San Francisco police who work with a federal counterterrorism unit would be subjected to increased civilian scrutiny to help avoid racial, ethnic and religious profiling under legislation proposed Tuesday by Supervisor Jane Kim.
At issue are the rules governing San Francisco police officers who participate in the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“I just want to make clear that we support counterterrorism efforts here in San Francisco. We know how important this is to stability in this country. But we really just want to respect local privacy laws that our city long has valued,” Kim said.
Kim said that while her proposal is intended to protect everyone, her chief concerns are with the Arab and South Asian communities that she said have been subject to increased profiling by law enforcement.
The San Francisco Police Department and the FBI quietly entered into a written agreement in 2007 that laid out the ground rules for Joint Terrorism Task Force operations in the city.
The agreement for the task force, critics charge, effectively erased long-standing city policy. That policy requires the police chief to authorize intelligence-gathering work by San Francisco officers in which those under surveillance are engaged in First Amendment activities, such as protests, political assemblies and religious services. Authorization is contingent on there being reasonable suspicion that those targeted for surveillance are involved in criminal activity.
In addition, city policy calls for a designated member of the civilian Police Commission to review the chief’s approvals, and the Office of Citizen Complaints - the city’s police watchdog agency - to audit the results to make sure that state privacy rights and the city’s reasonable-suspicion standard were followed.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian Law Caucus, the Council on American Islamic Relations and other civil rights groups learned of the agreement last year and raised concerns.
In response, police brass issued a departmental general order in May that stated, in part, “SFPD officers shall work with the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) only on investigations of suspected terrorism that have a criminal nexus.”
Stephanie Douglas, the FBI special agent in charge in the San Francisco division, said in a written statement in September that the “San Francisco Police Department may participate in the JTTF while abiding by their general orders.”
But ACLU attorney John Crew said Tuesday that’s not good enough. Without the independent safeguards requiring input by the police chief, Police Commission and the watchdog group, he argued, racial, ethnic and religious profiling could go unchecked and impinge on people’s civil liberties.
Kim’s legislation was modeled after a law adopted last year in Portland, Ore., that requires federal counterterrorism intelligence-gathering efforts there involving city police get pre-approval by the police chief and review by the city’s civilian public safety director.
The Portland law, Crew said, “shows that it’s possible to participate in federal counterterrorism activities without trampling on civil rights.”
If adopted, the San Francisco ordinance would urge - but not compel - the police chief to either amend San Francisco’s Joint Terrorism Task Force agreement with the FBI to add the layers of civilian oversight or to terminate the agreement if the change isn’t made. Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos signed on as co-sponsors.
San Francisco Police Commissioner Jamie Slaughter, a department point person on the matter, suggested the proposed change is unnecessary because the Police Department’s own rules “reflect and safeguard” San Francisco’s commitment to First Amendment protections and unwarranted intrusion of police investigation.
“SFPD officers are at all times subject to the department’s orders, and the FBI has confirmed in writing that the SFPD may participate in the JTTF while abiding by its general orders,” Slaughter said. “There is no gap when SFPD officers are not subject to department rules.”
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