Category Archives: Surveillance

The many ways the government is watching us with an emphasis on digital spying

Surveillance

DC Oversight Hearing on Facial Recognition Software

Video

March 22, 2017

  • Approximately half of adult Americans’ photographs are in a FRT database.
    • 18 states each have a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the FBI to share photos with the federal government, including from state departments of motor vehicles (DMV). The committee identified Maryland and Arizona as having MOUs with the FBI.
    • The FBI will continue to pursue MOUs with states to gain access to DMV images.
  • The FBI used facial recognition technology (FRT) for years without first publishing a privacy impact assessment, as required by law.
  • FRT has accuracy deficiencies, misidentifying female and African American individuals at a higher rate. Human verification is often insufficient as a backup and can allow for racial bias.
  • The FBI went to great lengths to exempt itself from certain provisions of the Privacy Act.

Press Room, Surveillance

Oakland Police Department Rejects Predictive Policing

 

Predictive policing is the use of computer-generated algorithims to predict crimes prior to happening. Made famous in Phillip K. Dick’s Minority Report and the later film with Tom Cruise in which a futuristic policeman goes on the run after being accused of a precrime, software such as “Predpol” is becoming quite the rage in police departments across the country. Continue reading Oakland Police Department Rejects Predictive Policing →

Press Room, Surveillance

Fusing California

 

By Tracy Rosenberg (published at Media Alliance, Peace Review and Utne Reader)

When it comes to our personal information, many of us assume our privacy is protected. Most of our friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and family members know some things about us. Perhaps one or two loved ones know much about us. We certainly do not expect our personal information to be available to a random army of people we have never met. And yet America’s Network of Fusion Centers is setting out to do just that. We’ve all seen the iconic images of increasingly militarized policing in the United States feature tanks rolling through the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, and camouflage-wearing officers wielding assault weapons while patrolling downtown shopping districts. But law enforcement militarization also has invisible aspects, none more so than the surveillance data that flow out of a growing number of devices, ending up in places we might never expect.

Based on the idea that 21st century information-sharing among a large number of agencies—including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Department of Justice, National Security Agency, Drug Enforcement Administration, and local police, fire, hospital, and emergency departments—will provide a shield against acts of violence, the 78-strong national fusion-center network ensures that a lot of data follow us around wherever we go and whatever we do.

 

Continue reading Fusing California →

Surveillance

Facial Recognition Software: Biased as Hell

 

An October letter to the Department of Justice by 52 civil rights and civil liberties organizations (including MA) cited growing evidence that the widespread and illegitimate use of facial recognition devices has disproportionate impact on youth, women, African-Americans and people of Middle eastern descent through identifiable anomalies in the algorithims used. Continue reading Facial Recognition Software: Biased as Hell →

Surveillance

Stop Urban Shield

 

Update: The Berkeley City Council had a lengthy and contentious meeting that ended with arrests. Here is a Media Alliance op-ed and the meeting video is available here if you have six hours to kill.

Oakland law firm Siegel and Yee sent a cure and correct letter after the meeting ended in a police riot, but has yet to initiate litigation.

22Cure-and-Correct22-notice

The upshot is that the City of Berkeley reiterated an “intention” to eventually pull out of Urban Shield, but failed to actually do so. CM Ben Bartlett says he is assembling a blue ribbon commission to address Berkeley’s participation in Urban Shield.

For the latest Power Point presentation about the police militarization exercise prepared by the Alameda County Sheriffs Office, click here. 

On June 20, 2017, the Berkeley City Council will consider (for the 4th time in 2017 and the 6th time in the last two years, whether to pull out of the police militarization expo.

Join us at Longfellow Middle School at 1500 Derby Street in Berkeley to see if history will be made with the first California city getting on the record in opposition to the militarization of local law enforcement.

See below for the Stop Urban Shield Coalition’s report, and videos of Urban Shield exercises and SWAT exercises.

Continue reading Stop Urban Shield →

Press Room, Surveillance

Interrupting Surveillance-In Silicon Valley and Beyond

 

This blog entry was written by Media Alliance ED Tracy Rosenberg for the ACLU as part of a national rollout of surveillance equipment transparency ordinances developed and implemented by Bay Area anti-surveillance activists.

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Interrupting Surveillance in Silicon Valley and Beyond
September 21, 2016
Issues : Privacy and Government Surveillance, Racial Justice, Technology and Civil Liberties

By: Tracy Rosenberg follow @twrling

Public cynicism about government is at an all-time high – and we all know the reasons. That’s why it’s pretty remarkable when activists use public government processes to attack a scary and overwhelming problem like surveillance – and it works.

Bay Area activists have seized on a strategy to localize the fight against government spying and enlist city councils and county supervisors – who are far more approachable and accountable than remote DC officials – as allies in building community control of surveillance equipment. City by city and county by county, transparency regulations are being discussed. As the motto of one of the most active community groups in the country Oakland Privacy says, “I’ve Been Watching You Watching Me.” Continue reading Interrupting Surveillance-In Silicon Valley and Beyond →

Press Room, Surveillance

Predictive Policing’ Isn’t In Science Fiction, It’s in Sacramento

 

by Jessica Mendoza   Christian Science Monitor

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — Officer Matt McPhail happened to be at his desk when the first alert went off.

A Nissan sedan had crossed the intersection of San Juan and Truxel where the Sacramento police had just placed one of two custom-built surveillance cameras. The system ID’d the vehicle as stolen.

“I said, ‘Hey, if anybody’s in the area, you know, keep an eye out for this car,’ ” recalls Mr. McPhail, a public information officer for the department. “And a helicopter was in the area and some officers went by and found it.” Continue reading Predictive Policing’ Isn’t In Science Fiction, It’s in Sacramento →

Surveillance

Groups Ask FCC and DOJ to Investigate Law Enforcement’s Warrantless Use of Cellular Surveillance Devices

 

WASHINGTON, DC – On March 16, 45 civil rights, public policy and public interest organizations, including ColorOfChange, Open Technology Institute, Media Alliance, the Center for Media Justice and Public Knowledge, will deliver a letter and petition demanding that the FCC and DOJ investigate law enforcement’s largely unregulated use of military-grade cellular surveillance devices, called Stingrays. Continue reading Groups Ask FCC and DOJ to Investigate Law Enforcement’s Warrantless Use of Cellular Surveillance Devices →