A 2012 law passed in San Francisco to protect the civil liberties of residents prohibits participation by San Francisco police in federal investigations as part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. However, as the Examiner reports, the SFPD may be lying about their level of participation, pointing to the case of a Google engineer who is Muslim who was questioned last year by both a federal agent and an SFPD officer about his travels to Pakistan.

29-year-old Sarmad Gilani, who moved to SF from Normal, Illinois and whose parents are from Pakistan, says that the two men came to the Google offices in San Francisco unannounced last June. They conducted a 15-minute interview with him in the lobby in which they questioned him about the area of Pakistan where U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was believed to have been being held, something Gilani knew nothing about, and they made some weird statements encouraging Gilani to "keep [his] ears and eyes open" the next time he was in Pakistan.

The SFPD officer, who handed Gilani a card before leaving, was named Inspector Gavin McEachern, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force would only confirm that they did in fact have a "voluntary conversation" with Gilani.

The thing is, the city passed a law in 2012 specifically to curb this kind of treatment of the local Muslim community. That law, the Safe San Francisco Civil Rights Ordinance, requires the SFPD to report annually on its activity with the Joint Terrorism Task Force. And according to Gilani's attorney, who plans to file a complaint with SF's Office of Citizen Complaints, the department is "breaking the rules," and "either lying about it or not keeping proper documentation."

No record of the interview with Gilani appeared in the department's most recent report.

Furthermore, the ACLU and the Asian Law Caucus have filed a lawsuit alleging that several of their clients (not in SF) who were doing nothing wrong were implicated in what are called Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) purely due to racial profiling.

Currently there are two SFPD officers assigned to work with the Joint Terrorism Task Force and serve as its liaison with the department. These officers were reportedly assigned 30 cases last year that involved following up on tips to prevent terrorist attacks, and "investigat[ing] violent crimes which may involve a terrorism related motive or nexus."