Last night, the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved a historic measure ending Berkeley’s cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, mere weeks after enacting groundbreaking reforms protecting privacy and dissent in the face of federally-coordinated domestic surveillance and intelligence collection efforts.

Responding to sustained pressure from the Coalition for a Safe Berkeley, the City Council declared last night that:

“The Berkeley Police Department will follow its normal rules and procedures irrespective of the immigration status with whom it comes into contact. The Berkeley Police Department will not honor requests by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, to detain a Berkeley jail inmate for suspected violations of the federal civil immigration law.”

The decision resulted from sustained controversy in Berkeley, and across the nation, over federal policy initiatives that co-opt local police and distract them from their core public safety mission, such as the Secure Communities Initiative (S-Comm).

Almost exactly one year ago, Santa Clara County rejected S-comm, implementing a policy that severely restricted the Santa Clara Sheriff’s compliance with detainer requests. After mobilizing for the past two years to champion broad law enforcement reforms to protect civil rights undermined by federal programs, the Coalition for a Safe Berkeley (covered by Bay Area media sources including the SF Bay Guardian, Berkeley Daily Planet, ABC News, and CBS News) has secured the support of its City Council on a series of important policy reforms.

The City Council enacted many of the Coalition’s proposed reforms, on September 18, particularly relating to intelligence collection by the Berkeley Police Department. Those reforms also addressed: (1) dissemination of intelligence information to the Northern California regional fusion center (mere weeks before the US Senate released a report sharply critical of fusion centers for wasteful spending and abuses of constitutional rights), (2) responses to mutual aid requests from nearby police agencies when suppressing  First Amendment activity (such as the crackdown on Occupy Oakland nearly exactly a year ago), and (3) transparency into proposed purchases of military equipment (like an armored personnel carrier whose attempted purchase by the police department the Coalition eventually blocked).

While the Council supported many of the Coalition’s reform proposals in September, it continued the vote on the Coalition’s proposed civil detainer policy (responding to S-Comm) until this week’s Council meeting. In the wake of the Coalition’s further victory last night,  Manuel De Paz from East Bay Sanctuary Covenant said:

“This…policy…protects the rights of immigrants and follows the Constitution….[it] gives faith and hope nationwide to those who struggle day by day for social justice. When a coalition like the Coalition for a Safe Berkeley finds common ground, values, and puts aside the differences and personal interests, and persists, everything can be achieved and there’s no battle that can’t be won.”

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• 10/3, Brian Mann, North County Public Radio, Report blasts NY prisons for use of solitary confinement
• 10/3, R. Jeffrey Smith, Foreign Policy, Senate Report Says National Intelligence Fusion Centers Have Been Useless
• 10/2, Robert O’Harrow Jr., Washington Post, DHS ‘fusion centers’ portrayed as pools of ineptitude, civil liberties intrusions
• 10/2, Michael McAuliff, Huffington Post, Homeland Security ‘Fusion Centers’ Target Fishing, Marriage Counseling, At Huge Cost
• 10/2, Tal Kopan, Politico, Obama administration buying Illinois prison over Hill objections
• 10/2, Jordy Yager, The Hill, DHS officials blast congressional report
• 10/1, Rachel Estabrook, KQED News, Brown Vetoes Limits on Law Enforcement Cooperation with Immigration Authorities

• 9/4, Gerry Smith, Huffington Post, Apple UDIDs Purportedly Stolen By Hackers Claiming To Breach FBI Laptop
• 9/4, Josh Gerstein, Politico, Democratic platform again seeks Guantanamo closure
• 9/4, Marjorie Cohn, Huffington Post, No Accountability for Torturers
• 9/4, G.W. Schulz, Huffington Post, Web Surveillance Through Social Media Sites A Powerful Tool For Local Law Enforcement
• 9/2, David Stringer, USA Today, Tutu: Bush, Blair should face trial at the Hague
• 8/31, Glenn Greenwald, Guardian (UK), Obama’s justice department grants final immunity to Bush’s CIA torturers
• 8/31, Amy Taxin, San Francisco Chronicle, Immigration bill divides California sheriffs
• 8/30, Hayley Tsukayama, Washington Post, Apple rejects Drones+, app to track U.S. drone strikes

• 7/23, Michael Tennant, New American, Feds Sue Telecom for Fighting Warrantless Search
• 7/23, Danielle Riendeau, ACLU, TRUST Act: California Could Set National Model for Correcting the Damage Done by S-Comm
• 7/23, Jeremy Leaming, American Constitution Society, Federal Government Increases Use of Private Detention Centers, Group Finds
• 7/22, Christina Desmarais, PC World, Cybersecurity Bill Rhetoric Heats Up in Washington
• 7/22, New York Times, The Spy Hunt for Whistle-Blowers
• 7/22, Josh Gerstein, Politico, CIA leak case may not spare reporters
• 7/22, Ben Wolfgang, Washington Times, Bill would clip wings of private drone use
• 7/21, CBS News, Near-Riot Breaks Out After Officer-Involved Shooting In Anaheim
• 7/20, Spencer Ackerman, Wired, U.S. Admits Surveillance Violated Constitution At Least Once

June 2012, Vol. 11, No. 6

In this issue:

2013 NDAA could make indefinite detention provisions even worse

BORDC News

• BORDC in the news
• BORDC welcomes new staff and board members
• Recent BORDC events
  • BORDC’s George Friday addresses faith community in MA
  • BORDC’s Shahid Buttar addresses national gathering in VA
  • Executive director discusses COINTELPRO 2.0 at Netroots Nation 2012 in New England
  • Institute for Strategic Dialogue invites Shahid Buttar to address civil rights experts in the UK
• Upcoming BORDC events
  • Unitarian Universalist Annual General Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona: Mobilizing Communities against Police Profiling
  • Occupy National Gathering in Philadelphia, PA, June 30 – July 4
  • Dallas Peace Center 8th Annual Summer Dinner Lecture: July 12 in Dallas, TX
  • Washington, DC forum on the “war on terror” and the prison-industrial complex
  • San Francisco Bay Area mobilizes to resist domestic military detention
• Get the latest news and analysis from the People’s Blog for the Constitution
• Activist interviews from BORDC’s May 2012 Civil Rights Organizers Convening in Chicago

Grassroots News

• Patriot Award: Eliza Martíinez
• Diverse movement challenges NYPD discriminatory practices
• Rhode Island becomes latest state to challenge domestic military detention
• Amherst, MA: Town Meeting rejects local immigration enforcement
• Connecticut: Statewide coalition mobilizes to oppose NDAA, S-COMM
• Takoma Park, MD: City Council votes to uphold rule of law
• Asheville, NC: Local coalition is “Burning for Civil Liberties”
• Washington, DC: City Council limits cooperation with ICE
• Berkeley, CA: City Council to vote on measures to reform police practices
• Los Angeles, CA: Diverse coalition meets to continue anti-surveillance advocacy

Law and Policy

• Congress cans the Constitution, as Chicago police abduct activists
• Goodbye blue sky? Elected officials respond to the easing of FAA restrictions on flying drones in US airspace
• FISA to be reauthorized despite its threat to privacy, as Supreme Court reviews court challenge
• The FBI and Facebook: “Going Dark” with CALEA

New Resources and Opportunities

• Book Review: Taking Liberties: the War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy by Susan Herman
• Torture Awareness Month events planned across the throughout June
• How to help your federal representatives restore your rights

Thomas Nephew, member of the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition and January 2011′s Patriot Award Honoree, shares his views on the importance of protecting civil rights and how you can get started in your own community at the BORDC’s convening last month in Chicago.

Thomas shares his own motivations for standing up for civil rights reflecting on the recent success in Tacoma Park, Maryland, saying, “I see civil liberties as a way of recalling people’s sense of what our country ought to be. And so, I want to recapture that and help people recapture that for themselves.”  On May 21 the Takoma Park City Council voted 5 to 2 in favor of a resolution that condemns the controversial “indefinite detention” provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

BORDC  thanks Thomas for his work, and shares the belief that “the country can be better than it is.”

In 2009, Jai Shankar, an immigrant living in Washington, DC, was arrested, detained for five months, and forced to wear a tracker ankle bracelet for two years. Not for committing a crime, but for reporting one. Such counterintuitive, counterproductive measures have been common under the federal Secure Communities program (S-Comm). Under S-Comm, immigrants like Jai, “who have committed no crime or have committed a minor offense can be held for ICE, without ever having been convicted of anything.” This is an obvious infraction of our constitutional freedoms.

Thankfully, communities and cities across the US have been speaking out against such atrocities. On June 5, Washington, DC,  achieved a major victory by passing the Immigration Detainer Compliance Emergency Amendment Act, which limits ICE’s use of District facilities and equipment and also narrows S-Comm’s deportation dragnet by only responding to immigration detention requests for individuals who are over 18 and have been convicted of a dangerous crime. This is a huge step in the right direction.

However, individuals and organizations need to continue to speak out. In order to prevent the negative consequences associated with S-Comm from permanently damaging our nation, it is important to show the government that people are opposed to S-Comm and the unconstitutional measures it produces. Only in that way will we be able to ensure our privacy, protect our communities, and prevent the unjust persecution of the innocent.

• 6/5, Zia Khan, International Herald Tribune, As scars from Gitmo heal, former inmate wonders: Why me?
• 6/5, Mark Bowes and Reed Williams, Aerospace and Defense Media Group, Drone use in Va. up in the air; McDonnell open to idea, but some raise civil liberty concerns
• 6/5, David Scheurmann, The Daily Reveille (LSU), Cybersecurity act deserves criticism, harms civil liberties
• 6/5, Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Judge orders more talks for Pittsburgh, protestors in G-20 suit
• 6/5, Joe Wolverton, II, New America Media, Obama Threatens Veto of NDAA 2013: Too Many Restrictions on His “Exclusive” Authority
• 6/5, Rev. Al Sharpton, Huffington Post, ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Is the New Racial Profiling
• 6/5, Kurt Madar, Daily Times (New Mexico), Farmington’s CRC hears racial profiling complaints

First piloting massive biometric data collection from immigrant communities through deportation programs such as Secure Communities (S-COMM), the FBI is moving forward with its Next Generation Identification (NGI) initiative that will expand these practices  nationwide and be fully operational by 2014. A recent report, by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Immigration Policy Council, highlights the affects biometric collection has had on immigrant communities thus far, and shines a light on the future plans and impacts.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) collects a whopping 300,000 fingerprints everyday at US borders, according to the report. To increase this number, agencies have increased ther emphasis on collecting biometrics  ”in the field,” equipping police departments with portable fingerprint devices (often times as part of officers’ IPhone or BlackBerry).  Any person stopped — even without being arrested or booked — can be subject to police recording their fingerprintsof.

Police departments are also receiving Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS), which can collect face or iris images from several feet away.

The FBI’s face recognition program is set to be fully operational nationwide by 2014. Facial recognition is problematic on two fronts: one, a successful match depends on many variables (time elapsed since photo was taken, lighting, picture quality, etc.) and mistaken identity is quite likely.

Second, with the expansion of private and public cameras covering US streets, business and roadways, the likeliness of ending up in a facial recognition database is very high. The report argues that this could lead to guilt by association and encourage racial profiling.

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The Berkeley City Council postponed a vote Tuesday night after dozens of residents spoke in favor of proposed measures to curb domestic surveillance, stop militaristic police programs, and promote immigrant and First Amendment rights.

The proposals have been championed by the Coalition for a Safe Berkeley, a diverse group including leaders of several local organizations advised by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and supported by councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Jesse Arreguin. If ultimately enacted, the coalition’s proposals will place several limits on the  Berkeley Police Department (BPD).

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