MESSAGE
| DATE | 2015-12-23 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout-NYLXS] Big Bros
|
Police are like the rest of us; they suffer from information overload.
The data pour in from 21st century sources ranging from license plate
readers to Twitter. But as the information comes in, it hits an
old-fashioned bottleneck: human beings.
"They all have access to different databases," says Dave Mosher, vice
president of program management at Microsoft Services. He describes the
typical law enforcement command center as a room full of people at
computers. "And they all stand up and walk around and talk to each other
and they'll say, 'Tell me about this,' or 'Tell me about that.' "
Microsoft believes it solved that bottleneck when it helped the New York
Police Department build something called the Domain Awareness System.
It's software that combines data streams and lets the computers look for
what's important.
"If I'm an officer, it alerts me," Mosher says. "[It] says, 'You might
want to take a look at this, based on the rules you put into the system.
This looks suspicious, do you agree?' "
Microsoft is marketing a version of this to other police departments
under the brand "AWARE." And it's not the only company getting into the
business.
'A New Age' Of Policing
The appeal is obvious, especially for cash-strapped, high-crime cities
such as Oakland, Calif. City leaders there say they simply don't have
the tax base to pay for the number of police officers they need, so
they've looked toward "domain awareness" as a kind of force multiplier.
Even if a suspect password-protects his or her phone, police still have
some ways of getting into it.
All Tech Considered
Your Smartphone Is A Crucial Police Tool, If They Can Crack It
Micaela Torres and 2-year-old Jakai Johnson swing underneath a
surveillance camera at Miwok Park in Elk Grove, Calif. The city's police
department collects more than 100 video feeds from across the city.
All Tech Considered
In More Cities, A Camera On Every Corner, Park And Sidewalk
An investigator inspects the area near a surveillance camera on the roof
of the Lord & Taylor store near the Boston Marathon finish line on
Thursday. That camera provided the first glimpse of the men who
allegedly planted the bombs.
Explosions At Boston Marathon
Boston Search Shines Spotlight On Surveillance Cameras
David Oliver, chief of police in Brimfield, Ohio, maintains a Facebook
page that went viral (by police Facebook page standards) earlier this
year. With more than 80,000 followers, he mixes humor with blunt opinions.
All Tech Considered
The Promises And Pitfalls Of Social Media — For Police
Officer Huy Nguyen shows a video camera worn by some officers in
Oakland, Calif. Oakland and dozens of other police departments across
the country are equipping officers with tiny body cameras to record
anything from a traffic stop to a violent crime in progress.
Digital Life
As More Police Wear Cameras, Policy Questions Arise
AeroCop: Police Put An Eye In The Sky
"We're not ever going to have the police department that we used to
have," says Noel Gallo, a member of the City Council. "We're at a
different age, a new age, that we have to have some other tools to deal
with crime."
For the past couple of years, the city of Oakland has worked with the
Port of Oakland to build its own version of the system. It's called the
Domain Awareness Center, or DAC. The federal government is paying for it
with Homeland Security grants. But as the project grew, so did opposition.
After last summer's revelations of domestic spying by the National
Security Agency, protesters started showing up en masse at Oakland City
Council meetings. One signed in for the public comment period as "Edward
Snowden"; another stood up to videorecord the council while supporters
cheered and jeered. In November, protesters became so raucous, they
forced the council to clear the hall.
"We're not just fighting for Oakland; we're fighting for everybody in
the country," says Joshua Smith. He's one of the more computer-savvy
activists against the DAC, which he sees as a part of a nationwide
surveillance grid, funded by Homeland Security grants.
"Everything is IP-networked." Smith says. "Everything can be fibered
straight to the White House if necessary. Straight to Langley."
Worries About Future Uses
That's been one of the most consistent criticisms of these domain
awareness systems: they're flexible. They may start out combining video
camera feeds with data from license plate readers, but once you have the
platform running, police departments could plug in new features, such as
social media scanners.
The backlash has made city officials reluctant to speak publicly about
the DAC; staffers canceled an interview with NPR at the last minute. In
the past, they've stressed the DAC's utility as an emergency response
center.
But City Council members acknowledge the interest from the Oakland
police. Council member Lynette McElhaney says the interim chief has said
that the DAC could help "leverage" the small police force. McElhaney,
who's been skeptical of the DAC, also says the police department doesn't
expect miracles from the technology. The identification of suspects, she
says, is "way more futuristic than what would be contemplated by the
initial install."
And that's the heart of the controversy in Oakland: the uncertainty over
what the DAC is really capable of. For instance, could the video feed be
combined with facial recognition?
"No one trusts city staff at this point to tell the truth," says Brian
Hofer, a spokesman for the Oakland Privacy Working Group, an
organization that crystallized around the DAC debate. "The internal
emails we've seen at least allow for the potential of [facial
recognition] to be included. ... Whether that will happen for certain,
it may require litigation and discovery to find out."
Some of the suspicion stems from how slow the city was to lay down the
rules for the DAC — how long data can be saved, who can search them, and
so on. Linda Lye, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California,
says those limits — the DAC "privacy policy" — should have come first.
"For what purpose are we adopting this?" asks Lye. If it's really for
emergency response, she says, "that's a wonderful use of new technology.
But then we need to configure the system so that it furthers those
purposes, and doesn't surreptitiously further another entirely different
purpose ... for example, warrantless mass surveillance."
City officials are working on a privacy policy for the DAC, but it may
be too late, politically. On Tuesday, confronted by the usual crowd of
protesters, the City Council decided to delay approval of the DAC's next
phase. And some council members are talking about scaling back the
project and limiting "domain awareness" to Oakland's port — even if it
means losing out on some of the grant money from Homeland Security.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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