EFF: California Assembly Acquiesces In Secret Police Surveillance
California Assembly Acquiesces In Secret Police Surveillance For the second year in a row, the California State Assembly’s Appropriations Committee has effectively killed a bill that was poised to ensure transparency, community oversight, and civil liberties regarding proliferating police surveillance technology. S.B. 1186 was approved by the California Senate, as well as by two Assembly policy committees. Despite that momentum, the bill stalled in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, chaired by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher of San Diego. The bill needed to be voted on by committee members by August 17 in order to move to a floor vote, but was instead indefinitely placed on a “suspense calendar” without the committee ever voting. Like S.B. 21 in the 2017 session, S.B. 1186 was a straightforward measure that would have simply required police to respect public oversight before gaining access to powerful surveillance technology....