Technology, as we all acknowledge, can be a double-edged sword. We love what it does for our lives, but then we hear Google or Amazon knows more about us than we know about ourselves. The loss of privacy is indeed a serious concern, but so is crime. So how do government officials balance the promise and the threat of technology when it comes to public safety?
Here in Oakland, the answer is clear. There are several ways technology can be used to fight crime—from license plate readers to real-time street cameras to robot vehicles—but we have a City Council and Privacy Advisory Commission, both of which have shown that they’d rather not use proven tools to prevent and solve crime because they’re too concerned about privacy rights—or so they claim.
It’s a healthy discussion. Nobody wants the U.S. to turn into a 1984-style dictatorship, with telescreens watching us every moment of the day and night. At the same time, with the public so concerned about crime, why not utilize new technologies? What have we got to lose? Privacy advocates answer, “We stand to lose our freedom.” But are we really free when we’re afraid to go out at night?
Let’s talk about license plate readers. This would seem to be a no-brainer: The cameras are attached to OPD patrol cars, and can instantly scan license plates and notify officers if the vehicle is associated with a crime.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
But Carroll Fife is upset. That great champion of civil liberties is Chair of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, but last month she rejected OPD Chief LeRonne Armstrong’s request to use license plate readers, insisting instead that the matter be turned over to a guy named Brian Hofer, who runs the above-mentioned Privacy Advisory Commission.
Now, Hofer and his PAC haven’t turned up too much in this blog over the years, so it’s time to introduce readers to them. The PAC was founded in 2015 “to provide advise and technical assistance to the City of Oakland on best practices to protect citizen privacy rights in connection with the…use of surveillance equipment and other technology that collects or stores citizen data.” That sounds reasonable, but the City made a big mistake when they hired Brian Hofer to run the PAC, a position he holds to this day. Hofer is a longtime police critic. Ever since he was pulled over by Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department officers in 2018, who thought he was driving a stolen vehicle (he wasn’t; it was rented), Hofer--who once sued OPD for cooperating with the FBI--has been on a rampage to prevent cops from using license plate readers. He argues that they can be used for racial profiling and for tracking protesters. Personally, I don’t accept either of those premises. A computer doesn’t “racially profile” anyone, it simply links a vehicle to a crime. As for “tracking protesters,” I want to track, find and prosecute the idiots who riot downtown and commit arson and other acts of vandalism. So it makes no sense to me why anyone would object to technology that helps us do just that.
At any rate, last year Hofer used his clout to persuade the City Council “unanimously to recommend that police cease the use of license plate readers for two years.” But so strong has public sentiment grown against crime—thanks to people like the members of the Coalition for a Better Oakland—that the Council felt compelled to approve license plate readers in some form; otherwise, people running for office, like Sheng Thao and Nikki Bas, would be accused, correctly, of being soft on crime. So Thao just worked out a “compromise” with Hofer: police can use and store data from license plate readers, but only for six months, and under tightly-controlled conditions.
That vote occurred only yesterday, so we don’t know how the new policy will actually impact crime-fighting in Oakland. But what we do know is that the public made an outcry against crime, which has had real-world results in the way anti-police people like Thao and Bas vote. For that, we can be grateful, but we have to keep up the pressure. As for Brian Hofer, now that he’s on our radar, we’re going to watch him closely.
Steve Heimoff