My latest writing for EFF examines a series of campaigns up and down the west coast challenging secret, unaccountable mass surveillance by local police. From Seattle to Los Angeles, cities are taking action to impose public control on the acquisition of police surveillance tech, and the entire state of California is in play.
These measures not only shift the law governing the millions of people living in those jurisdictions, but also represent crucial oversight principles strikingly absent at the federal level. With Congress forced to consider NSA mass surveillance this year by the scheduled expiration of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, these campaigns (alongside others in cities across the country) could not come at a better time.