Nor does the broad requirement that prior to implementing a speed safety program the local governing body assess the potential impact “on civil liberties and civil rights,” which does not specify the criteria for assessing the extent or nature of impact. This reflects a clear trend amongst automated enforcement mechanisms – they are routinely found to disproportionately target and ticket drivers in BIPOC neighborhoods.ĪB 645’s vague requirement that placements be geographically diversified and across neighborhoods of varying income does not sufficiently address the racial justice implications at play. Similarly, in the District of Columbia, where photo enforcement accounts for 96 percent of citations and 97 percent of fines, drivers in Black-segregated areas were over seventeen times more likely to receive a moving violation than drivers in white-segregated areas. Īs such, implementation of AB 645 risks the same results as those found in Chicago, where between 20, speed cameras ticketed households in majority Black and Latinx ZIP codes at two times the rate of majority white ZIP codes. The bill proposes that camera systems may be placed on a “safety corridor,” the designation of which will take into account collision data and numbers of traffic injuries and fatalities.” But in Oakland, for example, the network of streets throughout the city where historically over 60 percent of annual severe and fatal crashes have occurred covers areas that census data indicates would have higher concentrations of BIPOC and low-income community members. ĪB 645 posits that: “Speed safety systems can advance equity by improving reliability and fairness in traffic enforcement.” However, the risk of racially disparate enforcement embedded in this bill is clear. A 2021 lawsuit additionally alleged that the police department stored the data associated with this targeting for years and gave the FBI unfettered access to the stored data. In Oakland, one of the pilot cities designated by AB 645, a 2015 report showed that police used car-mounted license plate readers to disproportionately target low-income and BIPOC communities. The California Highway Patrol conducted widespread aerial surveillance of demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd, including zooming in to record footage of protesters’ faces, speakers at vigils, and even protesters dancing. Ĭalifornia is by no means exempt from this history of abuse. From the targeting of civil rights leaders under the 1960s-era federal surveillance program known as COINTELPRO, to the widespread ariel surveillance of demonstrators during the Black-led protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, communities of color endure privacy abuses that are deeply felt and illustrate the harms that unnecessary use of surveillance technology pose. ASE will continue and replicate racial bias.Ĭommunities of color have experienced a long and painful history of government abuse of surveillance measures in the name of public safety. Communities need investments in public transportation and traffic calming infrastructure – not cameras – to keep them safe. This will create overlapping, racially disparate enforcement schemes that risk the misuse and misappropriation of surveillance equipment. These communities are already over-surveilled, over-policed, and historically disinvested from.ĪB 654 expands surveillance without any corresponding commitments to decreasing traditional policing of traffic enforcement. AB 645 implements automated speed enforcement (ASE), establishing a surveillance infrastructure that will generate fines on a massive scale and almost certainly disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and people of Color (BIPOC) communities. Human Rights Watch has carefully reviewed AB 645 and the amendments to AB 645 and must respectfully voice our opposition. See more images for back to Speedzone Dallas, 11.RE: Human Rights Watch’s Opposition to AB 645- as amended August 22, 2023
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