Berkeley, California is paving the road towards a world where warrantless surveillance is outlawed. The Surveillance Technology Use and Community Safety Ordinance ensures the public will be informed and will be allowed to have a say in the debate before the city uses more surveillance technology.
More specifically, the new law requires all city officials to seek council approval before the accepting funds for the use or purchase of any surveillance technology or equipment.
Once a surveillance program is approved, there must be a policy developed to protect the civil liberties and security of the information collected on citizens.
Ordinance Passed
Berkeley City Council passed the ordinance and their mayor Jesse Arreguin signed it on March 29th. The law will become effective on April 29th.
A similar ordinance was passed in Santa Clara in 2016. Berkeley's ordinance was based in a model of legislation that was developed by ACLU and with help from the Tenth Amendment Center.
The Importance Of This
Modern police have access to very high-tech surveillance equipment without any approval from third parties. The law enforcement in your city (especially if you are in the United States) will operate these technologies in complete secrecy.
The funds for the spy-gear is given through grants from the federal government, meaning that the purchases can be kept "off the record".
Citizens often do not know that their local enforcement possesses technology that can track electronic data, phone calls and location information.
Shady Non-Disclosure Agreements
Many people are also unaware that the federal government will force law enforcement agencies to sign non-disclosure agreements before stingray technology is obtained from them. A good example of this is when Baltimore's Police Department acquired spy equipment from the FBI.
The policy of nondisclosure extends to the courtroom. Federal authorities will instruct prosecutors to withdraw evidence if judges or legislators demand information.
A Baltimore detective refused to answer questions about the department's use of stingray devices on the stand during a trial, citing a federal nondisclosure agreement.
Effect On Federal Surveillance
The passage of these local ordinances do not only protect the privacy of citizens in the area. They will also slow the progression of the surveillance state that we all live in now.
Information that your local enforcement collects will be stored in a federal database without any questions.
By orchestrating local surveillance, the federal government obtains a large data pool on Americans without expending resources to collect the information themselves.
This Is Why We Must Continue On This Path Of Privacy Rights!
To summarize, without the help of local authorities, the federal government has a much harder time gathering information on it's citizens. This is a major letdown for the surveillance state and a massive win for our privacy.
One ordinance being passed in one city may be a small move for our rights, however once that action is multiplied over hundreds of cities and states across the US we will truly begin to undermine federal surveillance. If the data is not first collected by local authority, it will not end up in a federal database.
Sources for images (that are not mine) are provided by clicking on the image itself.
Who is @chron?
I am a 17 year old robot from Bali, Indonesia who has discovered Cryptocurrency on my path to find the many solutions to the ever growing problems in our world.
I have collaborated with @samstonehill on the following projects:
@steemmasters which provides FREE TUTORIALS, personal training & resteeming services. Website HERE.
@charitysteemit which has successfully donated solar kits to the volcano evacuess of Bali through the power of Steem! Check out our video where we hand out the kits HERE.
Avid graphic designer, if you want a Gif like below made by me or a banner like above contact me on Steemit.chat or Discord.
Here is a list of Steemit Witness I have voted for & recommend you do the same:
@teamsteem @timcliff @jesta @good-karma @someguy123 @blocktrades @pfunk @klye @krnel @blueorgy @ausbitbank, @pharesim & @thecryptodrive
Without them our beautiful decentralized platform would sink!
Learn what this means HERE and place your vote HERE.
The key word is MORE. We are already under 100 % surveillance in any populated areas. That is state, city and county. The lines of Jurisdiction have been completely removed. The unconstitutional ABC agencies don't follow the "Law" any way.
Trust me this is just a little bone for the citizens that will not change anything.
I wish things could get better but he root of the problem is the financial system, and corporate monopolies. Until we rid our nation of these kinds of things. Life will only become more draconian on a daily basis.
I have been in this battle for our Republic for more than 25 years, not one thing has moved in a positive direction other than the Organic program. Now that program is being watered down, and manipulated by the corporations, so that now it basically means nothing but higher prices. Keep fighting because unless we fight it will change so fast we will not know what happened to our nation.
I would also tell you to support and vote for Terry Ajai @steemgigs witness. His personal page is @supassinggoogle He is running a 256 gb node to support the steem network. He has lots of projects steemgigs.org is my favorite. He is also behind #untalented, #Teardrops, and many many more. Of all the witnesses I think he has the biggest one on one impact on HUMANS.
I know that the situation is already quite bad in terms of surveillance, but this is the first time anything has been done to give citizens a say on whether they will be spied on any more and I hope it will pave a path to less surveillance.
I will never stop fighting, it is the only way to live these days 🤞
Keep fighting but know who the enemy is. The political hacks that make "Color of Law" are not who we are taught they are. At least they are now just puppets of the Corporations and the banks that control everything. Understand every time you pay a penny of interest you are supporting your enemy.
We have a say over every thing we choose to submit ourselves to. What most do not understand is that the citizen has the final say over everything, not the supreme court. The biggest problem is that most citizens just submit. Or they fight the wrong battle because of a lack of knowledge.
Honestly I understand your sentiment but this "ordinance" is meaningless to 100% complete lawlessness of our government today. We are all under 100% surveillance now. Please explain how a city "ordinance" changes anything?
In my opinion that fact that a "City" is passing any "color of Law" rules is a big problem to begin with.
The root is we have way to many unlearned citizen lawmakers that do not understand the constitution at all.
Most uninformed Americans think our nation is a Democracy. It is not and never was and can only be one if we change the constitution.
We are under many declared states of war. Our nation is under emergency war powers. We are under Admiralty and Maritime jurisdiction today. Its like a nation who was in a war and defeated now the conquering army is in control. That is the state of our Nation today. Dont be fooled.
Thank you for this amazing piece you have added to Steem's blockchain @iamstan.
Keep spreading the word and initiating this paradigm shift!
Sadly I feel even this won’t stop the state. Even if new laws are put on the books they will continue spying on us all.
You are right. I just thought that people who were interesting in surveillance would like to hear about this story!
Thanks for commenting.
WARNING - The message you received from @adenfaye is a CONFIRMED SCAM!
DO NOT FOLLOW any instruction and DO NOT CLICK on any link in the comment!
For more information, read this post:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@arcange/phishing-site-reported-autoupvotes
Please consider to upvote this warning or to vote for my witness if you find my work to protect you and the community valuable. Your support is really appreciated!