Tell SF Supervisors Not to Gut Surveillance Ordinance

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An SF Supervisor Wants To Make SF's Surveillance Transparency Law Unenforceable

San Francisco supervisor Matt Dorsey, a former police department public affairs official, is taking aim at San Francisco's 2019 surveillance transparency ordinance and facial recognition ban by trying to strip the provision that pays attorney fees for people who enforce the law in court.

If Dorsey's ordinance passes, then only individually wealthy people would be able to bring suits in response to violations. We will largely be left with SF city government policing itself.

We already know this won't work. In the six years since Article 19 was enacted, we have already seen multiple violations including the use of business district cameras to spy on Pride Week events, SFPD using the federal fusion center NCRIC to evade the facial recognition ban, the purchase of drones before required procurement paperwork was done, and most recently, access to Flock license plate reader scans for ICE cases.

Every governmental transparency law, beginning with the 1968 California Public Records Act, allows for attorney fees to be paid to a prevailing plaintiff. A prevailing plaintiff is someone who wins a case and proves their allegations in court. By definition, attorney fees are never paid for frivolous or inaccurate lawsuits, despite Dorsey's rhetoric. They are only paid out when a person demonstrates the City isn't following the law.

Eliminating attorney fees eliminates public accountability and sanctions lawlessness.

Use this easy one-click action to tell the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to vote NO on the Dorsey proposal.

This action is open to any geographic location. The city is a regional hub and people visit, work, shop and attend events in SF and are affected by its surveillance technology.

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San Francisco Board of Supervisors

Subject: Don't Gut SF's Surveillance Law

Message:

Supervisor Dorsey has introduced an ordinance to remove attorneys fees for a prevailing plaintiff who sues to enforce San Francisco's Chapter19B, the 2019 surveillance transparency law. I ask you to vote NO on this proposal, which frankly should be withdrawn. Despite the rhetoric, attorney fees are only payable if a plaintiff prevails and proves their allegations that the City of San Francisco broke its own laws to a judge of the court. There are no attorney fees payable in a frivolous lawsuit. There are no attorney fees payable when the City demonstrates that they did not break the law. By definition, attorney fees are only payable when a case wins on the merits and the facts. To call these "meritless lawsuits" is to dispute the rule of law. There is entirely too much of that going on right now. The City of San Francisco must be better. For almost half a century, governmental transparency laws, going all the way to the passage of the California Public Records Act in 1968, have been premised on the payment of attorney fees to a prevailing plaintiff. Without this crucial provision, no civilian who is not independently wealthy could hold the government to account for how taxpayer monies are spent, or even find out how they are being spent. Attorney fees do not result in profit or gain for a plaintiff. They are paid directly to the attorney who litigates the case. The attorney fees are the price of admission to the civil justice system. All governmental transparency laws understand that if laws are not followed, the government is unlikely to prosecute itself. Enforcement hinges on the public at large who employ public servants and vote for public officials. In exchange for those tax dollars and votes, the government is accountable to the people. Chapter 19B was adopted by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2019 with a 10-1 vote of approval. Since its passage, we have found out a couple of things including that business district cameras have been used to monitor Pride Week events, that the San Francisco Police Department went to the federal fusion center NCRIC to get around the City's ban on facial recognition technology, that drones were purchased by the City well in advance of the procurement documents required by 19B and recently, that San Francisco's Flock license plate reader scans were searched on behalf of ICE multiple times. In this era of immigration terror, of crackdowns on First Amendment rights and dissenting opinions, and tech company collusion with an out-of-control federal regime, San Franciscans are justified in worrying about where their personal information ends up and and in trying to stop things from happening that they don't like. To take this away from us, in this time, is to partner with Trump, with Stephen Miller, and with Kristi Noem. Is this really who the City of St,. Francis wants to be in 2025? Please withdraw, or vote down, the Dorsey ordinance.

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An SF Supervisor Wants To Make SF's Surveillance Transparency Law Unenforceable

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