EPIC’s Jake Wiener Testifies Before DC Council on Electronic Monitoring

Jake Wiener, EPIC Counsel in the Project on Surveillance Oversight, testified today before a hearing of the DC Council Committee on the Judiciary & Public Safety on the Safer Stronger Amendments Act of 2023.

Mr. Wiener’s testimony focused on changes to DC’s various electronic monitoring programs used to track people on pretrial, civil commitment, and post-conviction supervised release with GPS ankle bracelets. The proposed bill would allow police warrantless access to historical GPS data and make that data automatically admissible at trial.

In its written testimony, EPIC urged the Council not to pass the amendments arguing that, “the proposed changes would have no positive impact on public safety because they consider only historical GPS data, useable for investigations but not emergency response. Lowering the barriers to surveilling and investigating people on electronic monitoring has several demonstrable negative impacts, and few, if any, benefits to the public.”