March 6, 2018
Senator Steven Bradford
State Capitol, Room 2062
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: (916) 651-4035
Fax: (916) 651-4935
Re:

S.B. 978 – SUPPORT

Dear Senator Bradford,
I am writing today on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco that protects civil liberties in the
digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF has over 44,000 members, including
thousands in California.
EFF lends our strong support to S.B. 978, the legislation you have
introduced to require law enforcement agencies to post their current
standards, practices, policies, operating procedures, and education and
training materials online.
We believe that the resulting enhanced transparency from the passage of this
bill will lead to greater accountability and better relations between law
enforcement agencies and the communities they serve. It will help address
the increased public interest and concern about police policies in recent
years, including around the issues of use of force, less-lethal weapons, bodyworn cameras, anti-bias training, biometric identification and collection, and
surveillance (such as social media analysis, automated license plate
recognition, cell-site simulators, and drones).
Additionally, policies governing police activities should be readily available
for review and scrutiny by the public, policymakers, and advocacy groups.
Not only will this transparency measure result in well-informed policy
decisions, but it will also provide the public with a clearer understanding of
what to expect and how to behave during police encounters. In addition, this
information will help the public to better identify when officers have

 violated policies, which will facilitate the filing of complaints with oversight
bodies, potentially reducing the number of unfounded complaints.
EFF commends you for introducing this legislation. We do, however, have
three suggestions to improve the bill:
1) Please move the deadline for publishing these policies from January 1,
2020 to January 1, 2019.
2) Please require that the materials posted online in compliance with S.B.
978 be done in a text-searchable format.
3) Please add language allowing a member of the public to bring a legal
action to compel law enforcement agencies to post these documents
online if they fail to comply with these statutory requirements.
Please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss how we may further lend our
assistance to passing S.B. 978. I may be reached by email at amul@eff.org
or by phone at 415-436-9333 ext. 159.
Sincerely,

Amul Kalia
Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation

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