News & Commentary

California had the chance to be a leader in requiring police to get a warrant to use surveillance technology. But Gov. Brown vetoed a bill, AB 1327, that would have done just that for police drones.

Last week, two men who had been sentenced to death 30 years ago were proven innocent by DNA testing. Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown were teenagers when they were wrongly accused of the brutal rape and murder of a child in North Carolina. One of the most shocking parts of the story is that prosecutors hid evidence that linked a convicted rapist to the murder, a man who went on to kill another child while McCollum and Brown were wrongly imprisoned.

As the former District Attorney of Los Angeles County, a county that sends more people to death row than the entire state of Texas, I know that the death penalty is deeply emotional, highly divisive, and very political. However, both sides of the death penalty debate can agree on one thing: California’s death penalty system is broken beyond repair.

“BART Watch" is a new app designed to encourage users to report suspicious activities. But we’re calling out this app for its own suspicious activities - having no privacy policy that explains the sensitive information it collects and may be sharing with others, and for encouraging people to file potentially spurious complaints about innocent residents.

Get a warrant -- that’s what I would say if the police showed up at my door asking to look around. Why? Because it’s my right. It’s one of the core principles that this country was founded on: the government, including local police, can’t come into my home unless they prove to a judge that they have a real reason to invade my privacy.

A coalition of advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sent a letter this week to the San Jose City Council demanding that it have the necessary public debate of whether a drone should ever be used in San Jose well before it starts to consider how it could be used.

It’s Time for a Public Debate and a New Vote Over San Jose Police Purchase of Drone

This year the California Legislature can take another step toward ending a shameful chapter in the state’s history—coerced sterilization of its most vulnerable residents.

The San Jose City Council has approved a police request to acquire a drone – without public debate and with no policy overseeing its use.