Judge backs SF in Union Square surveillance lawsuit
A San Francisco judge has sided with the city in a lawsuit alleging that the San Francisco Police Department illegally spied on protesters in Union Square.
Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer issued his ruling February 9 granting the city's motion for summary judgment. As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, both sides motioned for summary judgment in the case of Williams v.
San Francisco and made their arguments on January 21 and February 1. In the case, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union alleged that police conducted mass surveillance on the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in late spring 2020 by commandeering private security cameras in the Union Square area.The plaintiffs in the suit were protesting the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
They are lead plaintiff Hope Williams, a member of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, Nathan Sheard, and Nestor Reyes. Their attorneys argued that the use of the security cameras was illegal under a city ordinance passed by the Board of Supervisors in 2019 that requires any city department to obtain board approval prior to acquiring, using, or borrowing any surveillance technologies, except in "exigent circumstances." In an unrelated case, the United States Supreme Court in 2013 defined exigent circumstances as being "a variety of circumstances [which] may give rise to an exigency sufficient to justify a warrantless search, including law enforcement's need to provide emergency assistance to an occupant of a home ...engage in 'hot pursuit' of a fleeing suspect ...
