I helped write SF’s surveillance ordinance. London Breed is lying about it(sfgate.com)

37 pointsby purplesnowflake5 years ago7 comments

I helped write SF’s surveillance ordinance. London Breed is lying about it

https://www.sfgate.com/politics-op-eds/article/San-Francisco-surveillance-ordinance-London-Breed-16733991.php

7 comments

Both the mayor and the author of the ordinance (and SFGate op-ed) are playing semantics. Yes the police can access real-time video (i.e. without complex pre-approval process from board of supervisors), but only when there's imminent risk of "danger of death or serious physical injury."

This of course hampers enforcement against quality of life crimes, but even for potentially violent crimes puts the police at risk of breaking the law if it's later determined that their use case didn't meet the criteria. It's very likely police officers are hesitant to use the tools at knowing the high likelihood of prosecution.

Schiendelman5 years ago

Don’t those officers still have qualified immunity?

justchilly15 years ago

Yes but not really. Qualified immunity only protects officers from civil cases (being sued) however SB2, signed just a couple months ago removed much of those protections. Also the court of public opinion can be just as damaging as any civil settlement.

https://sd35.senate.ca.gov/news/2021-09-30-governor-newsom-s...

scotuswroteus5 years ago

Jesus Christ this line:

>"If Chief Scott is claiming that his hands are tied, it’s his fingerprints on the rope."

Talk about tone deaf.

tbrockman5 years ago

What do you mean? I don’t really understand what’s tone deaf in that statement.

scotuswroteus5 years ago

So in public communications in a big cosmopolitan and diverse city like San Francisco, words with any potential dogwhistle implicatoins matter. It will be quite distracting to many who read this op-ed all the way through that the author, smart expert that he is, chose to invoke a metaphor about a ROPE with respect to a black man in leadership. I absolutely have zero reason to believe the author ever thought through those possible implications. But the particular choice of invoking a rope is an unforced error, and the metaphor wasn't particularly useful to the broader point he is making.

djohnston5 years ago

you're reaching, having one's hands tied is a common expression and tying people's hands preceded chattle slavery in north america, let alone lynching.