California Police illegally shares data on an ice -signer reader

From Harry Johnson and Mohammed al elevCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Law enforcement authorities in southern California violate the state law more than 100 times last month, sharing information from automated readers of registration plates with federal agents, records show.

The Los Angeles Police Department and the Sheriff Departments in the San Diego, Orange and Riverside Counts have searched testimony of registration plates on behalf of immigration and customs and customs and border protection, according to the inquiry database received by the Okland and Cal Group.

Under a 10-year California measure known as Senate Bill 34State law enforcement authorities are forbidden to share data on a reader of registration plates with public agencies outside the state or federal entities. The law is routinely violated; Civil Freedom Groups in 2023 found that 71 California Authority Agencies He had broken it. Later the same year the prosecutor Rob Bont issued a council providing police with specific guidance about how to comply with the law.

In addition to the detailed description of the prohibition of sharing outside the state, Bont noted that readers’ operators of registration plates should indicate the purpose of using them every time they have access to the information.

This diary is where Riverside Police Data revealed their cooperation with ICE, often using the term “HSI” relating to the Agency’s internal security department. The term “CBP” was also repeatedly named as a search target.

Among the 11 agencies who conducted searches on behalf of ICE, six are in Los Angeles County and 10 are in southern California. Two agencies, the Sheriffe departments for the Counts of Orange and San Diego, made searches on behalf of customs and border protection or border patrol.

“This is a big deal, this is part of the problem and we need the Prosecutor General to start a lawsuit,” said Brian Hofer, a former chairman of the Oakland Privacy Commission.

Hofer said that cities can put all the policies of the sanctuary of books they want, but if they do not exclude sharing data between local authorities and federal agencies like ICE, these defenses are pointless.

Riverside County Sheriff’s service did not respond to a request for comment, nor the Sheriff’s office of Orange County. The Los Angeles Police Department declined to answer Calmatters questions about search records. The Bont Office did not respond to a request for comment.

The San Diego County Sheriff has provided a statement that says: “This question requires an additional internal review. If any of our employees are found in violation of our policies, we will take the right action.”

“This is a big deal, it’s part of the problem and we need the Prosecutor General to start arguing.”

Brian Hofer, Chairman of the Oakland Privacy Committee

Tracy Rosenberg, CEO of Oakland Privacy, was disturbed by cases where police darken the purpose of their search, using unclear conditions, such as “investigation” or “criminal justice”, raising the question of whether they were answering the Bont management. With the number of Calmatters, this has happened more than 64,000 times from 491,000 requests in the searches database from April 28 to May 30.

“I have always been told that all this has been carefully registered and tracked and they know why these logs are accessible,” Rosenberg said. “But now that I am in this diary, it is obvious that they do not do it and the reasons are completely darkened.”

Rosenberg has found the vague reasons for the discovered federal searches – partly because they leave the possibility of a search of a federal agency open. Some agencies have given unclear reasons for the majority of their inquiries.

“It seems that no one, (Riverside) Sheriff (Chad) Bianco, does not know why these location data searches were carried out in the River’s database (license plate),” she said.

The automated readers of registration plates in Riverside County are part of a Flock -driven system, a company that works with law enforcement authorities in thousands of communities across the country. The records received from the privacy of Oakland came from a flock report, generated by Riverside County Sheriff.

Proof of sharing comes less than a week after President Trump has ordered the deployment of Marines and the National Guard of California in Los Angeles against the backdrop of escalating protests there against deportations. About two weeks ago, 404 reported the media that the Local Police in Illinois carried out searches on behalf of ice agents.

The Riverside County Sheriff is led by sheriff Chad Bianco, a supporter of President Donald Trump. Bianco launched the California Governor in February, shortly after he told locals in Video posted on social media Riverside County MPs “are not, are not, and will not participate in any kind of implementation of immigration.” In the same video, Bianco said he plans to continue to fight for reform Laws of state sanctuaries And that “I will do whatever I can within the state laws of the California sanctuary to collaborate with ice to remove criminals from our prisons.”

“We already knew that sheriff Bianco supported Trump and his deportment machine,” says Javier Hernandez, CEO of the Internal Immigrant Justice Coalition. The group of more than 35 organizations provides legal services for undocumented people and responds to the signals of ice raids in Riverside and the San Bernardino East of Los Angeles, a region known as the Internal Empire.

But Hernandez said Bianco still “must obey the laws of this country, even if he disagrees with them.” The coalition plans to insist that the Prosecutor General to investigate all violations of state legislation.

Seth Hall, a longtime member of the Trust SD coalition, who has called for control over the readers of San Diego registration plates, hopes the knowledge of local police data with ICE can change, as SD’s confidence is planning a San Diego Municipal Council campaign for dusting the police. An Annual Monitoring Report Issued in February revealed that the San Diego Police Department shared data on a reader of registration plates with several external agencies, including ICE and the border patrol. Cooperation with federal authorities, he said, is a sore spot in San Diego after ice planted an Italian restaurant earlier this month and Community members withdrawnS

“It just hits a little harder when there are people on the street who leave the flash bangs,” he said.

State Senator Sabrina Cervantes, Democrat from Riverside, Introduced Automated Registration Signs Automated Readers Earlier this year, as “law enforcement authorities in our country do not follow the existing state legislation, governing the use of automated readers of registration plates”, but an audit by civil servants in 2020 showed this. She did not respond to a request to comment on the sheriff’s registration register.

The risk of automatic readers of the registration plates is put in focus of deportations, said Rosenberg of Oakland. The long -standing argument against the construction of a state of observation was hypothetical.

“It’s 2025 and it’s no longer hypothetical,” she said.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.