --> 36:04.340]  And, um, if it looks like you're going to have to disclose that information, uh, we may request that you drop the prosecution.
[36:04.980 --> 36:07.660]  Um, and that was in the confidentiality agreement.
[36:09.020 --> 36:15.660]  So, uh, trying to not get this stuff into the court, um, and trying to mislead.
[36:15.880 --> 36:16.320]  Yeah.
[36:16.440 --> 36:20.160]  And I think, I think this is as, as more has learned and more has revealed about Stingrays.
[36:20.380 --> 36:29.640]  We are seeing a shift though, in the, um, willingness for local, you know, law enforcement to just dive right into these NDAs and buying these tools.
[36:29.840 --> 36:35.760]  I know in Alameda County, which, um, which is where, uh, advocates, they not only have drones there, but they also have Stingrays.
[36:36.220 --> 36:46.080]  Um, advocates discovered that they were going to do, um, the DA was seeking out an upgrade to their existing Stingray to something that could track, uh, 4G and LTE, um, cell phones.
[36:46.680 --> 37:00.060]  And, uh, activists caught this at the right time because they looked at the minutes and the agenda and they saw it on there, um, and brought it to the attention of the DA and the Board of Supervisors and really, um, passed what is probably, I would call the model,
[37:00.320 --> 37:17.960]  um, local Stingray policy requiring a warrant, uh, under a new California law called CalECPA, requiring a warrant for the use of this tool and requiring, um, none of these, it doesn't allow for any of these fishing expeditions where you drive through a community without an IMSI number already that you're looking for.
[37:18.120 --> 37:21.980]  Um, so it really reduces the sort of, um, secondary effects on third parties.
[37:22.200 --> 37:37.960]  Um, but I don't think Alameda County has entered into their NDA yet because they would have to, uh, it would, uh, it would like violate so many parts of the NDA, the sort of transparency that's already been forced on the community and forced on, not the community,
[37:38.120 --> 37:40.020]  forced on elected leaders in the law enforcement.
[37:40.300 --> 37:51.880]  Um, and so I think we're seeing a shift and I think Harris and the FBI are scrambling to figure out how to keep these secret going forward as places like Alameda County and Seattle and New York really push back on them.
[37:52.520 --> 37:53.680]  Um, we'll take another question.
[37:53.880 --> 38:05.440]  Uh, yeah, I remember reading an article where, uh, after it was revealed that an aerial drone had taken pictures and it led to this kidnapper being caught, uh, that actually led to a town hall meeting.
[38:05.600 --> 38:13.100]  And one of the responses from one of somebody who supported the drone was, uh, when it's your kid, then you, you would have supported it was your kid, right?
[38:13.220 --> 38:25.200]  So when these things do come to the forefront, when it does lead to a town hall meeting and these, and they're actually discussing it, do you on the whole see the civilians and communities supporting it or standing against it?
[38:25.660 --> 38:34.400]  And, uh, and what's the best way to approach somebody who completely understands the issue, but still feel safer because of these ALPRs and things like that?
[38:34.800 --> 38:36.760]  Can I talk about the surveillance self-defense piece?
[38:36.940 --> 38:37.220]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[38:37.580 --> 38:41.280]  Um, so I mean, I think it really depends on the context, right?
[38:41.380 --> 38:42.820]  When they're, where these conversations come up.
[38:42.900 --> 38:51.120]  I think you're absolutely right that town hall meetings in the right context, everyone's going to go, yes, surveillance, please, because I'm worried about, you know, think of the children, that kind of thing.
[38:51.660 --> 39:06.740]  Um, and so one way that I found is actually good to kind of start some of these conversations and to learn some of the stories and to kind of illustrate the need for kind of common sense controls to surveillance is actually surveillance self-defense conversations with people.
[39:06.840 --> 39:22.820]  So one thing that we've done at the ACLU of Washington is actually have some, um, basic kind of surveillance self-defense and threat modeling conversations with domestic violence survivor advocacy groups for whom, you know, resisting surveillance This sentence can actually be a fundamental kind of important life or death question.
[39:23.280 --> 39:34.780]  And the conversation turned to geolocation information and turned to ALPRs and this discussion of the fact that a lot of this fairly sensitive geolocation information is being captured by ALPRs.
[39:34.880 --> 39:45.160]  Well, the stated mission, the purpose of ALPRs is to protect against these terrible scenarios, to find stolen cars, to find Amber Alert vehicles where a child has been kidnapped, that type of thing.
[39:45.160 --> 39:54.780]  But, as we all know, the reality is, is that this location data is held in incredibly large databases with millions and millions, and in some cases billions of records.
[39:55.260 --> 40:03.820]  It is shared with the feds, it is shared with private companies, sometimes private investigators can get access to these things, members of the public can get access to them.
[40:03.980 --> 40:11.040]  So all of a sudden, this conversation with these domestic violence survivor groups turned to, well, surveillance self-defense only goes so far, right?
[40:11.040 --> 40:22.260]  There are some cases where because law enforcement or because other agencies are collecting limitless amounts of information, and the fact that other people can get access to it, there's a threat that you have to confront.
[40:22.740 --> 40:40.840]  So all of a sudden, we had these groups that typically didn't think or talk a whole lot about government surveillance, volunteering to help us talk to legislators about why we need restrictions on automated license plate readers, which is a wonderful turn to be able to have this type of collaboration.
[40:40.840 --> 40:54.020]  And it makes for really effective storytelling to legislators that typically when the ACLU gets up to testify at a hearing for a bill, talks about Big Brother and why privacy is important in surveillance, a lot of legislators glaze over.
[40:54.160 --> 40:57.840]  You get a domestic violence survivor advocacy group come up.
[40:57.940 --> 41:04.800]  All of a sudden, people start paying attention because you have these really compelling personal stories that bring it down into the real world for them.
[41:04.900 --> 41:06.820]  And so there's a lot of opportunities there.
[41:07.480 --> 41:14.960]  I think it's also important to say, you know, we're not saying, like, no police surveillance technologies ever.
[41:15.920 --> 41:27.440]  For the most part, you know, what we're saying is, well, it depends on the technology, but a warrant is appropriate if there is an intrusion on privacy, and there are emergency exceptions to that.
[41:27.440 --> 41:39.500]  There are some state laws where you still, you know, you can get a warrant really quickly in the case of an emergency, or there might just be a, you know, you just go in and fly a drone if there is an immediate emergency.
[41:41.960 --> 41:55.860]  So, you know, what we're talking about is, you know, what level of process is appropriate before the police engage in surveillance of communities.
[41:56.540 --> 42:15.760]  Yeah, I think to piggyback on what Jared was saying, for us in passing reforms in a place like Santa Clara County, where we recently worked with local advocates to pass ordinance that requires there be public process notice to the public about any proposed acquisition.
[42:15.760 --> 42:23.440]  So before the money is even applied for to the federal government, oversight for tools that have been voted on by local legislatures.
[42:23.680 --> 42:33.220]  There has to be a strict use policy in place that addresses all the sort of data concerns, including security and retention and sharing with others, and then also annual auditing.
[42:33.400 --> 42:40.620]  So one of these recently passed, one of these ordinances recently passed in Santa Clara, and it would not have passed had the ACLU simply supported it.
[42:40.860 --> 42:53.540]  What we relied on was, and it started with conversations with activists and community members bringing to bear our knowledge about the actual surveillance tools to talk about the ways in which it impacts their lives.
[42:53.700 --> 43:05.020]  So we had organizations like CARE, the Council on American Islamic Relations there, who have, you know, a history of legitimate and, you know, concrete concerns about government and police surveillance.
[43:05.380 --> 43:21.520]  We had the Center for Media Justice, we had Restore the Fourth, we had EFF, of course, and so many different community members and a lot of younger community members, too, who are more tech savvy and more interested in these issues and use cell phones,
[43:21.600 --> 43:23.840]  obviously, and understand these things.
[43:24.060 --> 43:35.560]  We had those conversations in the lead up to meetings via call, via in-person meeting, and really got on the same page about the different interests that we wanted to bring the bear.
[43:36.200 --> 43:50.340]  And then we had individual meetings, the groups had individual meetings with actual local legislators, which I would encourage folks to do if you see law enforcement adopting these tools or seeking to adopt these tools, email, tweet at your local city council member,
[43:50.460 --> 43:53.600]  board or supervisor, your state legislature, set up a meeting.
[43:53.760 --> 43:56.780]  They tend to be, like, really responsive and want to do a really good job.
[43:57.420 --> 44:01.260]  They're often elected pretty frequently, so they also need to be really responsive.
[44:01.640 --> 44:03.160]  And we found that to be great.
[44:03.500 --> 44:13.740]  And in the lead up to those meetings, where law enforcement is inevitably going to put up the defense of these tools and tout out the story, maybe that was, like, hand fed to them by federal law enforcement.
[44:13.860 --> 44:21.940]  They'll tout out a story about how it saves X number of people or how it's great for this sort of kidnapping case in an adjacent county that is way far away or something.
[44:22.160 --> 44:24.220]  So I think that's been really effective.
[44:25.700 --> 44:37.660]  Before we take another question, I just wanted to make sure we had time to talk about other solutions and ways in which, once this is all out there, once we've got community members interested and once, you know, we're starting to move towards, you know,
[44:37.720 --> 44:41.260]  going to these meetings and thinking about reforms, what are the... how do we approach solutions?
[44:41.600 --> 44:48.180]  I just talked about one solution, which is, like, a local legislation that can be passed, but that's obviously not the only type of solution.
[44:48.440 --> 44:49.640]  So, yeah.
[44:49.780 --> 44:56.180]  Well, I think a local legislation is probably the best opportunity to combat this thing at the local level.
[44:56.180 --> 45:01.940]  I mean, of course, you know, passing laws at the state level, at the federal level, kind of restricting surveillance is important.
[45:01.940 --> 45:09.100]  But at the local level, if you can limit a local law enforcement's ability to acquire these things in the first place, it's a huge win.
[45:09.480 --> 45:12.560]  But there's a really fundamental, important caveat to that.
[45:12.580 --> 45:23.100]  And that's that if you don't draft that legislation very carefully, or you kind of don't have the political capital to do so, there's opportunities for exploitations there.
[45:23.340 --> 45:34.700]  So, the obvious one is that, well, Seattle Police Department, they're subject to an ordinance in Seattle that limits their ability to acquire a Stingray without approval from the City Council, but nothing stops them from using Tacoma Stingray.
[45:35.060 --> 45:43.520]  So, you have this problem where if Tacoma's willing to send an operator and a, you know, a machine up, you know, to Seattle for the day, they can use that and run it on their own.
[45:43.600 --> 45:43.980]  No problem.
[45:43.980 --> 45:48.820]  The problem is even worse for federal agencies.
[45:49.500 --> 46:08.340]  So, most states have laws commonly referred to as silver platter doctrine laws, which say that if federal law enforcement hands over the proceeds of an investigation or operation to local law enforcement, local law enforcement can use that even if it would have been illegal for local law enforcement to collect it.
[46:08.500 --> 46:19.460]  So, you can write into your constitution, you know, using a Stingray is illegal, but as long as you have these silver platter doctrines, which are typically judicial law, right?
[46:19.520 --> 46:20.800]  It's not something that's written into statute.
[46:20.800 --> 46:22.620]  It's something that judges have developed over time.
[46:22.960 --> 46:27.500]  If you have that on the books, then the problem is that it doesn't matter what the constitution said.
[46:27.620 --> 46:29.540]  It doesn't matter what laws the legislators passed.
[46:29.700 --> 46:33.740]  You know, the feds can still hand the proceeds of those investigations over to local law enforcement.
[46:34.580 --> 46:38.220]  But there are ways you can limit that and kind of work against it.
[46:38.380 --> 46:49.260]  The easiest one is to say you're not only limited from acquiring these technologies, you're also limited from providing material support to federal agencies that are engaging in this.
[46:49.420 --> 47:05.880]  So, for example, the example I gave earlier about putting up video cameras on telephone poles, you have a law like that in place, and then all of a sudden, right, the feds can't use your telephone poles, right, without some type of court order or some type of action compelling the local government to do so.
[47:06.340 --> 47:15.900]  So, there's lots of ways to combat these kind of caveats, but the important limitation of these laws is that the feds can still come in often in most cases and conduct the same type of surveillance.
[47:17.180 --> 47:23.880]  Yeah, I also agree that the the local law approach is one of the best ways.
[47:24.120 --> 47:35.260]  It really gets at the threshold problem, which is that we don't have a clearer sense of everything that's going on in terms of police acquisition of surveillance technologies.
[47:35.580 --> 47:47.640]  And without knowing the full range of what we're talking about, it's really hard to create laws that get at the substantive problems of each technology.
[47:48.540 --> 47:56.040]  So, we do do that as well, and we want to have laws in place that ensure that warrants are required for use of certain technologies.
[47:56.340 --> 48:03.640]  But as a first step, it would be really helpful to know what technologies we're talking about.
[48:03.920 --> 48:16.780]  And I think in addition to crafting the laws carefully, it's critical that you have we've built a community when there's such a law in place that cares about these issues and that will weigh in.
[48:17.240 --> 48:26.120]  Because if you have a transparency law and the agency is being transparent but nobody cares, then you're not really accomplishing the purpose either.
[48:26.420 --> 48:28.840]  And it creates opportunities for counter-surveillance.
[48:29.060 --> 48:34.540]  I mean, I think there's an inevitability here that these local law enforcement agencies are going to acquire some of these technologies.
[48:34.560 --> 48:35.940]  They're going to utilize some of these technologies.
[48:36.000 --> 48:47.000]  But if we have it on the books that they have these things or that they're using these things, it enables, you know, more sophisticated activist groups to engage in counter-surveillance and take measures to protect themselves against, against, you know,
[48:47.240 --> 48:48.500]  this, this type of activity.
[48:48.840 --> 48:51.240]  I think a big part of it is just changing the conversation.
[48:51.400 --> 49:00.180]  Passing this legislation, it creates, you know, a means and a medium for exposing these tools and enforcing and putting in place strict safeguards.
[49:00.340 --> 49:05.740]  But it also just changes the conversation about what it is appropriate to do if I'm law enforcement in this community.
[49:05.840 --> 49:24.040]  And it will create these conversations where, slowly but surely, they will know, there will be a historic memory in the police department or in the sheriff's department or in the DA's office about what happens when we try to move forward on these surveillance technologies without going to the community first.
[49:24.460 --> 49:28.660]  And that's ultimately the goals here, is to make sure that that conversation happens early and often.
[49:29.080 --> 49:37.120]  And that, you know, the ordinance or the local legislation doesn't even need to be turned to in a formal sense because those conversations are happening.
[49:38.060 --> 49:39.100]  Sure, another question?
[49:39.740 --> 49:49.240]  Back at the beginning of this talk, you briefly mentioned technologies that go to social media, scrape them, and then run analysis on that.
[49:49.400 --> 49:53.780]  And it sounded like they use a lot of publicly available data to do that.
[49:53.960 --> 49:59.860]  And it's very easy to see how those sorts of technologies can be abused or exacerbate existing problems.
[50:00.420 --> 50:03.300]  However, it is using publicly available data.
[50:03.460 --> 50:07.900]  And there's probably a lot of people in the same room who could do the same and then throw it in a pretty graph on Reddit.
[50:09.280 --> 50:13.260]  How do you write laws that stop that or limit that?
[50:13.440 --> 50:18.080]  Because it seems like you don't have a lot of the privacy protections available to build off of.
[50:19.400 --> 50:20.100]  Go ahead, Jared.
[50:20.260 --> 50:24.420]  Yeah, so I think it's not exclusively a privacy argument.
[50:24.620 --> 50:26.760]  It's a free speech argument.
[50:27.300 --> 50:30.500]  So Seattle actually has this really, really old law.
[50:30.660 --> 50:38.240]  They call it the Intelligence Ordinance, which limits the collection of information about people's political beliefs.
[50:38.860 --> 50:41.660]  And this law was passed in the early 80s, late 70s, right?
[50:41.860 --> 50:45.760]  You know, following a period of lots of activism and political turmoil.
[50:46.580 --> 50:53.840]  And the law was passed because there was a sense that we just shouldn't ever trust police with information about people's political beliefs.
[50:54.160 --> 51:04.480]  That when certain parties come into power or when there's shifts in kind of predominant political you know, mentalities, that that information will be inherently misused.
[51:04.660 --> 51:08.400]  That it is harmful inherently for police to have access to that information.
[51:08.800 --> 51:23.940]  And so I think you see that carried through in what we've seen, you know, happen to a lot of the Black Lives Matter protesters and things like that, is that it's just not appropriate for the police to hold on to this information absent incredibly concrete reasons to do so.
[51:24.040 --> 51:26.840]  And even then, you know, I personally am incredibly skeptical of it.
[51:27.260 --> 51:29.540]  But, you know, there is precedent for having laws like this passed.
[51:29.640 --> 51:31.260]  I think there's two or three of these in the country.
[51:31.720 --> 51:36.540]  And it would be interesting to try and update them so that they limited this type of activity.
[51:36.680 --> 51:41.620]  Because currently, I think that they're drafted in a way that never contemplated, you know, Facebook or Twitter or anything like that.
[51:41.800 --> 51:51.940]  So yeah, I think, you know, we make rules all the time as a society about what law enforcement may do that have nothing to do with the constitutional issues at play.
[51:52.180 --> 51:54.920]  So like, yes, this is, we believe a privacy issue.
[51:55.220 --> 51:56.980]  We believe it's a First Amendment issue.
[51:57.120 --> 51:59.960]  But also, we don't think police should be on Facebook at work.
[51:59.980 --> 52:01.280]  And we mean that in more than one way.
[52:01.460 --> 52:09.240]  Like, we have the power as a society to decide that there are certain lines we're going to draw about police conduct and law enforcement conduct.
[52:09.240 --> 52:23.680]  And if that involves them not being able to go wholesale search for hashtags that are related to peaceful protesters without any sort of justification that they've maybe written down and justified to a supervisor or to a judge, well, then so be it.
[52:23.740 --> 52:24.400]  They can't do that.
[52:24.500 --> 52:25.540]  We can decide they can't do that.
[52:27.980 --> 52:30.400]  Yeah, so I think that about wraps up our talk.
[52:31.240 --> 52:32.740]  Thanks, guys, for coming out.
[52:33.840 --> 52:34.600]  Appreciate it.
[52:40.790 --> 52:42.070]  Please come up if you have questions.
[52:43.070 --> 52:48.450]  Yes, if you have additional questions, the group here will actually be taking questions in the back.
[52:48.450 --> 52:48.690]  Thank you.
[52:48.810 --> 52:49.050]  Thank you.