EFF: California Attorney General Must Investigate Improper Database Searches on Community Observers at Controversial Police Event
California Attorney General Must Investigate Improper Database Searches on Community Observers at Controversial Police Event This is a guest post by Tracy Rosenberg, executive director of Media Alliance. It was originally published on the Media Alliance website . For the last two years (2017 and 2018) of the Urban Shield weapons expo and SWAT drill in Alameda County, I was a community observer. I went as a citizen to see how my tax dollars were being spent, and as an activist/journalist so I could describe the event to others and to the media . What I didn’t know is that in exchange the Alameda County Sheriff would access my driving record, parking tickets and legal history through CLETS, the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System . Urban Shield, as a Homeland Security-funded regional training exercise for SWAT, Fire and Emergency Services, was not open to the public, although some volunteers were solicited to role-play victims and perpetrator...