Chief wants to beef up homeland security prep
By: Brent Begin
Examiner Staff Writer
October 13, 2009
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| ‘Major target’: Police Chief George Gascón proposes to change Police Department rules that make gathering intelligence impossible as a means of improving the city's homeland security preparedness. Gascon said he considers San Francisco a major target for terrorists. (ASSOCIATED PRESS) |
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco is “terribly underprepared” to deal with an act of terrorism and the new police chief said steps must be taken to protect The City, which he considers to be a top choice for terrorists.
Chief George Gascón told The Examiner that homeland security is the one topic that keeps him awake at night.
“I think we are terribly underprepared to deal with an act of terrorism, and this city is a major target,” he said.
One of the many changes Gascón is looking at is a beefed up homeland security unit. The federal Department of Homeland Security has already given The City $1 million for an operations center that will be independent of the emergency management center on Turk Street.
“So you’re going to see me in the next few months talking about the need for us to develop a robust homeland security process,” Gascón said. “And we do have to collect intelligence and we have to be able to act upon it.”
The issue of gathering intelligence — which, along with working with landlords to increase building security and better collaborating with the FBI and other federal agencies, is a top priority for Gascón — will require a change in Police Department rules.
The City has strict limits on gathering intelligence and keeping files on people or groups, unless they are suspected of a crime. Those rules sprung from a scandal two decades ago involving an investigator who sold confidential SFPD information to an undercover spy.
San Francisco stopped gathering intelligence when roughly 10 different organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Asian Law Caucus, sued The City after the scandal hit in 1993. The lawsuit was eventually settled with assurances that police would revise policies.
General guidelines, which govern day-to-day operations, now hamper intelligence-gathering efforts.
“This city is a major target and [the] Police Department today can’t even collect intelligence,” Gascón said. “We’re the only major police department in the world that cannot collect intelligence.”
The proposal could also face opposition from outside groups.
Veena Dubal, a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus who represents people targeted by FBI surveillance, said the proposal is troubling.
“What I find problematic is that this city is on the cutting edge of political thought and free speech,” Dubal said. “A local intelligence-gathering effort will definitely have a chilling effect on First Amendment activities.”
The proposal has yet to go to the Police Commission. Gascón said he wants to reach out to the public and civil liberties groups before proceeding.
Gascón, however, said he thinks it’s odd that the SFPD would ban a practice because of one abuse.
Security breach prompted SFPD unit to close its doors
The Police Department’s counterintelligence unit was disbanded more than 15 years ago, in part as a response to an ugly chapter in The City’s history.
It all started with Tom Gerard, a former CIA agent and San Francisco police inspector, releasing confidential files on thousands of individuals under surveillance by the SFPD.
Gerard supplied the information, which included intelligence on more than 500 organizations and 100,000 individuals of every political stripe, to a man named Roy Bullock, according to a lawsuit settled in 2002.
Bullock admittedly collected the information on groups targeted by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights anti-Semitism and bigotry. Much of the information would end up in the hands of the South African government, which was allied with Israel at
the time.
The scandal erupted after Gerard fled to the Philippines and left behind a briefcase in his Police Department locker. Its contents included “passports, driver’s licenses and identification cards in 10 different names; identification cards in his own name for four American embassies in Central America; and a collection of blank birth certificates, Army discharge papers and official stationery from various agencies,” according to a Los Angeles Times article on the incident.
Gerard later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of illegally accessing government information. He was sentenced to 45 days in jail and ordered to pay a $2,500 fine.
The scandal prompted the Police Department to immediately shut down its intelligence-gathering unit. Guidelines for personnel also reflect the sensitivity the SFPD now uses, which basically bans investigations unless a crime has occurred or is about to occur.
Money to protect the Bay Area
Region receives millions of dollars annually from the Department of Homeland Security.
Regional funding
Urban Area Security Initiative
2008 $40,638,250
2009 $37,155,000
Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program
2008 $3,617,000
2009 $7,500,000
Source: Department of Homeland Security
bbegin@sfexaminer.com
