Help stop suspicious activity reports from Berkeley to local spy center

Item 23 on the Berkeley City Council Agenda. (2nd on the Action agenda)

Do you want a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) on you to be lodged in the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC) because you chalked a political message on the sidewalk, or put a poster or two on a building’s wall? In BPD’s General Order N-17, for NCRIC, VANDALISM is defined as a criminal activity with a potential terrorism nexus, to be reported.

Do you want a SAR sent on you to NCRIC because you took a picture of a bridge, building or of the cops in action?PHOTOGRAPHY, in such cases, is a potential criminal or non-criminal activity to be reported if done “in a manner that would arouse suspicion in a reasonable person”. Could the “manner” be wearing a hoodie or scarf and/or being tan?

The Police Review Commission (PRC) has recommended supposed changes to BPD’s General Order N-17, on SARs to NCRIC. Actually they are not changes, but rather spell out Federal Regulations and California Constitution privacy requirements already to in G.O. N-17.

Spelling out these regs in no way changes the Definition of Criminal Activities and Potential Criminal and Non-Criminal Activities to be sent as SARs to NCRIC.

How can we expect the City Council to control on whom and what SARs are sent to NCRIC when this is decided by BPD’s two or three FBI Terrorism Liaison Officers who cannot discuss their actions with a BPD supervisor without the permission of the U.S. Department of Justice, their FBI supervisor at the FBI’s Bay Area Joint Terrorism Task Force that runs NCRIC?✳️

Please attend this Tuesday’s, 10/27/15, City Council and tell them to NOT APPROVE NCRIC in its entirety! PRC’s “changes” make no difference.

— Berkeleyans Organizing for Liberty Defense