-- with that preclude deputization? >> the concept is something that the federal government provides to local entities. if you think about this, the police commission could pass a resolution saying we are going to notify that we are doing the transition, we are opting out of the mou in 60 days, here are the standards we want to apply, something like the 2002 mou, but the police commission does not have the authority to grant federal deputization. you can ask the federal government if they would be willing to do that outside of the mou context. typically, the federal government wants the mou for that. the practical effect i think would be nil because

deputization is so they can exercise federal power. you don't need them to do that. you want them to exercise local power. does that answer your question? >> if i may, just keep in mind, the resolution in portland was a city council resolution. it was not a resolution of a civilian oversight body. it was a resolution of the city council of portland. obviously, different power structure. >> the city government in portland, there is a civilian commissioner for public safety who happens to be the mayor. the commission is incorporated into the city council. in our government, the police commission is the governing entity and it would have the power. supervisors probably would, but i assume the police commission is the appropriate body to ask first. >> it would not necessarily

preclude the mou that aligns with that. >> absolutely. the mou is between two parties. the fbi has told us they will not change the current mou. maybe you can convince them otherwise. >> i would hope the mou could be passed. later on, it would reflect the resolution and allow for deputization, if that is needed. >> that would be fantastic. president mazzucco: further comments? i think it is time to move to public comment. >> comment on item two. >> we will have people lined up to make their comments. due to the volume of the expected comments come a commission is setting the timer at two minutes.

>> commissioners, thank you for letting me speak one more time. i would like to say san francisco ain't portland. i don't know what portland can do to mimic san francisco, but i'm a resident of this county. if you look at the blocks and the last mayor selection, 70% of the people in this county did not vote because you worried more about orders that the police are supposed to carry out. the fbi isn't even here to give their point or view. i would like to hear what a federal government has to say whether the local police should enforce federal laws or not. dennis spent 60 days in washington, d.c., off and on when the center laws were put into effect because the federal government said they would come down to san francisco and arrest up to 50 people. we was doing a road show back

and forth for several weeks to stop that. as a resident of the county of san francisco, i would like the murder rate to go down. i would like the crime rate to go down. i have a lot of issues with the sfpd. i have been voicing them for 19 months in front of the commission. doing their jobs is not one of them. this city has a crime rate probably unmatched by any county or city in the country. you worry more about the ethnic community when a lot of the ethnic people in the community are worried about it themselves. it just so happens that a lot of crime in this city is coming from the ethnic community. the majority of them are not to blame. it is a very small percentage. you keep protecting them. we have murderers on the street. muggers are on the street. they are still on the street.

i have seen the network. [tone] >> members, i am the director of open government. in 2008, i had the privilege and responsibility of being a field election deputy for the primary and general elections that were held here in san francisco. the areas in the precinct over which i had oversight were in the bayview hunters point area. the number one question i received from both members of the public and from my precinct captains was whether or not there was any truth to the idea that the police department, the sheriff's department, and the department of the elections had gotten together, got in a list of all people with outstanding warrants, and collated them with the precincts in which they were scheduled to vote. i don't think anyone here has

any doubt that there are serious questions about the relations between the police department and various sectors of this community. here we're talking about the relationship between the arab- american, muslim american communities, and the police department. i think the thing we did in september 11 that shot ourselves in the foot was we took actions which alienated the vast majority of those communities who would have been the perfect people to work with us hand in glove to fight the very things that we were a poured by the and they themselves had an equal level of shock. we did things which alienated them and have them go back to man those bridges to get those cooperation. these are the people who would of had the information nor could of got in the information that would have made our jobs easier.

i think 95% or better of the officers have excellent performance and ideas in this area. i think it is those majority that and of dealing with the public. [tone] they have the perception they may not follow the law, which makes their job harder. >> good evening. 1960's, there was a major house on activity -- house un-american activities committee. there's a dark history here. i'm a board member of the national organization. this was conceived and organized in 1960, known as the national organization to undo the house un-american activities committee. i am here as a concerned

citizen surprised by the steps san francisco has taken. there's a long diversity of opinions of dissent. this seems to a blended with the signing of the jttf agreement. your local tourist action is being served by organizations. as a result, your police department is more accountable to the federal government than to the community it is supposed to serve. the agreement also has an oversight body for the preservation of community policing. it makes any human rights complaints almost useless. they would have to go to the fbi. over the past 10 years, many

arab-americans have been subject to intense and unwarranted scrutiny -- scrutiny by such organizations, like the fbi and others. it has not only been the fbi. people have been alienated from civic participation. [tone] sfpd should recall what john crew mentioned, the expos pay. >> your time is up. sorry. >> yesterday we shredded the bill of rights. today by being part of the jttf, is treading it's part of the bill of rights. i call on your good conscience for you to urge the board of

supervisors -- >> sir? thank you. next speaker, please. >> the evening. i am the student national vice president for the guild and the national lawyers guild here in san francisco. i want to thank you for holding this hearing. i feel like this entire thing is about local control and transparency. i think there was a number of perceptive questions from commissioners regarding the bureau order and the local patrol issue. i think what needs to be really clear, as far as i understand it, and mr. crew pointed out, the bureau order does not supersede the mou. that is the core issue. i urge you to consider the issue of a resolution. i was at the police commission meeting a couple months ago where the audit was discussed.

there was not a lot of information. i don't think it is clear that it can actually be fully in place when we are in the mou because the audit -- it is not clear what we can access when we are in the mou as the way it is structured. one of the provisions is that the files on jttf investigations are not kept with the san francisco police department. a lot of things are not clear. it is not clear how much information we can access. i think those are the issues that really get to local control. as everyone as mentioned, the fbi is not here. that goes to the issue that everybody here is very concerned about civil liberties and the issues that have been raised, but those things cannot be addressed unless we have a local control that we cannot have with the mou, particularly as it

currently is written. [tone] thank you. >> and didn't start the clock yet, right? so i want to thank theresa

sparks for putting this on, and i am glad you all are meeting together. i am not a san francisco resident. i work in this city a few days a week. i'm considering moving to san francisco at the end of the year. i am here because i have experience with the fbi. in 2002, i was the national director of an education fund. i move from the san francisco beria to washington to do civil rights work. i did that for three years and i serve on the national board of the aclu. i am not representing either organization today. during my tenure, i trained 7000 law enforcement officials, including the fbi, the joint task force, and others. we did some of this work under the department justices

community relations service. when a train on the issues, a key factor was trust between me as a trainer and the law enforcement officials that were there to learn about how to culturally, competently work with our communities. there were specifics mentioned in the presentation. within the muslim community, the case in l.a., the muslim public affairs council and many others worked with the fbi for a year on that one case. it reduced and eliminated funds that have been built over the years. if i decide to move to san francisco, we don't want what happened to a 16-room boy after 9/11 when he was taking a picture in maryland, hours

later, an fbi agent showed up at his door in virginia and asked to see who he was and what he was doing. i don't want that to happen at the golden gate bridge if we have children and their photograph thing it. -- photograph in it. -- photographing it. [applause] >> good evening, everyone. i would like to thank theresa sparks and human rights commission for holding this meeting. i worked in san francisco, but i came from the washington, d.c., area, where i trained local law enforcement on difficult issues such as sexual assault and domestic violence, addressing how those issues play out in immigrant communities. there is under-reporting in these communities as far as reporting violent crime. what the mou does is continue to

encourage that under-reporting and communicate that there are communities that have a separate level of protection. what i have learned from my experience in virginia with the movement toward deputizing local law enforcement so they have the ability to enforce federal law is that there is a perforated profound loss of trust. people who need to call 911 will not pick up the phone if they are being abused, it very victim of a violent crime, whatever that crime may be. i would like to support the resolution put forth by the asian law caucus and aclu as a solution that is representing a sensible level of independence and collaboration between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement.

thank you. >> good evening. my name is michael and i'm the president of the national lawyers guild in the san francisco bay area. we are a human rights legal organization made up of lawyers and other illegal workers with nearly 1000 members here in the bay and thousands of members across the country. our members know it is important to maintain constitutional protections in the bill of rights, the california right to privacy, and locally, the department general order 8.10. there's a reason we have these protections. there's a history of officers of using their powers. we need to maintain our protection to maintain liberties. we need effective civilian oversight of the police.

i think that means that we need to adopt the portland resolution route of maintaining oversight. the national lawyers guild has its own history of being persecuted for constitutionally protected reasons. the house un-american activities investigations persecuted many nlg members and ruined people's reputations and lives. they accuse them of being communists. we all know what is wrong with that and what was wrong with that persecution. we don't want to repeat that today. today we are in a climate of increased racism and xenophobia. that affects everybody. we see it on the news, in the media, and it is affecting the police officers. we need to make sure we maintain

strong controls over the police. that means we should adopt a resolution. [tone -- [tone] >> i am the equal justice work er. we do civil rights legislation. i will defer most of my time to the person behind me, but over the last year, i've worked in two cases involving fbi abuses. one is a case in southern california. another is in chicago. i want to say that i don't think the san francisco police department wants to be involved in the use and misuse of power like the use of informants, the use of technology, illegal technology, that the fbi is

involved in. i think the proposal put forth today not only protect communities in san francisco, it protects the police department from being involved in activities that it probably does not want to get involved in. thank you. i defer the rest of my time. >> good evening. i would like to thank everyone for being here tonight. i'm originally from the country of yemen. i am a community leader, secretary-treasurer. i have lived in this country for more than 15 years. i was personally approached by the fbi two weeks after writing a letter to police chief gascon in 2010 asking for his help in

dealing with problems we were having with the authorities. in all my time here, i have seen people being mistreated for no reason. it is because of the way we look and who we are. we are being harassed and mistreated by the u.s. armed forces -- armed authorities. they treat us as though we are second-class citizens. these acts are attacking our dignity, our identity. they're denying our existence in society. these acts of discrimination are impacting our community. it also impacts education, growth, and development.

i have responsibilities and rights as a u.s. citizen. if this citizenship cannot protect my basic human rights, and dignity, and respect my existence as a part of society, [tone] we do not deserve this type of discrimination. i urge you to act and take a step toward resolving this crisis by doing what needs to be done to end this tragedy. thanks so much. >> thank you. [applause] >> good evening. first and foremost, i would like to thank the police commission and the hrc. chief suhr, one thing i would like to say is strength in the

trust between the community and the sfpd by supporting the initiative that was passed in portland. i am a community of record nadir. -- i am a community leader. our members have been scared to death about coming to our mosque just to pray or attend one of our dinners. it is to a point where many of the members don't want to come to our center. they go to santa clara, fremont, or elsewhere. they say they don't want to be spied upon. you have to do something to increase the trust between the community and the san francisco police department. also, what i am really upset about is while this hearing is going on, why is the fbi not present?

as a coordinator, i go to many commissions. i have gone to the entertainment commission hearing were the fbi serves no purpose. they were there. maybe we should have free food next time. please, they should be here. this is something that relates to them. the entertainment commission has nothing to do with them. they should be here discussing with you. if we are wrong, they should address that in front of us. thank you very much. [applause] >> good evening. i am an iranian american attorney. i came to this country about 16 years ago to go to college. until the point, i lived in four different countries across three continents. unlike my other friends, who felt excited to go home for long holidays or after vacation, i felt like i belong to know where. i did not have a home.

these days, it is different for me, whether i am driving down the freeway, or even on a rainy day, i feel like i have a home. i belong. it would be sad to have that feeling again. over 2500 years ago, the persian king wrote and reminded himself that in all his conquests, "i kept in view the needs of the people and all their sanctuaries to promote their well-being." if you listen to the testimony before us today, there is no dispute that the community is telling you that there needs and their sanctuaries are no longer kept in view by our laws, policies, mou's and partnerships. you will hear that the community is no longer feeling safe in cities. they feel unwelcome, unwanted,

and targeted. i sincerely hope that 2500 years later, if not better than where we were then, we can at least do as well. we can revisit and rethink our laws, policies, and mou's and partnerships, and reverse the direction. it is a wonderful feeling of being safe and feeling at home. [applause] >> hello. i am a research associate at the school of medicine. i am here tonight because security is an important issue to me and i feel the security of over 300 million people in this country should matter. i also feel that after my experiences, the fbi will go to any length to do what they believe is protecting security.

what they believe is not necessarily what will secure our security. i want to give you an example. in 2009, i had a friend stopped by tsa while boarding a flight. they took him to a back room. fbi arrived and interrogated him. they asked if his wife worked a job. he is a resident of lebanon. they asked him how far away he lived from the security barriers. they proceeded to arrest him. they did not taken to a magistrate within 24 hours. many other things. at 1 point, they asked him, they got agitated, and they said, do you want us to shoot you? the right leg or the left like? -- leg? they charged him with bank fraud. this was at a time when people

on wall street were running away with billions of dollars. the agent lied in one instance, saying that he had told us about these charges. before the grand jury, -- he had said the reason he followed this because it is what he told us in interrogations'. bottom line is i don't feel safe. i live in fear for me and my family. sometimes i think, take me to jail. that way i don't have to pay -- [tone] that is all i have to say. [applause] >> my name is vera and i'm with the immigrants' rights commission. i was hoping to see the report on your sept. 2010 meeting. i was there and we have not seen

the report. i was so happy to see that the recommendations are being acted on from that report. our president was here a little earlier, but he had to leave. i wanted to let you know that we are certainly -- we do have a town hall meetings and we would like to have more. we have never read meetings and we often get complaints at our monthly meetings at city hall especially about the airport. the idea of having an ombudsman at the airport makes a great deal of sense, if we could help in that some way, it would be marvelous. people are harassed and kept longer and kept overnight sometimes while they're being questioned. i know the sfpd cannot be the police there. we have an