Unregulated for too long

San José is known as the “Capital of Silicon Valley,” of a place once viewed as a utopia, but where our very privacy was taken out from under us without many putting up a fight. The place where the same entities claiming to bring the world together are advancing the development of dangerous surveillance technologies. Then there are those entities who aren’t even shy about it and market to law enforcement, right in our own backyard. While San José has been busy catering to the companies developing this technology, it’s fallen behind in regulating its use by government agencies, namely law enforcement.

We can change it

Council Member Sergio Jimenez is proposing that San José take the same route that Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, Davis, Berkeley, and Santa Clara County have before us and implement oversight of the surveillance technologies being used in our city. This is especially important as the city continues to adopt “Smart City” technology. Without regulation, our smart city will because a surveillance dystopia.

Today, CPC along with over a dozen racial, immigrant, worker, and civil justice organiations, released the letter below urging Mayor Sam Liccardo San José City Council to pass Council Member Jimenez’s proposal. If passed, these organizations can work with Council Member Jimenez to develop of best in class surveillance oversight law, giving a citizen privacy commission the responsibility to review each and every surveillance technology proposed by city agenices, especially San José Police Department.

We need your help

Please, contact your council member today and urge them to support this proposal on Thursday, February 25th. Tell them to do it in the name of Black lives. Tell them to do it in the name of free speech. Tell them to do it in the name of justice.

We have made it easy for you, if you take two minutes and fill out this form , an email in your name expressing your support will be sent to the Mayor and your council member. Please also consider calling them. You can find out which district your in here and who your representative is here .