News & Commentary

As public outrage around family separation mounts, members of Congress demand access to government-run facilities, and the United Nations condemns us, the Trump administration is attempting to shift the blame — fast.

On Monday afternoon, civil rights, religious, and community organizations are taking their demand that Amazon stop providing face surveillance technology to governments, including police departments, to the company’s headquarters in Seattle. The groups will deliver over 150,000 petition signatures, a coalition letter signed by nearly 70 organizations representing communities nationwide, and a letter from Amazon shareholders.

As stories of state violence against Black men and boys occupy many of the calls for police reform, countless stories of Black women and girls subjected to excessive force and police misconduct remain untold. We must say their names.

In past elections, DA candidates ran largely unopposed, but this year, there were more contested DA races in California than in recent memory – perhaps ever before. Although incumbents retained their seats in most counties, all elected DAs in California now know they are under an unprecedented level of public scrutiny.

Whether you realize it or not, July 9, 1868 was a day that changed your life and ours. Why? Because it was the day that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.

Starbucks. Colorado State College. Air B&B. Nordstrom Rack. Yale University. Grandview Golf Club. Oakland's Lake Merritt. In the last month, “incidents” in each of these locales have made headlines, incidents in which white people have called the police on people of color—either African American or Native American—accusing them of everything from burglary to acting suspicious to golfing too slowly. What is remarkable is not that these “incidents” are happening, but that they are being covered by national news outlets, documented by passers-by, and spread on social media.  People of color know these kinds of “incidents” are not unusual. They happen every day. It is also remarkable that in every one of these cases, no person of color was shot by the police. Instead, apologies are issued, CEO’s promise to make changes and/or require training, and they assert that “what happened does not represent the culture of our company/university/community, etc.”

In neighborhoods across California, law enforcement agencies are deploying secret and invasive surveillance technologies to collect sensitive location and biometric data, target local activists, and feed ICE’s deportation machine.