
Surveillance tools used by the Minneapolis Police Department - jbegley
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinehaskins1/george-floyd-protests-surveillance-technology
======
softwaredoug
Post US Civil war, we encoded a set of rules that on their face did not
discriminate on race. But their effect was basically to prevent black people
from voting and enjoying their civil liberties.

Now we are encoding these biases into models built with mass surveillance.
Many of us upper middle class white folks turn a blind eye. Subconsciously we
know that’s not _really_ targeting us. “We have nothing to hide” is the battle
cry of the apathetic middle class person... when you trace the origin not just
to law and order but the “war on terrorism” the relationship to race is even
more depressing.

Maybe when we examine deeper we see those using the tools of mass surveillance
look like us (heck are from this industry!). This same people working in the
surveillance industry only imagine getting the “bad guys” not people that look
like them!

On their face this has nothing to do with race. Examine deeper and you see,
it’s far easier to take away civil liberties when it’s the “other” it’s being
taken away from. Where the in group can blissfully rationalize what’s
happening to get on with their day

~~~
yosito
> we encoded a set of rules that on their face did not discriminate on race.
> But their effect was basically to prevent black people from voting and
> enjoying their civil liberties.

That is quite a claim. I am neither agreeing or disagreeing, as I don't know
enough about this. Could you share some specific examples of the rules that
you are referring to and evidence that they were intended to prevent black
people from voting and enjoying their civil liberties?

~~~
joe_the_user
The parent is referring (not that accurately) to the variety of laws known as
Jim Crow[1]. It's remarkable that these aren't widely if not universally known
today. They were effectively eliminated by the Voting Rights Act[2].

Note, that Jim Crow was enacted not immediately after the Civil War but after
the reconstruction period[3]. The aftermath of reconstruction involved a
period of racist terror where the Ku Klux Klan and other forces effectively
engaged in a guerilla campaign that restored white supremacy in the South.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_era](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_era)

~~~
markc
>They were effectively eliminated by the Voting Rights Act

Except that key provisions of the act were struck down in 2013. Those
provisions prevented states with a history of disenfranchisement from changing
their voting laws. Since the court ruling several of these states have started
back on the path of disenfranchisement.

~~~
kmonsen
Yeah, the Supreme Court argument was the racism was no longer an issue so no
reason to keep watching over those good old boys in the south.

------
fencepost
I'm curious what the response would be if someone started advertising up there
that they wanted all available protestor-shot high definition footage that
showed police officers' faces (particularly when a nametag or readable badge
number was also visible) for the stated purpose of training a facial
recognition system.

Somehow I think it would be roundly condemned by every law enforcement agency
with any presence or interest in the area.

~~~
dmichulke
And if they complain, you tell them "Don't worry, we'll use it just against
the bad guys"

Hilarious, where can I invest?

------
WarOnPrivacy
Our great-grandchildren will rightfully despise us for not rolling back their
surveillance state when we had the chance.

~~~
tropdrop
This is a serious question - how do we roll it back? What is our chance?

~~~
elliekelly
The squeaky wheel gets the grease - contact your representatives. If you
contact them about an issue enough they’ll actually get in touch and ask for
your input when the issue finally starts getting traction.

I think it goes without saying but they’re far more likely to listen if you’re
polite and suggest possible solutions instead of just complaining.

~~~
karmelapple
Specifically: call them on the phone.

Go to town halls if / when they have them.

And vote.

~~~
alpha_squared
This implies absolute faith in the system. What if the system is flawed or
corrupt?

~~~
rabidrat
Then we have to figure out how to use whatever power we have within this
corrupt system to decorrupt it.

The "fun" answer, to burn the system down, does not leave a better system in
its place. The individual components are left to scramble to develop their own
systems, which in the absence of strong moral leadership, are inevitably just
as as corrupt as the larger system they came from.

~~~
mistermann
Are you aware of any noteworthy initiatives underway to decorrupt the system
though? I often read that this is "just" all we have to do, but who's going to
do it? "The System"? Democracy? AI? Rationalism? Religion? Our moms?

------
Synaesthesia
Let’s not forget the agents provocateurs

[https://twitter.com/rexchapman/status/1266146369905070080?s=...](https://twitter.com/rexchapman/status/1266146369905070080?s=21)

~~~
papeda
I click on your link and the video looks suspicious, but I also have no clue
who made it or who all those people are. Rex Chapman has a checkmark next to
his name, but so do plenty of vacuous trolls. Inserting violent actors seems
like a good way to discredit a protest, but "makes sense" isn't evidence.

So I typically end up just waiting a week or two for ostensibly fact-checked
coverage and being out of the loop because there's so much uncertainty around
developing events. But it feels like choosing feckless over reckless, so it's
not a totally satisfying route.

------
colechristensen
In any other time, masked protesters might spark laws about facial coverings,
so there's one silver lining about the current situation.

~~~
ineedasername
I don't know, the masks may have increased police fear, or served to
dehumanize the appearance of the protesters, and contributed to the use of
tear gas and rubber bullets in one of the protests.

~~~
ceejayoz
Cops were perfectly willing to use those methods pre-COVID.

~~~
ineedasername
Sure, but I'm talking about probabilities of using them: The chance of
surveillance of protesters ticking over into fear, and the lack of visible
human faces making it even less personal. My guess is that if every protest
nationwide for any issue at all began always wearing masks, with no other
change in behavior, use of force against them would increase.

~~~
megameter
The factors are multiple in nature with the virus around; masking itself is
not directly causal(after all, Asian countries have accepted it for decades),
but there are certain other things that the virus did that make This Time
Different:

1\. Lots of people staying at home.

2\. Lots of people out of work.

3\. A challenge to the authority of the police to conduct society(the virus is
more threatening than they are, and populations are resisting the return to
business as usual narratives)

4\. A lack of targets for police harassment to "let loose on" (because nobody
is out and about)

These factors all build up to make a tinderbox where the officers who are
looking for trouble(and they are always present and hungry for action) go out
of their way to stir it up through provacateur tactics, and the population
responds with quite a lot more force than usual since they are out of work and
stuck at home and have nothing else to do. And it only escalates from there,
because, again, you have police officers that are really dead set on the idea
of "go get 'em", and see this as a role-playing opportunity. I should discuss
the role-play in some more detail.

In the decades of collective memory, protests served as media flashpoints
where the action is molded to the narrative. Everyone involved does a little
bit of role-play, gets their fill of the narrative they want to see, and then
goes home, with a few arrests and a bit of violence along the way, and a media
product is subsequently served on the news afterwards, shaped to fit the
tastes of the audience. Career activists would develop personal brands around
the appropriation of protest groups towards news narrative, and the police
were eager to play along and be the "other side". This dynamic of protest-as-
product made protests seem unable to address legitimate concerns, since
neither group was "going for the throat", as it may.

The dynamic has gradually shifted, at first slowly with protests like '99
Seattle WTO, and then faster as you get into the 2010's and live streaming
takes off; coverage is getting much closer and more personal, and this runs in
tandem with the rise of surveillance and police militarization creating
pervasive cynicism about large institutions of all kinds. Branding of all
kinds - from CNN to the blue check mark Twitter account - is mistrusted.
Direct action is increasingly tolerated by the population, who can now easily
hear the case for such without an intermediary. The virus has accelerated
those trends, and so there's a sense of nobody holding back anymore.

Which, of course, makes it easier for the police to dehumanize the protestors.

~~~
ineedasername
I don't think I can do your thoughtful post justice except to say yes, that
sounds about right.

------
sneak
The CBP is also flying a federal Predator surveillance drone in Minneapolis:

[https://twitter.com/jason_paladino/status/126639991697850777...](https://twitter.com/jason_paladino/status/1266399916978507779)

You can be reasonably sure it is collecting facial biometrics and perhaps
IMEIs.

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dzbe3/customs-and-
border...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dzbe3/customs-and-border-
protection-predator-drone-minneapolis-george-floyd)

~~~
mkl
Your links say it was flying at 20,000ft. I would be pretty surprised if it
was collecting facial biometrics.

------
colechristensen
Five to ten years ago (I really forget exactly when) I had my car towed from
the street in front of my house in Minneapolis because I had forgotten to pay
a few parking tickets – something which only could have happened with either
an extremely bored officer manually entering license plate numbers to check...
or with an automatic reader which searched every plate it saw.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Out of curiosity, how does on forget to pay several parking tickets?

Normally, I'm a very forgetful person, but letting debt pile up is something I
never allow myself to forget.

When I lived in Germany everyone paid their parking tickets religiously. In
the UK you'd also have your car towed away until you paid your tickets with
interest plus the storage and towing fee.

~~~
yardie
I found a parking ticket blowing down the street. I'm sure whoever owns it
will be reminded in a timely fashion.

j/k Their license will be suspended and the fee will be treble after the
expiration date. And they still won't know until they get pulled over or run a
license check.

~~~
scruple
But the GP clearly knew they had _multiple_ outstanding parking tickets. It's
not like they causally didn't know.

edit/ I've been there personally and I was simply unable to afford them, it
had nothing to do with forgetting. Thankfully I never had my car towed as a
result.

------
mjayhn
This country disgusts me more and more everyday. It's unfathomable. All of us
lucky tech workers owe our help to whats going on right now. Do NOT be silent.
Get out there tonight and tomorrow. CIS, white, whatever, allies need to be on
the streets this weekend, you're valued.

This is a tipping point but we need allies, especially people who know tech.
There are grass roots protest organizations popping up everywhere that need
serious pro bono tech help. If you work on distributed systems or production
networks this stuff is stupid simple to you.

Split your work between fast & impermeable systems to our democracy.

~~~
rukittenme
Stop calling me an "ally". I'm a human being. I belong to the same group you
do. You can appeal to me the same way you appeal to everyone else. Thanks.

~~~
artfulhippo
If you’re not an ally, you’re not an ally.

~~~
cyr
Reminds me of the Bush quote "you're either with us, or against us".
Polarization generally doesn't lead to good results for a society.

------
Scoundreller
And a bunch of choppers:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/SkyCirclesMPLS](https://mobile.twitter.com/SkyCirclesMPLS)

------
say_it_as_it_is
Are people here seriously upset by technology used to identify rioters? I'm
glad it exists and hope it helps to remove dangerous criminals from society.

I'm noticing a dangerous pattern emerging in the left where people are siding
with rioting. You know nothing about what riots do to cities. It destroys
them.

This is the moment where Trump wins the re-election because of a growing
movement that is sympathetic to destroying the great city of Minneapolis over
criminal conduct of a police officer.

~~~
diggan
Riots don't happen over one bad police officer. It might finally boil over and
explode over one situation, but the situation has been brewing for so long,
that no one can even remember the start of it anymore.

The actions of a riot might be that entities within areas gets destroyed, but
that's hardly the goal.

It's similar to when kids mindlessly destroy public properties in the night in
smaller cities. It's not because they just like to smash stuff, but because
there is nothing else to do. Rioting tends to be the last possible action you
have in your pocket, until a civil war appears. When people are feeling that
no one is listening to them, they try to find other ways of getting heard.

And as history has shown us time and time again, riots sometimes work. I wish
people didn't have to resolve to violence, but as an outsider who been
watching the police brutality in the US for as long as I can remember, it
doesn't surprise me that people has had enough.

~~~
Veen
Yes, if we learn anything from history it should be that stealing TVs and
sneakers from stores owned by immigrants is the solution to social
deprivation.

