Top Stories: Oct. 27, 2009

'Big Brother' in SJ?; Google Founder's Largesse; Problems at RDA

By Staff (Oct 27, 2009 )

SJPD Officers Will Carry Cameras
The SJPD has a new weapon in its arsenal. Officers responding to calls will soon be outfitted with a new mini-camera that will fit over their ear like a Bluetooth device. The device will record everything they do in high definition, so that it can be played back in the event of a problem. It will be the first police department in the country to deploy the new device.

And problems there are. Citizen activists have been up in arms recently about some of the Police Department's decisions to use force. In the most recent case, four officers were put on leave for allegedly beating a Vietnamese student, Phuong Ho, 20, even after he was handcuffed on the floor. Right now, the main evidence in the case is some grainy video shot by one of Ho's roommates from a distance. The video does not show the entire altercation or what led up to the police officers' response. With the new camera, investigators will be able to see the actual sequence of events in HD from the officers' perspective. "It's a great idea," says Bobby Lopez, President of the San Jose Police Officers Association.

But not everyone agrees. Steven Clark, a defense attorney, compared the camera to "Big Brother," and questioned whether children or innocent bystanders would end up on camera along with the actual perpetrators. Just last month, the ACLU challenged the city of Sacramento for installing 30 surveillance cameras around the city. With the new contraption, anywhere the police go in San Jose could be under surveillance too.

Some police officers are worried too. They claim that the new cameras, which will be on whenever they are on duty, constitute an invasion of their privacy. They may not want the chief listening in when they are chatting with their partners or sharing an intimate phone call with a loved one. Then there is also the question of whether police officers might feel inhibited about responding boldly in an emergency, since they know that anything they do could end up being picked apart by investigators.

In 2007, Mark Schlosberg, police policy practices director of Northern California's ACLU, argued that "This is the beginning of a radical change in the way the state, society and citizenry interrelate." Scholsberg had helped to write a 2006 ACLU report that contended that police surveillance cameras present serious problems.
Read More at ABC 7.


Brin Gives Back
It's a modern-day Horatio Alger story: the immigrant boy grows up to become the über-wealthy Internet entrepreneur, founder of one of the world's most powerful corporations, and with a personal net worth of $11 billion. It’s a far cry from the life he might otherwise have had if Sergey Brin's family remained in the USSR. Now Brin has decided to give back to the group that helped his family immigrate to the United States.

He has made a $1 million donation to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the oldest international migration and refugee resettlement agency in the US. Founded in 1881 to help persecuted Jews relocate, the organization now operates around the world and expanded the scope of its activities to assist all people faced with discrimination. Recent efforts have focused on people escaping the violence in Darfur and Columbia.
Read More at NBC Bay Area.

San Jose Releases ‘Worst Redevelopment Budget’
Mayor Chuck Reed was not impressed. "This is the worst redevelopment budget we've seen," he said, commenting on the San Jose Redevelopment Agency's five-year, $560.6 million budget, which was released yesterday. The agency's new budget is only half of what it was a year ago, and major projects, such as the planned $300 million expansion of the McEnery Convention Center, have been slashed.

The budget was adjusted because of the recession, but also because the state seized $75 million from it to cover its own budgetary peccadilloes. To compensate for this, the RDA will be conducting a raid of its own from the city's Affordable Housing Fund in the amount of $75 million. But this money is only a loan, and will have to be paid back within five years.

With most funding now designated for the McEnery Center project, the RDA is left with just $100 million for its other initiatives—and half of that is earmarked as well. That means the city will have to be more careful about the projects it picks to fund. One of these will likely be the new baseball stadium for the Oakland A's.
Read More at The Mercury News.

Suing e-Bay? Come to Silicon Valley
A federal court ruled that anyone who wants to sue e-Bay has to do it in Santa Clara County. The ruling should come as no surprise, since there is a clause in e-Bay's user agreement that says quite clearly that all disputes between the user and eBay must be brought to court in Santa Clara County, California. But who actually reads those agreements?

Not Domenic Tricome. After being suspended from e-Bay, he tried to sue the company in his native Philadelphia, claiming that taking his case to California would be "unreasonably burdensome" on him. But a court now ruled that Tricome was never forced to enter into any agreement with e-Bay, and that he only did it to expand his own business. Furthermore, it turned Tricome's argument back on him, arguing that expecting e-Bay, with its vast, worldwide presence, to litigate cases in every jurisdiction in which they are brought is similarly unreasonable.

So now Tricome will have to decide whether to drop his case or take it up in Santa Clara County. One thing is for sure, however. From now on he'll pay closer attention to User Agreements before clicking Agree.
Read More at Internet Cases.
Read More at Law.com.