SAN JOSE, Calif. — Newly unearthed court documents reveal a bevy of extraordinary surveillance measures Santa Clara County used in trying to prove a San Jose megachurch and its congregants were violating COVID rules at the height of the pandemic.
In its ongoing legal battle with Calvary Chapel, Santa Clara County used mobile phone data to map concentrations of congregants gathering on the church’s Hillsdale Avenue grounds and conducted multiple stealthy inspections in late 2020 and early 2021 that experts say raise major civil liberties questions.
The use of third-party phone data — a technique known as “geofencing” — and the numerous visits by enforcement officers reveal the lengths to which a county known for its strict COVID response was willing to go in order to prove that the church was breaking the rules.
