My, but San Francisco is just having itself an interesting time these days, isn't it?
Wired News: S.F.: If You're Asked, Don't Tell
Following a nationwide backlash by municipalities against the USA Patriot Act, San Francisco will present voters with a ballot measure that proponents say will protect city residents from federal snooping. Proposition E, which is slated for vote in California's March 2 primary election, would authorize the Board of Supervisors -- instead of individual city workers -- to respond to federal requests for San Franciscans' private records. [...] San Francisco's Proposition E would allow the Board of Supervisors -- which sponsored the measure -- to review federal subpoenas for violations of residents' civil rights, said the measure's sponsor, Supervisor Jake McGoldrick. "This will protect people's privacy in a direct way," said McGoldrick. "If we get orders from the Bush-Cheney-Ashcroft regime we'll be able to see if any kind of profiling or abuse is being committed." He said the city attorney would fight any federal order that showed evidence of violating the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.
In other words, kick any PATRIOT requests so far upstairs that they'll take forever to respond to, and done in a way that pretty much ensures that despite Justice's efforts, some information somewhere will get out to the public and probably to the subject of the subpoena.
The Justice Department has pooh-poohed these local measures, saying they're based on erroneous information and legally inconsequential. "Federal law trumps local laws when it comes to federal issues," said department spokesman Mark Corallo, who dismissed San Francisco's Prop E as political grandstanding. "There's nothing in the Patriot Act that allows racial profiling and nothing in federal law that allows racial profiling," he said. "But why should the Board let the facts get in the way of a good piece of rhetoric?"
Oh, certainly, it's political grandstanding. Mr Corallo's remarks about racial profiling are entirely specious, however; whether or not profiling is allowed has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not it takes place.
Not that this will be remotely effective, of course. Faced with a procedure expressly designed to be obstructionist, the Justice department is simply likely to threaten the front-line personnel with jailtime unless they produce the subpoenaed records immediately, independent of any procedures put in place by the city. Thus, city employees will be faced with a quandary for any PATRIOT related requests: follow procedure, kick the request upstairs, and get jailed by the Justice department, or do as the department asks and produce the records, and get fired by the city.
Posted by iain at March 01, 2004 11:34 AM
