Support Your Local Police

The San Diego Police Chief, and his evil minion mayor are claiming that public accountability for police surveillance techniques are obstructing the police, because ……… If police don't get to purchase any surveillance technology that they want with zero oversight, it's obstruction, I guess?

Law enforcement agencies aren’t used to oversight or accountability. That’s something that has rarely been deemed essential to the act of policing. After all, if the Supreme Court can create “qualified immunity” out of thin air to protect (most) cops from the consequences of their unconstitutional actions, surely podunk locals shouldn’t assume they’re more qualified than the Supreme Court (or the cops themselves) to judge their actions.

But things haven’t been going cops’ way lately. This is entirely due to cops’ own actions, which have repeatedly dis-endeared them to the public. And even if the voting bloc is generally considered to be too stupid to competently criticize cops, cops are finding fewer supporters from those in voting booths as well as those being voted for.

But when cops have managed to set the nation on fire (figuratively and literally) on a nearly annual basis for the past thirty years, some legislators have decided it might be time to do something.

And “something” it almost always is. Sure, some legislators push dumbass “blue lives matter” laws but other legislators appear to believe the public might be better served by holding local law enforcement agencies to some sort of standard, rather than just allowing them to do what they want.

In San Diego, this belated recognition that allowing cops to go rogue on the regular might be a bad idea has manifested as a surveillance oversight ordinance that gives legislators and residents more say in what surveillance tech cops can obtain and how they can use. It passed last September with the city council’s approval, prompted in part by the city’s mishandling of a “smart” streetlight program that provoked plenty of negative comments from city residents.

They weren’t just streetlights. They were streetlights with surveillance cameras that also acted as automated license plate readers. Combining the necessary (lights for streets) with something that only benefited law enforcement (the rest of it) wasn’t what residents wanted. Hence the new ordinance, which places more guidelines on surveillance tech and deployment.

Now that these guidelines are in force, the city’s mayor (Todd Gloria) and the San Diego police chief are now claiming this minimal move towards more oversight and accountability is simply making it impossible for the PD to do its job. And the police chief has used loaded language that equates accountability with a criminal act. 

………

“This ordinance is not oversight, it’s obstruction,” Nisleit said. “The flaws in this ordinance will hamper our ability to investigate serious crimes, protect victims and keep our community safe.” 

(emphasis mine)

So the the time line is:

1. Police are discovered to be surreptitiously surveilling much of the city.
2. The public is outraged.
3. The city council passes a law creating accountability.
4. The police and the mayor refuse to cooperate with its implementation and do everything possible to delay its implementation.
5. The police and the mayor then demand changes weakening the law because it is not ready.

You know, for a group charged with enforcing the law, the police seem to hate actually following the law.

ACAB.