police surveillance
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New Technology Could Provide Police Access to Real-Time Footage From Home Security Cameras
I don’t know why anyone thought this was a good idea, but apparently Jackson, Miss. is experimenting with a pilot program that would give police the ability to access real-time video surveillance from your home security camera. So did none of these people play Watch Dogs? Watch Psycho-Pass? Consume literally any media about the dangers…
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ACLU Sues Baltimore Police Department Over Aerial Surveillance Program
On the first day of April, Baltimore officials approved a deal between the Baltimore Police Department and Ohio-based company Persistent Surveillance Systems to use drones equipped with high-resolution cameras in order to spy on the city’s residents through around-the-clock surveillance despite formal objections filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Defense Fund.…
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Baltimore Just Approved the Use of Privately Funded Surveillance Planes. This Will Not End Well
Why don’t superheroes go to city council meetings? When Superman is desperately trying to prevent Lex Luthor from disintegrating the entire south side of Gotham, he never seems to wonder how Lex got funding for a nuclear-powered laser gun. Batman should spend more time poring through grant applications to see who gave Mr. Freeze the…
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Eye in the Sky: LAPD Makes Drone Usage Permanent
Anyone who’s lived in L.A. knows that helicopters—particularly, ones manned by the LAPD—are a staple of the city’s skies. Now, a small fleet of drones will be permanently added to the department’s surveillance arsenal, raising concerns from civil liberties advocates. The permanent addition of drones was approved unanimously by a five-member civilian police commission on…
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Police Surveillance Request Rubs Baltimore Urban League Chief the Wrong Way
Where to draw the line when it comes to helping the cops solve crime is causing some controversy in Baltimore, with the head of the city’s Urban League shutting down the idea of letting police use her headquarters as a spy post. Tiffany Majors, president of the Greater Baltimore Urban League, told the Baltimore Sun…
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Citing Fears of Worsening Racial Bias, San Francisco Votes to Ban Police Use of Facial Recognition Technology
No other city in the U.S. is as closely associated with technological advancements than San Francisco, which, for the most part, has embraced both tech companies and their services in civic life. But on Tuesday, San Francisco passed an ordinance that would ban the use of one very specific technology—facial recognition—by local police departments, making…
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Is NYPD Illegally Recording Black Lives Matter Protests, or Just Really Bad at Record Keeping?
Imagine there was a police department that sent video teams to record Black Lives Matter and Occupy protests hundreds of times over the course of a few years, going against specific department guidelines for when and how such operations are to take place, and when called and questioned on it, it reportedly refused to give…