San Francisco
CA
In a surreal meeting last Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved on first reading a military equipment use policy that explicitly allows the use of robots outfitted with bombs to blow people up. The policy allows 3 high-level command officers to employ robot bombs based on their “evaluation” that other things wouldn’t work. The Robocop policy passed on an 8-3 vote.
This isn’t the world we want to live in. The “evaluations” of a police department which received 272 recommendations to improve its racist policing practices just six years ago, aren’t adequate. The supervisors admit that virtually everyone who has written to them says no to the killer robots.
The second vote is on Tuesday afternoon. It needs to come out differently. Here is what you can do to make this happen.
1) Come to a rally and press conference at SF City Hall
2) Email the Board at Board.of.Supervisors@sfgov.org. (Several members of the board have taken umbrage at the term “killer robots” as hyperbole. Therefore, when you write to the Board, we suggest you use the term “robots that kill” instead).
Background: David Chiu, then a State Assembly member and now the SF City Attorney, authored AB 481 to require governmental transparency about the use and acquisition of militarized equipment by civilian police agencies. Governor Newsom signed the bill into law. The law requires policies for existing equipment stocks. SF owns 17 robots, which were purchased for bomb and suspicious package disposal. This policy would set out the rules of the road for the 17 robots. No legislative body in the Bay Area has yet explicitly permitted the use of robots outfitted with weapons (bombs or guns) against civilian populations.