By Bruce Wolfe, HANC President
Coming up on the November ballot is Prop B - The Privacy First Act - proposed by the Board of Supervisors as authored by Supervisor Aaron Peskin, which sets in motion principles and guidelines for protecting the public from unscrupulous collection and monitoring of our personal information, behavior and data by city contractors beyond the basic scope pertaining to the direct work contained in their contracts. This is very important to our security as a people considering how unleashed the technology sector is and widespread in our city the experimentation and marketing tests imposed on us on a daily basis, if not, continually in real-time.
Regularly, everyone is always on the same page but this ballot proposal has a sticky issue that is throwing the staunchest of former Sunshine Task Force members, good government advocates, journalists and top subject matter experts who support the main premise and intent for a loop. The caveat is that it will give the Board of Supervisors the allowance to make amendments to the city’s public disclosure and open meetings laws, including the Sunshine Ordinance -- the country’s most powerful municipal good government law. As a voter-approved law, these folks feel it awkward to allow such authority.
We’ll hear from the proponents represented by Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s Legislative Aide and former Sunshine Ordinance Task Force Member, Lee Hepner. And opponents, represented by San Franciscans for Sunshine Coordinator Allyson Washburn, former Sunshine Ordinance Task Force Chair and former President of League of Women Voters .
Read more about Prop B here: https://sfelections.sfgov.org/measures, and about San Franciscans for Sunshine here: http://sanfranciscansforsunshine.org/.
[Disclaimer: As the current Chair of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force and associate of San Franciscans for Sunshine, I am torn by this measure and remaining neutral on it.]