place with the fbi that puts our officers -- jttf officers -- under the supervision of the fbi and mandates they follow these guidelines. it is great we have heard assurances from the sfpd, great to hear the chief say this will not happen under our watch, but verbal assurances mean little when what is in writing and what is done by the city says the opposite. the solution in front of you is tried and true. has worked in portland and we know that it hasn't enabled law enforcement to engage counter- terrorism activities with local oversight and local rules. i encourage you to look at the broad support. more than 60 organizations, labor groups, and legal organizations have endorsed a solution before you. it is key to bonds and secured and liberty and our city. i also want to direct your attention to a number of -- i research community policing and local law enforcement involving

counter-terrorism activities. there are a number of activities that showed the increasing cost colon between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement in the counter-terrorism policing the environment has degraded the trust of local law enforcement has established through community policing reforms over the last 20 years. that makes us less safer. community members are less likely to come to law enforcement when they experience - or when there is impending acts of terrorism or other acts of violence. this is not just about profiling. it is all about our liberty and security. i want to thank you for endorsing and sponsoring this. i encourage its passage. thank you. supervisor avalos: a question for the supervisor sponsor, but those two police officers, are they paid for a fully by the city and county of san francisco, does the fbi and

budgeted for them? >> they are paid for by the city and county of san francisco but -- according to the 2007 mou -- they are put under the direct supervision of the fbi. their work in fbi headquarters, on golden gate and are obligated to follow federal guidelines. supervisor avalos: ok. thank you. supervisor kim: please line up if i had called your name. hitt otherwise, i will call others bigger cars. if you are no longer speaking, i will call up other speakers. >> thank you so much for holding this hearing. my name is -- i am on the board of directors from the asian american bar association. aaba is a broad coalition of bay

area bar association and several reorganizations. this coalition includes a coalition of san francisco, bay area association of muslim lawyers, san francisco hass -- a national lawyers guild of the sentences of bay area, iran and american bar association of california, bay area lawyers for individual freedom and the vietnamese american bar association of northern california. as well as other civil rights organizations such as the aclu, asian law caucus. this coalition urges the full board of supervisors to pass this ordinance do with the time i have remaining i want to read from a letter dated today from the president of the bar association of san francisco address to the board of supervisors. i will read excerpts and then submit the entire record. the bar association of san francisco encourages you to

enact the proposed save san francisco civil rights ordinance. on a measure enacted in portland, ore., local police and civil-rights communities, this the decision would ensure members of the police department participating in counter- terrorism activities may do so in a matter that is fully consistent with faith and local civil rights protections. over the years, we have been a leader in nurturing the standards. especially given our role in treating these standards, we were discovered -- we were unhappy to learn and that the sfpd entered into a memorandum with the fbi which would allow and the standard to be blocked. we also communicated our concerns to the police commission last year. this legislation is consistent with law standing for civil liberties and concern for the

rights of historical underrepresented and or marginalized communities. we respectfully ask that you support this important legislation. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. next we have -- george lipman. semaa. >> good afternoon. i am here as one of many professionals in the muslim community in the bay area. i am palestinian. i am their original project managers supervising transportation engineer, working with the state of california for the past 25 years. i have contributed for the past 20 years, to so many things in

seven cisco. i was the designer for the bay bridge, bay shore of san francisco, central freeway, and now product manager for doyle drive. there are many professionals serving the city and state with their hearts and minds. i just want to share with you, i was more fortunate than many others of my community members who have been interviewed once or twice with the fbi. the first week after 9/11, i was asked to meet with them. i was fortunate enough to have my legal side with me to push them aside. unfortunately, that is not the end of the story. every time i travel with -- overseas with my wife and children -- we have six

children. we are stopped every time and are asked the most subjective questions. my son was interrogated for three hours. questions like, how many lives are you going to marry? will you marry a suomi girl? all sorts of questions that are unfortunately on sounded for a reason. we love this city. we work so hard. i remember one night i was thinking how i would design parts of the bay bridge. i worked closely with many people, and i know i have so many colleagues who are doctors, ucsf, stanford. they are working so hard. we love this country. i came from palestine, graduated from high school. i lived through the intifada. that was a nightmare for everyone who had to go through it. i went to uc berkeley, got my

master's degree from george washington. i saw that this was the freedom land. unfortunately, we are seeing this come back again. we all love san francisco and we all stand up for its rights. we urge you all to support us. i appreciate your time. [applause] supervisor kim: thank you. >> my -- my name is george of the men. i am a resident of berkeley. in 1993, i was one of the hundreds of people illegally service and by a member of the sentences of police department and fbi to to my political and community activities. this experience heightened my awareness of governmental threats to our freedom and the urgency of civilian role of police intelligence gathering. today i am a member of the coalition for a safe berkeley. we have taken inspiration and

the name from our sister coalition in san francisco. i am also the chair of the peace and justice commission but i am speaking here only as thyself. our collision has learned officers from neighboring cities acting as agents of the jttf operate in berkeley in communities of color asking questions about people's political and religious views. also, the berkeley police department admits they sense a suspicious activity reports to the regional fusion center. s suchar -- one such sar included pictures of an individual taking pictures of a building. the center collects information from police agencies and corporations and the general public with no regard to first amendment or privacy safeguards and then forwarded to the fbi. a coalition for a safe berkeley is working with our city council to ensure our relationship

other police departments through mutual aid, and our own police department's criminal intelligence work all are governed by strict adherence to constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and assembly and equal protection under the law and california's constitutional right to privacy. i urge you to pass the save san francisco civil rights ordinance. your positive vote will be a message to leaders in berkeley and run the state and nation at the era of racial, political, please profiling is over. and the civilian leadership will step up and decree the progressive dollars for police work that will truly provide safety and security for us all. thank you. [applause] supervisor mar: i does wanted to thank george -- we miss you from san francisco in berkeley. thank you for your support for

an immigrant communities in the 1990's, the social justice part that you have done. it was terrible that you were interrogated like that. i appreciate your work on the other side of the day. thank you very much. [applause] oc>> i am involved with organizations in san francisco. i am not as eloquent as these people. my family and i were so impacted by this. i lost my job because they

approached my colleagues. people said the i am a criminal. i am not a criminal. this has impacted my life, my family, my wife, my daughters. we did not know who to talk to for three years. i do not know how to sum up three years in three minutes. it has had -- it has been an horrendous time for us. we are just regular people. just going to the grocery store, people following you. at the beginning, i went to the police department. i told them, i am being followed by some people. one week later, i was followed

by police in uniform through the streets of san francisco. we cannot even talk to the police now. i am begging you to vote on this. it is really a civil rights issue. we are just regular people like everyone else. the fact that we are muslim does not mean that we are bad people. we are just regular people. i have lived here for more than nine years. we has it -- have a positive impact. we have been up and down the economy. we have a study like to try to help our community and people. thank you for the opportunity to talk to you. thank you. [applause] supervisor kim: thank you. >> good afternoon. i would like to thank the public safety committee for allowing me to speak about the opportunity

you have in protecting the civil rights for our entire community. my name is karen. i and the co-founder of the -- institute for civil rights and education at asian law caucus. we need to remember the lessons of history. just 11 days ago on february 19, we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the executive order 9066 that gave the military authority to force remove anyone of japanese ancestry from the west coast and mass incarcerate them into u.s. concentration camps during world war ii. many of those people were citizens and non-citizen that lived here in san francisco. i would like to thank supervisor mar for being a part of our recent program in recognizing on behalf of the san francisco board of supervisors the significance of continually educating the public about the importance of protecting our civil liberties for all.

after 9/11, let me remind you, it was my father and the japanese-american community who first spoke up to warn of the dangers of surveillance and racial profiling by law- enforcement agencies against the arab, middle eastern, muslim, and south asian communities, just because they look like the enemy. it is more important than ever for local cities and this apologies to uphold the civil and human rights for all their residents. our local of government is often the first, last, and perhaps the only defense protecting our community members in the face of federal targeting and racial discrimination. in the wake of the recently signed national defense authorization act, the committee and board of supervisors can take a significant leadership role for san francisco as a key model for the rest of the country. i strongly urge you to pass the

save san francisco civil rights ordinance and signed into law. we are counting on you. let my father be your courage to go forward and do what he did. by standing up for what is right. thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. thank you, all of you, for listening to these incredible people and their incredible stories. they are very brave to come up here and share a lot of what has been difficult to talk about. i am here in my capacity as a former president of the bay area association [inaudible] and my three years on the board, we fill many concerns from the community. in the interest of times, i will ship three with you. we feel the question from high school students, college students, and graduate students who were contacted by the fbi

about their affiliations, friends, family, and their contacts. especially in their country of lineage. whether or not they had been to their country of lineage. we had been contacted by concerned parents of elementary school students who attended an islamic charter school who were appalled at the fbi i creating a junior agent program at the school and question children about their parents, parents affiliation, friends, and weekend activities. we have been contacted by business professionals who were stopped at the border, who had their laptops and telephones searched or taken away. they were afraid to speak out because they are scared to lose their jobs, and are afraid of being blackballed from future employment. i was stopped at the border myself when i returned. my friends who are part of muslim advocates, and nationals of our rights organization, approached me and said, would

you come forward and give us your story? what happened to you at the border? i said, it was not that bad. i was able to talk my way out of it. there are so many people with so many worse or resolution be highlighting. they responded, we would love to, but they will not come forward. they are too scared. the problem we face as attorneys, when we get these questions, we cannot answer what is happening at the federal level or at the municipal level. this ordinance will help us answer these questions because it provides transparency. it prevents the fbi from creating secret agreements with municipal police, and to be -- allow the mou is bad policing and contradicts the san francisco values. the ordinance has a sunshine provision and it should be approved. thank you. [applause] supervisor kim: thank you, ms. padilla -- abdullah.

>> thank you. respected board, public safety committee members, i am a u.s. citizen. i am an arab american community leader and a human rights activist originally from yemen. i am an arab american that has lived in this country for over 15 years. in all my time here, i have lived among many other arab- americans, who along with me, are being mistreated for no reason, just because of the way we look at who we are. we are being harassed and mistreated by the law- enforcement authorities. they treated us as if we were second-class citizens. i am an arab-american. i have responsibilities and rights as a citizen in this country. i look forward to local policy that will respect my constitutional rights, local policy that will protect my

basic human rights and dignity and respect my existence as a part of this nation. this act of discrimination is impacting our community's help by causing stress, fear, and fear impacting our community education, growth, and development. we are community members appeared we need to be able to turn to government agencies and law enforcement, including federal officers, for justice, leadership, and protection. instead, we feel less safe as a result of such biased and unacceptable acts of discrimination. despite racial profiling that puts innocent people behind bars, based on assumptions and a logical fax, we do not deserve this type of discrimination. therefore, we urge you all to act now and take a step towards resolving this crisis by doing what needs to be done to end

this tragedy. past the san francisco civil rights ordinance today. vote yes for our protection. [applause] supervisor supervisor kim: i am going to call five more names -- [reading names] >> peace and blessings be upon you. i'm the president of the muslim student association at uc- berkeley. i have come here to speak today about the experiences of students and our communities have been impact on college campuses. in this alarming climate of surveillance and discrimination, when i entered the university, i was told this

was going to be a safe space for learning and as a student, was free to wrestle with new and averse understandings of the world. i could be a marxist one week and next week for with transnational feminism. i could attend speeches by the foremost scholars of the world that this was the spirit and assets of student said. in my four years in the university, i found a vastly different reality. what i encountered instead were informants, the cameras, and interrogations' act every major student-run conference, panel, and protest on our campuses. what i encountered instead was a legal prosecution of student activists. what i found were students afraid to speak out on their respected -- respective campuses, in international students afraid of being deported or having their visas revoked. students were told by family

members to stay away from community organizing, to stick their noses and their books, and focus on getting into medical school. stay out of trouble has been the mantra of our parents and it has led to a chilling sirens -- chilling it silence in our community. this is not safety. this not security. this is not the spirit of education. as a student whose educational experiences have been characterized by constantly glancing over my shoulder, wondering if my phone has been tapped, i asked the city of san francisco stand with civil- rights today and do its part in mitigating, rather than acting out accomplices in this climate of surveillance, profiling and discrimination. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> hello, supervisors. i'm the executive director of lyric, a 23-rolled nonprofit

primarily work in castro. 11% of the u.k. server immigrant youth. with so many struggling to find safety and acceptance and their families and communities, it's our responsibility to ensure our city agencies, including our police department act within the confines of local control, local values, and local oversight. only then can we legitimately say we're working collaborative leigh. officials and advocates to assure a safe community for all. i'm here to voice support for the san francisco civil rights ordinance and give support to supervisor jane kim for bringing this ordinance formant -- ford. this -- bringing this ordinance for.

this will offer a local police agencies to work with the fbi without sacrificing local control, local police, local oversight. it's my honor to speak among some a strong community voices and support the safe san francisco civil rights ordinance to protect the civil rights and civil liberties of every individual in our community and work to provide alternatives to policies that disproportionately target people of color, emigrants, and other marginalized community members. thank you. supervisor kim: thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm from the grocer's association in san francisco. i stand with you in full support of the safe civil-rights ordinance. we urge you to add your vocal support to the growing coalition

behind this legislation. as representatives of a robust neighborhood grocers association consisting of 450 members, we continue to advocate for and organize the community of minority-on businesses that play a crucial role in neighborhood stabilization. this legislation goes a long way toward reaffirming the city's previous commitments to the civil rights for all san francisco residents as well as ensuring san francisco has a local oversight of the san francisco police department's interrogations and surveillance techniques. it provides guidelines for intelligence gathering that insurers our minority small businesses, mosques, churches, and community organizations can continue to develop trusting and mutually respectful relationships with local police.

it is imperative we work together to create safe and healthy neighborhoods. and our small business owners are a critical component of this model. they are the eyes and familiar faces on the street every day, greeting customers, providing jobs to local residents, sometimes working round-the- clock to provide important neighborhood services. in order to maintain an open and effective working relationship with our neighborhood police, we must safeguard an environment of trust and respect. we are hard-working and a tight knit community and we deserve the opportunity to contribute to our local economy and social fabric without fear and harassment. we hope you are able to value the unique and important role we play and are neighborhoods across the city and ultimately

defend our civil-rights. we ask for your support in helping to achieve a better san francisco that is safe and welcoming for all. [applause] supervisor kim: thank you. >> good morning, supervisors. thank you for allowing me to participate in this hearing today. i would like to express my support and appreciation for the committee members who have come to speak out today. i am for a national organization works to guarantee civil rights through all legal advocacy and the civic education. over the past few months and

zero weeks, we have to engage with our partners in new york about continuing revelations about how the nypd is violating the civil rights of law-abiding new yorkers. it is doing so by targeting communities based not on any evidence of individualize wrongdoing or suspicion of criminal activity, but based solely on their race, ethnicity or origin. this should sound familiar now given the testimony we have heard today. the associated press has been issuing a series of investigative reports about the surveillance and intelligence gathering programs targeting the american muslim community. some of the information that has come out as they have surveiled more than two minutes 50 mosques and businesses. they have a map through which