Suspicious activityBerkeley modifies Suspicious Activity Reports guidelines
The Berkeley City Council members said in a meeting last week that Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), an initiative of the DHS which, through regional and national agencies, disseminates to local law enforcement information on possible terrorist threats, has the potential of criminalizing innocent people. Members of the council agreed that in order to prevent hurting innocent people, the council should adopt a Police Review Commission recommendation to modify Berkeley Police Department orders on Suspicious Activity Reporting. The modification aims to make sure that SARs can be filed “only if there is reasonable suspicion that the individual is involved in criminal conduct.”
The Berkeley City Council members said in a meeting last week that Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), an initiative of the DHS which, through regional and national agencies, disseminates to local law enforcement information on possible terrorist threats, has the potential of criminalizing innocent people.
Members of the council agreed that in order to prevent hurting innocent people, the council should adopt a Police Review Commission recommendation to modify Berkeley Police Department orders on Suspicious Activity Reporting. The modification aims to make sure that SARs can be filed “only if there is reasonable suspicion that the individual is involved in criminal conduct.”
The San Jose Mercury News reports that the new language also stipulates that information about the political, religious, or social views of individuals or groups contained in SARs should be retained only when it is directly relevant to the suspected criminal behavior.
Berkeley police are responsible locally for investigating suspicions of terrorism, writing SARs, and passing the reports up the chain of command to the city manager and chief of police. If these higher-ups determine that the individuals mentioned in the SARs and their activities should be further investigated, the SARs are forwarded to the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center.
The Police Review Commission reviewed possible misuse of some Los Angeles area SARs, and its report is available here.
The Mercury News notes that one SAR describes a white couple filming a deputy sheriff after he responded to a disturbance on a bus; another talks about two young women, described as possibly Middle Eastern or Hispanic, taking photos of a freeway structure; a third describes “four possible MME’s (male Middle Easterners) observed taking photos of (the) downtown L.A. skyline.”
“It’s our hope in (revising the general orders), we will continue to make sure the department is not filing Suspicious Activity Reports that in any way is violating the rights of the people of the city of Berkeley,” Police Review Commission chairwoman Alison Bernstein told the Berkeley City Council.
Councilman Jesse Arreguin noted the reports’ summaries which the council received from Berkeley Police Department a year ago appeared to have been made on the basis of “political views espoused, not necessarily on the basis of criminal activity.”
The council meeting was open to the public, and several speakers said the modifications did not go far enough. They urged the council to instruct BPD to stop issuing SARs and sever ties with the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center.
Elliot Halpern of the Berkeley Northeast chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the ACLU found “an overwhelming amount of ethnic, religious and racial profiling” in the SARs. He supported the new language for the general orders, but said the best solution is for Berkeley to withdraw from the SARs program altogether.
The council voted to include a request to release the current year SARs in its resolution amending the general orders; it also asked that the SARs be more detailed.
