suing the city<\/a>, asking the San Diego Superior Court to force the police department to cease and desist.<\/p>\nThe city previously said sharing information with trusted law enforcement partners is the cornerstone of effective policing, so city leaders met Tuesday night in a special closed session to discuss their next move: whether to comply with the state’s demand or fight it.<\/p>\n
In less than an hour behind closed doors, El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells emerged more convinced than ever that the police department is following the letter of the law and that such a lawsuit is unwarranted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a first for me,\u201d Wells said.<\/p>\n
Bonta sued the city of El Cajon for allegedly violating the 10-year-old law, known as Senate Bill 34. Bonta says it prohibits California law enforcement agencies from sharing Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) information with federal and out-of-state law enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a law enforcement agency deliberately and stubbornly refuses to follow the law, there is a problem,\u201d Bonta said.<\/p>\n
The ALPR cameras automatically record the plate number, time, date and location of passing vehicles. Wells says the data isn\u2019t shared with federal agents and that it doesn\u2019t include such sensitive information as immigration status or gender identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the news conference itself, Attorney General Bonta said we have no evidence of this happening, but it could happen,” Wells said. “I just don\u2019t think that’s how the law works.”<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCalifornia Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the city of El Cajon for allegedly violating state law by sharing automated license plate reader data with federal authorities and law enforcement officials. NBC 7 political reporter Joey Safchik reports.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Bonta did not provide specific information about such mismanagement of information in his news conference but says it undermines the public trust.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cWe no longer have a say over whether it will be misused, whether that is for immigration enforcement, surveillance of protesters, tracking individuals traveling here for reproductive care or gender affirming care,” Bonta said.<\/p>\n
The city isn\u2019t under any specific deadline to respond to the state\u2019s demand, although the mayor says he\u2019d like this matter cleared up sooner than later.<\/p>\n
Bonta\u2019s lawsuit against El Cajon comes just as California Gov.\u00a0Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 274<\/a>, which would have put tighter regulations on police tracking technology. Law enforcement groups argued the law could hinder criminal investigations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city of El Cajon says it won’t back down from the state pressure to stop sharing license…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":285899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,21030,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-285898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-el-cajon","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115337272059060154","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}