United States of America v. State of California et al

Filing 75

DECLARATION of Joe Dominic in opposition to 2 Motion for Preliminary Injunction. (Attachments: # 1 Declaration of Chris Caligiuri, # 2 Declaration of Arif Alikhan, # 3 Declaration of Jim Hart, # 4 Declaration of Jeffrey Rosen, # 5 Declaration of Diana Carbajal, # 6 Declaration of Holly Cooper, # 7 Declaration of Tom Wong)(Sherman, Lee)

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XAVIER BECERRA
Attorney General of California
THOMAS PATTERSON
Senior Assistant Attorney General
MICHAEL NEWMAN .
SATOSHI YANAI
Supervising Deputy Attorneys General
CHRISTINE CHUANG
ANTHONY HAKL
CHEROKEE DM MELTON
LEE I. SHERMAN
Deputy Attorneys General
State Bar No. 272271
300 S. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

Attorneys for Defendants

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

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FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,

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Case No. 2:l 8-cv-00490-JAM-KJN

v.

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THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA; EDMUND
GERALD BROWN JR., Governor of
California, in his official capacity; and
XAVIER BECERRA, Attorney General of
California, in his official capacity,

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DECLARATION OF JOE DOMINIC IN
SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS'
OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFF'S
MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY
INJUNCTION

Defendants.

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Judge: Honorable John A. Mendez
Action Filed: March 6, 2018

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Deel. of Joe Dominic in Supp. ofDefs.' Opp'n to Pl.'s Mot. for Prelim. Inj.
(l 8-cv-00490-JAM-I<JN)

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I, Joe Dominic, declare as follows:

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I am a resident of the State of California. I have personal knowledge of the facts
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set forth in this declaration. If called as a witness, I could and would testify competently to the

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matters set forth below.

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2.

I am currently employed by the California Department of Justice ("CalDOJ") as

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the Chief of the California Justice Information Services ("CJIS") Division, a position that I have

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held since October 5, 2015. I have served at CalDOJ, in CJIS for 25 years. Before assuming my

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current role, I was the Director of the Criminal Justice Information Technology Services Branch.

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3.

I am familiar with Senate Bill 54 ("SB 54"), California Government Code section

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7282 et seq., which I understand is being challenged in this case. Moreover, I have reviewed the

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Amended Declaration of Thomas Homan filed in this matter on April 2, 2018 (ECF No. 46-2).

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4.

CJIS is responsible for providing criminal justice intelligence, identification,

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information and technology services to law enforcement, regulatory agencies and the public. As

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part of those responsibilities, CJIS maintains databases into which state and local law

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enforcement agencies input criminal justice data. CJIS serves as the administrator of these

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databases, and allows law enforcement agencies-federal, state, and local-to have access to the

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information contained in those databases.

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Law enforcement agencies may access California's databases through the

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California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System ("CLETS"), which is managed by

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CJIS. The purpose of CLETS is to provide an efficient law enforcement communications

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network that is accessible to all law enforcement agencies within the state. CLETS provides the

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network mechanism for law enforcement agencies to access and conduct queries into the 54

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databases used by California law enforcement agencies.

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Information Accessible Via CLETS

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Several of the databases available through CLETS contain addresses for persons

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who have had interactions with the criminal justice system. For example, the Supervised Release

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File ("SRF") is a California criminal justice database accessible via CLETS with information

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about active parolees, probationers, sex and arson registrants, violent offenders, and career
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Deel. of Joe Dominic in Supp. ofDefs.' Opp'n to Pl.'s Mot. for Prelim. Inj.
(18-cv-00490-JAM-KJN)

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criminals. The SRF allows law enforcement agencies to input messages into the database about

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encounters with subjects. The SRF contains data fields for the subject's address for officers to

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input into the databas.;. ·The SRF also contains mandatory fields for "Start Date of Supervision,"

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which means the date under which a person begins his or her probationary period. Under some

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circumstances, this would correlate with the date that a person is scheduled to be released from

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custody.

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In addition, the California Sex Arson Registry ("CSAR") is California's repository

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for sex and arson registration information that is accessible via CLETS. Local law enforcement

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agencies are required to use CSAR to register, track, and monitor their sex and arson registrants

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after they are convicted of qualifying offenses. Upon registration, sex and arson registrants must

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provide their address, which is input into CSAR.

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Users with access to CLETS may conduct queries across all the databases

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available, or conduct queries through specific databases. For instance, a law enforcement officer

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with access to CLETS may conduct a query for a person by his or her name and/or date of birth

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throughout all of the databases available via CLETS to identify the person who is the subject of

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the law enforcement officer's inquiry, and any information that is available about that person. If

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the person's address or start date of supervision was input into SRF or the CSAR database, then

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the inquiring law enforcement agency would be able to identify that information through CLETS.

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Immigration Anthorities' Access to CLETS

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Any law enforcement officer who seeks access to CLETS must agree in writing to

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the terms and conditions of using CLETS prior to having access to the CLETS and the

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information contained therein. Officers with federal agencies may access CLETS in the same

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manner as state and local law enforcement officers. Specifically, officers with the Department of

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Homeland Security ("DHS"), including Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") and

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Customs and Border Protection ("CBP"), are eligible to access CLETS. They may access CLETS

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through their own offices and equipment, and do not need to go through a California state or local

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law enforcement agency in order to obtain access.

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Deel. of Joe Dominic in Supp. ofDefs.' Opp'n to Pl.'s Mot. for Prelim. Inj.
(I 8-cv-00490-JAM-KJN)

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SB 54 has not changed ICE or CBP's access to the databases available in CLETS.

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My understanding is that SB 54 provides some limitations on the use of "agency or department

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moneys or personnel to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons for immigration

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enforcement purposes." The databases that are available via CLETS are maintained for criminal

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justice purposes only, and not for immigration enforcement purposes. My understanding is that

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SB 54 also explicitly authorizes criminal history information accessed through CLETS to be

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shared with immigration authorities to the extent otherwise permitted by state law.

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Data collected by CJIS shows that DHS agencies have continued to access CLETS

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since January 4, 2018. Each agency that accesses CLETS is assigned an originating agency

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identifier ("ORI") by the FBI. Each CLETS terminal within an ORI is assigned a Terminal

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Mnemonic ("MNE"). CJIS is able to track every time that a specific MNE conducts a query in

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CLETS.

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Between October I, 2017 and December 31, 2017, DHS agencies collectively

conducted 69,189 queries in CLETS.
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By comparison, between January I, 2018 and March 31, 2018, DHS agencies

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collectively conducted 89,223 queries in CLETS.

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Immigration Authorities' Access to the CalGang Database

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14.

Thomas Homan maims allegations in paragraphs 33, 34, and 79 of his declaration

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about California purportedly denying ICE access to the Cal Gang database. My understanding is

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that the California provisions that govern Cal Gang are not at issue in this case. Nonetheless, my

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declaration provides a true and accurate account of the administration of the Ca!Gang database,

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prior to the passage of AB 90 and presently.

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Cal Gang is a criminal intelligence database that contains information for persons

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who law enforcement agencies have designed as a gang member or associate. Cal Gang is not

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accessible via CLETS. As of October 2017, law enforcement users sought access to Cal Gang

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through nine node administrators, consisting of local law enforcement agencies throughout the

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State of California. Prior to January I, 2018, those node administrators controlled access to

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Deel. of Joe Dominic in Supp. of Defs.' Opp'n to PL 's Mot. for Prelim. Inj.
(l 8-cv-00490-JAM-KJN)

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Ca1Gang. Before January I, 2018, no State of California agency, including CalDOJ, was

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responsible for providing oversight of the Cal Gang database.

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On October 12, 2017, the Governor signed Assembly Bill 90 ("AB 90") into law,

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which changed the administration of CalGm1g in several respects. First, effective January 1,

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2018, the authority to administer CalGang was transferred to CalDOJ, which assigned

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responsibility to CJIS for administering the database. Second, AB 90 imposed a moratorium on

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the use ofCalGang for all users effective January I, 2018 until the Attorney General certified that

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specified information from Cal Gang had been purged from the database. Third, AB 90 provides

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that CalDOJ shall temporarily suspend access to CalGang for any user who shares information for

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federal immigration law purposes, unless required by state or federal statute or regulation.
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I have been informed by my team that after the passage of AB 90, in October

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and the San Diego Police Department suspended ICE from having acl)e~s,tp (;;alGang. These

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node administrators did not consult with CJIS before denying access to ICE.

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On January I, 2018, the Ca!Gang database vendor disabled the system and

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prevented access for·,all users of the database to allow for the specified information to be purged

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from the database as required under AB 90, On March 28, 2018, the Attorney General certified

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that this information had been purged from the database. On April 4, 2018, Cal Gang was

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reactivated to all users who had access to the database prior to the moratorium, including ICE and

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CBP.

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On April 25, 2018, CJIS communicated to each of the remaining eight node

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administrators, including the node administrators located in Orange and San Diego Counties,

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informing them that DHS agencies are not presumptively precluded from using CalGang so long

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as they, like all other users, use CalGang data in a manner consistent with state law.

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There are thirty-three DHS users with active accounts for CalGang. They have all

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had access to Cal Gang since the passage of AB 90 except during the general moratorium

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described above. Eleven of those users have accessed Cal Gang collectively over forty times since

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4
Deel. of Joe Dominic in Supp. of Defs.' Opp'n to Pl. 's Mot. for Prelim. Inj.
( 18-cv-00490-JAM-ION)

October 2017. Four of those occasions have occurred on April 6, 11 , and 13, after CalGang was
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re-activated.
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Currently, node administrators, not CJIS, are responsible for allowing access to

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any user of Cal Gang. CJIS has not, at any time, denied any DHS agency or user access to

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CalGang.

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If a node administrator were to deny access to a DHS user, and the DHS user were

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to reach out to CJIS, my division would assist in obtaining access to the database through a

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different node administrator, subject to state law limits on access and use .

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I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States that the foregoing is
true and correct and that this declaration was executed on __~f."2 JJg'
,-1. . .""--'_.,__,~

f-J

5 ~ ~ , California.

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---' 2018 in

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/Jsk

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,..----DOMINIC

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Deel. of Joe Dominic in Supp. ofDefs.' Opp' n to Pl.'s Mot. for Prelim. Inj .
( l 8-cv-00490-JAM-KJN)