New research from two American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) affiliates definitively shows local law enforcement surveillance technology spreading throughout California—with hardly any public oversight.

The ACLU of Northern California (ACLUNC) and the ACLU of California (ACLUCA) reported Wednesday that California’s 58 counties and its 60 largest cities have collectively spent over $65 million on such technology over the last decade. Often, the money comes through federally funded grants or outside foundation money that city councils and county boards of supervisors are all too ready to accept.

"We found evidence of public debate related to surveillance technology adoption less than 15 percent of the time," the ACLUCA told Ars in a statement by e-mail. "None of the 52 communities with two or more surveillance technologies publicly debated every technology. We found a publicly-available use policy for fewer than one in five surveillance technologies."

In conjunction with its research, the ACLUCA also published model legislation that it hopes to spread throughout the Golden State at both the local and state level. The proposed legislation aims to impose "legally enforceable safeguards be in place to protect civil liberties and civil rights before any surveillance technology is deployed."

The model legislation would also mandate an annual "Surveillance Report" that would require governments to gather "information, including crime statistics, that help the community assess whether the surveillance technology has been effective at achieving its identified purposes."

At 12:00pm local time on Wednesday, John Avalos, a San Francisco city and county supervisor, is set to announce his support of this legislation on the steps of City Hall. Avalos will become the first to publicly propose a local bill based on this model ordinance. His office did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on Tuesday.

A similar privacy bill in nearby Santa Clara County, which contains Northern California’s most populous city, San Jose, is not far behind. An Oakland City Council citizens’ surveillance watchdog committee is also readying its recommendation for the local council to adopt its own oversight bill some time in December 2014.

"How many of a device does a community have?"

ACLUCA compiled such data on six different basic types of surveillance: license plate readers, body cameras worn by law enforcement, drones, facial recognition, stingrays (aka cell site simulators, or IMSI catchers), and video surveillance. A substantial majority (90 of 118) of the examined cities and counties use at least one of these types of surveillance.

Specifically, the group found that three communities, including the City of San Jose, Los Angeles County (the state’s most populous), and nearby Kern County, either "have or have agreed" to acquire drones. San Jose acquired its drone in January 2014, but it wasn’t widely known until newly disclosed documents released in late July 2014.

With respect to stingrays, 11 communities—Alameda County, Los Angeles County, Sacramento County, San Bernardino County, San Diego County, San Francisco County, and the cities of Fremont, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, and San Jose—have them. But as the ACLUCA concluded, "none of these communities have engaged in public debate about their use of stingrays or published policies explaining how they are used."

Nicole Ozer, a staff attorney and the Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director at the ACLUNC, told Ars that the group specifically chose not to go through a public records process this time around. "We wanted to try to figure out what kind of information was available to the general public and how much transparency was available or not," she said.

"We’re hearing from community members really late in the process that they finally find out about surveillance that’s going to hit the streets, and we find out from counties and cities that are about to deploy and they don’t have policies in place. What’s out there? How much technology is going through the [legislative] process? Is there a public debate? Are there policies in place?" she continued. "We just spent months digging through the minutes of city council and supervisors requests. What can be known through the process that community decisions are supposed to be going through? Is there surveillance technology in a given community? How many of a device does a community have?"

Welcome to Oakland

Based on this process alone, Oakland was found to have 1,750 devices, the single highest number of surveillance devices out of any city in the Golden State. Of those devices, Oakland has 800 police-worn body cameras, 910 surveillance cameras, 40 license plate readers, and has or has access to at least one stingray. The next highest total, according to the ACLU's count, is Bakersfield. The agricultural city in Central California has 472 devices. Los Angeles, the state's most-populous city, only weighs in with 279 devices.

Ars reported in September 2014 that Oakland is one of a number of American cities that is in the process of upgrading to the "Hailstorm" version of a stingray, which would allow it to penetrate 4G LTE phones. But just because Oakland has a ton of police body cameras (as ordered by a federal judge) doesn't mean they’re actually using them. The San Francisco Chronicle reported earlier this year that while the Oakland Police Department’s body cameras are mandatory, they often are either not issued to everyone or simply not turned on.

"Having more information going through the process would also mean the numbers look higher, and that doesn’t mean that you may have more than another community that may be engaging in more secrecy," Ozer added. "It’s not that Oakland has more [surveillance devices], it may be that they do, it’s just that we were able to find more through the publicly available documents."

The ACLUCA noted that its findings were "almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg." The group believes its figures are likely low.

Mike Katz-Lacabe is a local activist on the issue of surveillance technology in nearby San Leandro. He became somewhat famous after sharing the photo of him and his daughters (above) captured by a San Leandro Police Department license plate reader in 2009, and he told Ars that he "strongly supports" the ACLU's efforts.

"In San Leandro, a license plate reader mounted on a police vehicle was first used in 2008," he told Ars. "This was implemented without any input from the community or discussion by the San Leandro City Council. In fact, it wasn’t until September 2012, when The Wall Street Journal published an article about license plate readers, that members of San Leandro’s City Council and the local community found out about San Leandro’s use of a license plate reader.

"A few months after the Journal article was published, San Leandro’s police chief announced to the City Council that the data collected by the license plate readers would only be retained for one year," Katz-Lacabe continued. "There was previously no retention policy and the police chief had argued to keep the information indefinitely because it 'might be useful.' At least part of the reason for the change in the retention policy was because storage of the license plate data would now be handled by the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC)—a decision that was not discussed by the City Council or made with community input."