Ever hear of The Lockyer Manual? Not to worry, almost nobody has. Not even many police departments, and it’s all about them and their interactions with public citizens during political demonstrations.
Basically the Lockyer Manual, created by former California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, sets down legal guidelines regarding police surveillance during public demonstrations, marches and the like by codifying under what explicit conditions police or sheriff’s departments can photograph and record participants without violating their state constitutional rights to privacy.
It all hinges on this: Absent an articulable criminal predicate for the gathering of information it will not be possible to justify it [surveillance] under the general heading of intelligence activity.
In other words, the criterion, the benchmark, the only reason for law enforcement doing surveillance is that there must be reasonable suspicion of a crime. By setting down this legal marker, California’s constitutional right to privacy provides greater protections than the federal Constitution. Legal precedent established by the California Supreme Court established that there must be some connection between the information gathered, e.g., photographs, and unlawful activity.
Which brings us to an editorial in The Sun on Thursday, May 24 titled, “Cops on Watch,” that’s so full of suppositional speculation it’s the kind of drivel that gives BS a bad name. I’ve been told that The Sun gang-edits by committee so there’s no way to address an individual for writing this crap, and it’s always left unsigned. Frankly I don’t believe this. What I believe is that Sun publisher Bill Hammett penned this misleading and incorrect legal assessment of citizens exercising their constitutional rights of speech, association and privacy.
Firstly, no one, not Dave Henderson, Mike Smith, any adult or student at the demonstration or I has complained about police presence during the event. The objection voiced to the City Council regarded the unlawful photography of the participants by a sheriff’s department officer absent a crime having been committed. The editorial states that the students “violated school policy by leaving campus” “violated municipal codes by obstructing traffic lanes” while marching up Broadway. Give me a break! High School principal Michaela Philpot and several teachers attended the march/demonstration from the school. If the students violated school policy in actively learning a valuable civic and constitutional principle then it’s the school’s business, not local law enforcement’s. If Mr. Hammett and whoever joined him in this cockamamie editorial is so upset about a short time of obstructing traffic early on a Monday morning then perhaps in the interest of good law enforcement and community protection he should press charges against the students, and while he’s at it the sheriff’s deputy who accompanied them, but saw no reason to bust them.
Secondly, the editorial “presumes” pictures were being taken “in order to be able later to identify those student in the march.” If Hammett or any of his reporters except Mr. Mejia from El Sol had actually covered the demonstration he would know that the principal and some teachers were present. I think it’s safe to assume they know who these students are. Then the editorial speculates that it was necessary to take photographs to have on record in case there was a disturbance. Read the laws regarding surveillance, Mr. Hammett, and what police can and cannot do during public gatherings. Lockyer’s guideline plainly states that it is a mistake of constitutional dimension to gather information for a criminal intelligence file where there is no reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or will be committed.
Bizarrely the editorial goes on “…to ponder what might have happened” if there was organized opposition to the march and if violence ensued. Okay, then there would have been grounds for photographing and police intervention and for whatever else would have been necessary to keep the peace. But what Hammett has done in arguing the case for surveillance is set up a straw man. Again, there was and is no opposition to a police presence during the march – there was and is opposition to photographic surveillance of a peaceful, orderly and school monitored constitutionally legal gathering of students and adults exercising their civil rights when there was no criminal predicate to justify it.
Another straw man argument posed by the editorial’s writer or writers, ostensibly assisted by their “legal folks,” posits that “there is no ‘expectation of privacy’” for people gathering in public, or cameras on school buses or mounted in police patrol cars. Stationary cameras now commonly used in public areas or private businesses or in school busses, set up for the public’s protection is a different scenario altogether than photographic surveillance during free speech activity for the purpose of gathering intelligence. And the fact of the matter is the Sheriff’s Department officer was photographing adults as well as students. If this was not for the purpose of gathering intelligence then the question is – what was it being done for? This is the question that should have been asked in the newspaper’s editorial. Furthermore when asked why he was photographing the demonstrators, the officer, J. Cobert answered that he was doing it on his own volition. He later fessed up that Sgt. Shubel of the Sonoma Police Department, ordered him to do so. What the truth of this is has yet to be determined.
But The Sun’s fatuous screed was too busy dissing those adults who stood in solidarity with the Latino student’s protest for fair immigration reform, and mouthing stupid platitudes about people who still live in the 60s. If living in the 60s means fighting for our dwindling civil rights, standing up against illegal police procedures, and supporting the human rights of our Latino brothers and sisters then I’m guilty as charged. My fellow travelers and I will oppose illegal and immoral wars, unjust social persecution, and government interference in our right to dissent. That’s what we learned in the 60s in the struggle for civil rights, women’s rights, and student’s right,s and in opposition to another immoral and unnecessary war for dominance. How quickly we forget, and how terrible a price we pay for our amnesia.
Lockyer wrote the manual in order to issue guidelines for local law enforcement agencies, and sent it out to every police chief and sheriff in the state in 2003 in the form of a book titled, “Criminal Intelligence Systems: A California Perspective.” The question is: Did they read it and do they care? A 2005 survey taken by the ACLU indicates a resounding “no.” In its report titled, “The State of Surveillance: Government Monitoring of Political Activity in Northern and Central California,” it’s stated: “The survey revealed a profound lack of regulation and a disappointing level of familiarity with the Lockyer Manual.” It further states: “The vast majority of law enforcement agencies did not have policies regulating the circumstances under which officers may monitor or gather information on individuals engaged in political activity.”
Hopefully the Sonoma Police Department will adopt and implement local law enforcement regulations that will preserve constitutionally protected civil liberties, and that will highlight the need for increasingly threatened privacy protections. I can see no reason why the community and the law enforcement agency cannot create these guidelines in a timely and mutually respectful manner.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Police Surveillance of Immigration Reform Demonstration
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow
-T.S. Elliot
We set out for the day thinking we know where we’re going, but in truth we have no idea. What we have is intention – I’m going to do this and I’m going to go there, – but the reality is anything can happen between your intention and its fulfillment.
For instance, I started out last Friday morning from the east side of town to the Sonoma Market and while passing by the Plaza encountered a rather large gathering of mostly young Latino High School students along with a few graying Anglos demonstrating for fair and just immigration reform. I honked the car horn in solidarity and approval as I passed, but seeing some friends, the usual activist contingent, decided on the spur of the moment to join in their march around the perimeter of the Plaza.
I hotfooted across the park to catch up with longtime fellow political traveler, Mike Smith, brandishing his oversized American flag, and joined in the kids chanting “si se puede!” I’ve always been in favor of that positive exclamation coined by the extraordinary fighter for worker and human rights, Cesar Chavez. And around the Plaza we marched.
The kids were great – spirited, strongly vocal, disciplined and well behaved. As our long line of 100+ marchers moved around the Plaza, Mike noticed a police officer in the familiar tan uniform of the Sonoma Sheriff’s Department taking photographs of the demonstrators with a camera. I looked to see and sure enough the officer was snapping away, his camera pointed directly at us. Mike was upset by these actions, said he was going to speak with the officer when we got back to the front of the Plaza, and asked if I’d accompany him. “Sure”, I replied, and off we went to speak with officer cameraman.
“Why are you taking pictures of us,” asked Mike, “this is a peaceful and orderly demonstration. Who authorized you to take photographs of the marchers?”
“Nobody” answered Officer J. Cobert, at least that’s my recall of his name, he refused to give us his card. We did ascertain that he is the High School Safety Officer.
“C’mon,” says Mike, “who told you to do this?”
“No one,” insisted Officer Cobert, reminding me for some reason of Officer Obie from Alice’s Restaurant, “I’m doing it for myself.”
Well things sort of spiraled down from there, Mike insisting he must be doing it on orders from the Police Department or some other authority, and Obie/Cobert demurring. Mike wasn’t buying it. He told the officer that the march was a peaceful, orderly and non-violent legal demonstration, and that his taking photos of the participants was intimidating and intrusive as there was nothing untoward going on. He relayed to the cop that in all the years of protests in Sonoma the police had never taken this kind of action, and that relations between police and demonstrators had always been cordial and respectful. As one who’s participated in any number of political or social protest demonstrations I can attest to this.
But Cobert, with a frozen smile and the hard-eyed look that comes from training or is maybe just inherent in his case, was implacable. He stuck to his story about doing it on his own, and the conversation pretty much ended in a stand off.
Shortly thereafter, Dave Henderson of the Sonoma Valley Peace & Justice group, who had been among the demonstrators went over to Cobert and repeated the query as to why he was photographing the marchers. This time, Cobert told Henderson that he was doing it under orders from Police Sgt. Shubel of the Sonoma Police Department. Why Cobert decided to fess up this time around is anybody’s guess, if in fact he was telling the truth to Henderson.
Now we fast forward to the city council meeting of May 16, during which both Henderson and Smith relayed the incident to the council in no uncertain terms, demanding an investigation into who ordered the photographic surveillance, for what purpose/s, and what was being done with the photographs of the marchers.
Henderson [see his remarks in full below] emphasized that the demonstration for immigration reform participants were “exercising their Constitutionally-protected right to free speech,” that the march was “well-controlled, well-monitored, law-abiding, and non-threatening in every way,” and that there “should be no reason for photography other than to facilitate traffic control, crowd management or other safety measures, which was manifestly not necessary at this gathering.” He added that in his estimation one could easily presume that the reason for photographing would be “to create files and dossiers on us.”
Councilman Ken Brown promised to look into the matter; the only council member to respond to Henderson’s importuning.
So still there are major questions that need to be answered, and perhaps as importantly, what is going to be the relationship between the Sonoma Police Department and future political or social issue demonstrators engaging in their Constitutionally guaranteed rights?
We may think we know where we are going when we set out for the day, but really we have no idea where we’re going to wind up. Life’s a crapshoot and like all games of chance the odds are with the house. And the house is reality.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
*Dave Henderson’s remarks to Council:
City of Sonoma Council Meeting, May 16, 2007
Presentation
Re: POLICE SURVEILLANCE OF HIGH SCHOOL DEMONSTRATON IN
PLAZA, MAY 15, 2007,
My name is Dave Henderson. I reside at 765Michael Drive.
I would like to inform this Council of something extremely unsettling that happened to me and to other Sonoma residents yesterday, May 15, in the Plaza.
100 or so students from Sonoma Valley High School had marched from the high school north on Broadway and gathered in the Plaza, joined by many others, included myself, to call for reform of our national immigration policies.
While we were gathered there with our signs, we noticed that a sheriff’s deputy was photographing all of us. Upon our challenging him for the justification for this action, he stated that he had been assigned to do so by Sgt. Shubel, but he refused to divulge any more information.
I ask--no, demand-- that this Council investigate why the police of this city are photographing innocent citizens who are exercising their Constitutionally-protected right to free speech, and therefore presumably using those photographs to create files and dossiers on us.
There should be no reason for photography other than to facilitate traffic control, crowd management or other safety measures, which was manifestly not necessary at this gathering, which was well-controlled, well-monitored, law-abiding, and non-threatening in every way.
I urge the Council to ascertain:
1. Who ordered this photographic surveillance;
2. What written, official policies of the police department, and/or of City of Sonoma,
authorize such surveillance; and,
3. If such written policies are lacking, what specific reasons did lead to the surveillance
order.
I hope this issue is of as grave concern to this Council as it is to me. Such police surveillance of law-abiding citizens exercising their free speech has no place in the United States that is under the rule of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Our police are obviously not sensitive to those rights and need urgent instruction in how to behave in a law-abiding fashion.
I hereby submit for your urgent study a report prepared by The American Civil Liberties Union in July 2006, entitled “The State of Surveillance: Government Monitoring of Political Activity in Northern and Central California.” You will find some very pertinent sections here, such as: “Government Surveillance and Privacy Right: A Brief History,” “Surveillance Abuses by Local Agencies in Northern and Central California,” “Best Practices Guidelines for First Amendment Activities.”
I hope that this Council will speedily adopt measures suggested in this report and adopted, in fact, by other cities. I hope that we have seen the last of un-Constitutional police surveillance in this city.
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow
-T.S. Elliot
We set out for the day thinking we know where we’re going, but in truth we have no idea. What we have is intention – I’m going to do this and I’m going to go there, – but the reality is anything can happen between your intention and its fulfillment.
For instance, I started out last Friday morning from the east side of town to the Sonoma Market and while passing by the Plaza encountered a rather large gathering of mostly young Latino High School students along with a few graying Anglos demonstrating for fair and just immigration reform. I honked the car horn in solidarity and approval as I passed, but seeing some friends, the usual activist contingent, decided on the spur of the moment to join in their march around the perimeter of the Plaza.
I hotfooted across the park to catch up with longtime fellow political traveler, Mike Smith, brandishing his oversized American flag, and joined in the kids chanting “si se puede!” I’ve always been in favor of that positive exclamation coined by the extraordinary fighter for worker and human rights, Cesar Chavez. And around the Plaza we marched.
The kids were great – spirited, strongly vocal, disciplined and well behaved. As our long line of 100+ marchers moved around the Plaza, Mike noticed a police officer in the familiar tan uniform of the Sonoma Sheriff’s Department taking photographs of the demonstrators with a camera. I looked to see and sure enough the officer was snapping away, his camera pointed directly at us. Mike was upset by these actions, said he was going to speak with the officer when we got back to the front of the Plaza, and asked if I’d accompany him. “Sure”, I replied, and off we went to speak with officer cameraman.
“Why are you taking pictures of us,” asked Mike, “this is a peaceful and orderly demonstration. Who authorized you to take photographs of the marchers?”
“Nobody” answered Officer J. Cobert, at least that’s my recall of his name, he refused to give us his card. We did ascertain that he is the High School Safety Officer.
“C’mon,” says Mike, “who told you to do this?”
“No one,” insisted Officer Cobert, reminding me for some reason of Officer Obie from Alice’s Restaurant, “I’m doing it for myself.”
Well things sort of spiraled down from there, Mike insisting he must be doing it on orders from the Police Department or some other authority, and Obie/Cobert demurring. Mike wasn’t buying it. He told the officer that the march was a peaceful, orderly and non-violent legal demonstration, and that his taking photos of the participants was intimidating and intrusive as there was nothing untoward going on. He relayed to the cop that in all the years of protests in Sonoma the police had never taken this kind of action, and that relations between police and demonstrators had always been cordial and respectful. As one who’s participated in any number of political or social protest demonstrations I can attest to this.
But Cobert, with a frozen smile and the hard-eyed look that comes from training or is maybe just inherent in his case, was implacable. He stuck to his story about doing it on his own, and the conversation pretty much ended in a stand off.
Shortly thereafter, Dave Henderson of the Sonoma Valley Peace & Justice group, who had been among the demonstrators went over to Cobert and repeated the query as to why he was photographing the marchers. This time, Cobert told Henderson that he was doing it under orders from Police Sgt. Shubel of the Sonoma Police Department. Why Cobert decided to fess up this time around is anybody’s guess, if in fact he was telling the truth to Henderson.
Now we fast forward to the city council meeting of May 16, during which both Henderson and Smith relayed the incident to the council in no uncertain terms, demanding an investigation into who ordered the photographic surveillance, for what purpose/s, and what was being done with the photographs of the marchers.
Henderson [see his remarks in full below] emphasized that the demonstration for immigration reform participants were “exercising their Constitutionally-protected right to free speech,” that the march was “well-controlled, well-monitored, law-abiding, and non-threatening in every way,” and that there “should be no reason for photography other than to facilitate traffic control, crowd management or other safety measures, which was manifestly not necessary at this gathering.” He added that in his estimation one could easily presume that the reason for photographing would be “to create files and dossiers on us.”
Councilman Ken Brown promised to look into the matter; the only council member to respond to Henderson’s importuning.
So still there are major questions that need to be answered, and perhaps as importantly, what is going to be the relationship between the Sonoma Police Department and future political or social issue demonstrators engaging in their Constitutionally guaranteed rights?
We may think we know where we are going when we set out for the day, but really we have no idea where we’re going to wind up. Life’s a crapshoot and like all games of chance the odds are with the house. And the house is reality.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
*Dave Henderson’s remarks to Council:
City of Sonoma Council Meeting, May 16, 2007
Presentation
Re: POLICE SURVEILLANCE OF HIGH SCHOOL DEMONSTRATON IN
PLAZA, MAY 15, 2007,
My name is Dave Henderson. I reside at 765Michael Drive.
I would like to inform this Council of something extremely unsettling that happened to me and to other Sonoma residents yesterday, May 15, in the Plaza.
100 or so students from Sonoma Valley High School had marched from the high school north on Broadway and gathered in the Plaza, joined by many others, included myself, to call for reform of our national immigration policies.
While we were gathered there with our signs, we noticed that a sheriff’s deputy was photographing all of us. Upon our challenging him for the justification for this action, he stated that he had been assigned to do so by Sgt. Shubel, but he refused to divulge any more information.
I ask--no, demand-- that this Council investigate why the police of this city are photographing innocent citizens who are exercising their Constitutionally-protected right to free speech, and therefore presumably using those photographs to create files and dossiers on us.
There should be no reason for photography other than to facilitate traffic control, crowd management or other safety measures, which was manifestly not necessary at this gathering, which was well-controlled, well-monitored, law-abiding, and non-threatening in every way.
I urge the Council to ascertain:
1. Who ordered this photographic surveillance;
2. What written, official policies of the police department, and/or of City of Sonoma,
authorize such surveillance; and,
3. If such written policies are lacking, what specific reasons did lead to the surveillance
order.
I hope this issue is of as grave concern to this Council as it is to me. Such police surveillance of law-abiding citizens exercising their free speech has no place in the United States that is under the rule of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Our police are obviously not sensitive to those rights and need urgent instruction in how to behave in a law-abiding fashion.
I hereby submit for your urgent study a report prepared by The American Civil Liberties Union in July 2006, entitled “The State of Surveillance: Government Monitoring of Political Activity in Northern and Central California.” You will find some very pertinent sections here, such as: “Government Surveillance and Privacy Right: A Brief History,” “Surveillance Abuses by Local Agencies in Northern and Central California,” “Best Practices Guidelines for First Amendment Activities.”
I hope that this Council will speedily adopt measures suggested in this report and adopted, in fact, by other cities. I hope that we have seen the last of un-Constitutional police surveillance in this city.
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