The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • A6

Plans to expand surveillance on BART in response to the prominent slaying of Nia Wilson have privacy advocates concerned that transit officials are seizing on the moment in an attempt to roll out potentially invasive technologies. General Manager Grace Crunican has proposed to spend $15 million on upgrading security cameras and $4 million on installing video software designed to alert authorities when an incident occurs in the system. She has also proposed video screens in stations that would display live foot- age from the area. The proposals are part of a $28 mil- lion Safety and Security Action Plan up for discussion on Thursday at the BART Board of Directors meeting. The plans come as BART faces pressure to reduce crime after Wil- son and her sister were stabbed while transferring trains at MacArthur Station on July 22.

Wilson, 18, died. Police later identified 27-year-old John Lee Cowell, a transient man from Concord, as the suspect through survelliance footage and arrested him after a brief manhunt. He has since been charged with murder. The killing drew national attention, with many specu- lating that race motivated the stabbing because Wilson was black and Cowell is white. Prosecutors have found no evidence to prove that is the case.

Responding to the furor, Crunican revealed the security plans on Monday and said in a statement, has always been focused on public safety but clear that we must do even But the lack of information included in the proposals has prompted some including Brian Hofer, chair of the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission, to question SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER SFE AMINER.COM 6 DAY, AU 9 2 0 1 8 LOCAL NEWS FOR SAN FRANCISCOTHE CITY BART plans to expand surveillance after stabbing Security proposal raises concern among privacy advocates By Michael Barba S.F. Examiner Staff Writer Jewish students renew efforts to sue SFSU leadership over alleged anti-semitism By Laura Waxmann S.F. Examiner Staff Writer Dozens rallied at San Francisco Federal Courthouse Wednesday after Jewish San Francisco State University students and community members filed a second complaint alleging discrimination and civil rights violations against a Palestin- ian professor and the leadership. A previous complaint filed last June on behalf of the plaintiffs by the Lawfare project, a non-profit litigation fund with the self declared mission of protecting and human rights of the Jewish people was ordered dismissed by a U.S. district judge in March.

The new complaint, filed in March and amended in June, also implicates members of SF administra- tion, including President Leslie Wong, the SFSU board of trustees, and the California State University board of trustees in allegedly allowing a of to prevail on campus. are here today to protect victims of discrimination whose com- plaints to SFSU and CSU have fallen on deaf ears for said Amanda Berman, an attorney with the Law- fare Project, at a press conference held prior to a pre-trial hearing in the lawsuit on Wednesday. we are given the opportunity to present the abundant evidence sup- porting our clients claims to a jury, we are confident the jury will find conclusive and systemic anti-sem- itism, free speech suppression and equal protection violations at SF she said. Burman specifically cited two on-campus incidents in 2016 and 2017 in which the defendants claimed that the leadership failed to protect them from discrimination and censor student groups that pub- licly criticized Israeli policies. According to the complaint, SF Hillel, an international Jewish cam- pus organization, was improperly excluded from an on-campus civil rights information fair in 2017.

Masha Merkulova, one of the plain- tiffs, who described herself as an SF State community member, said that she is looking for after an event that she attended at SF State at which Jerusalem Mayor Nir Bar- kat was scheduled to speak. Barkat was interrupted by student groups claiming solidarity with the struggle to free Palestine. came to state to hear a speaker and I was unable to. We were threat- ened, shouted at, cursed said Merkulova. is not OK.

Some- body has to stand up and say, The fact was the speech was shut down and I was prevented from hear- ing a speaker and asking questions. Rabab Abdulhadi, a professor of both Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas and Race and Resis- tance Studies, said that the lawsuit aims to not only silence her and infringe on her academic freedom, but on-campus activism by students and other professors, and amounts to claim is that telling the students to be politically active, which is not true, but for them the Criminal justice news for San Francisco Cowell how the proposals will improve pub- lic safety. literally provided no analysis of how PSIM will protect the Nia Wilsons of the Hofer said Wednesday, referring to the pro- posed Physical Security Information Management System, the analytics software that would notify police. Crunican explained in the proposal that PSIM capable of monitoring thousands of simultaneous video streams and automating response recommenda- tions BART police dispatch. The program would be connected with 2,000 cameras already in the system and another 1,500 that Cru- nican has proposed converting from analog to digital format under her camera improvement plan.

Hofer told the San Francisco Examiner another issue is that the proposals do not currently specify what data would be collected, shared or retained. is no policy, there is no analysis, there is Hofer said. of the moment in with Nia Wilson, just trying to rush this through. They need to really tell us what Jim Allison, a spokesperson for BART, said the system is not con- sidering using facial recognition technology under the PSIM software. The use of such software would likely raise privacy and civil liberties con- cerns for activists.

Facial recognition has also been known to incorrectly identify individuals. are not introducing a facial recognition technology now because we need to know more about its effec- tiveness and Allison told the Examiner in an email. are also not introducing anything that would allow the agency to track or store cell phone But BART board member Nick Josefowitz, a candidate for District 2 supervisor in San Francisco, has separately proposed installing facial recognition software identify those with warrants for violent fel- onies entering the must use the best available technology to confront challenges in our community, including Josefowitz said in a statement, while adding the caveats that, we have strong oversight and privacy policies, and if there are significant civil rights impacts, we should cer- tainly not BART board member Rebecca Saltzman said she is against using facial recognition. think privacy is a serious concern and we need to bal- ance that with safety and Saltzman told the Examiner. Saltzman said she would not support any proposals to expand surveillance until the board passes a long-awaited surveillance policy being written with privacy activists.

The policy is expected to be up for a vote in the fall. She also noted the lack of details in the proposals. do have concerns but we have very little information at this Saltzman said. The BART board is only expected to vote Thursday on a $800,000 pro- posal from Crunican to hire two fare inspectors immediately to work in the evenings. The proposal also recom- mends BART hire more inspectors next fiscal year.

truth is not the said Abdul- hadi, alleging that the motives are to take her of busi- see me as an outspoken faculty member who researches, who teaches, who supports activism and advocacy not only for Palestine but for justice for Abdulhadi said she has previously been the target of poster campaigns on campus by conservative groups claiming that she supports terrorism. Former San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar, who now is a professor in the Asian American Studies Depart- ment at SF State, attended the rally and hearing in support of Abdulhadi. well-funded campaigns are really harmful to the careers of great community activists and professors like said Mar. has a chilling effect on many of the rest of LAURA EXAMINER Plaintiff Masha Merkulova, left, and Lawfare Project attorney Amanda Berman, right, claim SFSU has failed to protect its Jewish students from anti-semitism..