WHY COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE LAW DON’T RING TRUE

On Oct. 5, Mayor Todd Gloria and Police Chief David Nisleit stepped up to the microphone to declare that San Diego’s surveillance oversight ordinance “is a massive problem, particularly for our public safety departments” and that the ordinance “isn’t oversight, it’s obstruction.”

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Nisleit gave as an example the Graykey smartphone forensics system, which police use to access locked smartphones. Graykey, according to Nisleit, is at risk of being shut down due to the obstruction of the oversight process, which has yet to fully vet even one of the city’s existing surveillance systems.

Nisleit is right about one thing: The surveillance oversight ordinance won approval in August 2022, but a little more than a year later only one proposal is nearing its final OK from the City Council — the new Ubicquia Smart Streetlights with license plate trackers. Meanwhile, the city’s existing body-worn cameras were only just recommended to move forward by the Privacy Advisory Board earlier this month. Both surveillance systems are on track for a likely approval.

So has this all been delay for delay’s sake, as Gloria and Nisleit claim?

Far from it. The mere existence of the oversight process has already scored major wins for San Diegans in the form of new, enforceable protections.

As the Smart Streetlights contract with Ubicquia now heads for its final City Council decision, work to improve the city’s deficient policies has continued in the background. Compared to the city’s first draft of polices, the most recent policies published this month have been improved in numerous ways that give new, substantial and enforceable protections to San Diegans.

The Police Department is now promising extensive new quarterly audit procedures for Smart Streetlights, to reduce the risk that streetlight surveillance cameras will be misused or abused. The policies have also been updated to strengthen the training and accountability provisions for officers. These are exactly the kinds of procedures my community group’s report recommended in June, and that Councilmember Kent Lee pressed the city to add in August. As a former auditor, I know how powerful regular audits can be to ensure good practices in an organization.

The city’s existing body-worn cameras are receiving similar improvements as they move through the process, thanks to an amazing effort by the volunteer experts of the Privacy Advisory Board.

But why do we only have two examples of oversight to praise, after a year of oversight? Again, Nisleit has correctly diagnosed obstruction, but it is his and the mayor’s own obstruction, and Nisleit of all people would know.

Mayor Gloria is in the driver’s seat of this process. We have been waiting for nearly two years for the mayor to create and submit an inventory of the city’s existing surveillance technology, as required by the new law. Earlier this month, a messy inventory spreadsheet riddled with duplicates and inaccuracies was finally published in the agenda for the Privacy Advisory Board’s Oct. 5 meeting. That same day, Gloria and Nisleit held a press conference to decry the “obstruction” of an oversight process they themselves have been deliberately standing in the way of.

There has not been even one day since this ordinance was passed that it hasn’t been obstructed at the very first step by Gloria withholding the city’s inventory of existing surveillance technology. The privacy board, the community and the City Council have stood ready. Chief Nisleit need look no further than his own boss when placing blame for obstruction.

And what of Graykey, that important surveillance technology that Chief Nisleit is so concerned about expiring? That official inventory of existing surveillance technology submitted by the mayor to the privacy board does not mention the existence of Graykey at all. So it is impossible under the law for the Graykey technology to be considered for approval, because it hasn’t been disclosed as required.

How can we entrust our city officials with complicated algorithmic surveillance technology if they cannot even properly manage a mere spreadsheet that contains a simple list?

There is indeed obstruction happening. It is the mayor and police chief ’s own unwillingness to cooperate and be transparent that is obstructing the protections that San Diegans deserve.

Mayor Gloria’s vague threats during his Oct. 5 press conference to “fix” the ordinance are likely another obstruction and distraction. Mayor Gloria and Chief Nisleit should spare us all the drama. Instead, they should spend that time complying with the oversight process and cooperating with the community.

Oversight has already led to significant new protections.