Speaker For The Diodes - January 13th, 2014

Jan. 13th, 2014

05:24 am - QotD

"Linda Lye, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, was alarmed when we showed her emails that revealed that the Oakland Police Department has already started using the [Domain Awareness Center] to keep tabs on people engaged in First Amendment activity. 'The fact that the focus so far has been on political protests, rather than the violent crime that's impacting Oakland residents, is troubling, and telling about how the city plans to use the DAC,' she said.

[...]

"While the emails reveal a great deal about the DAC, they are also notable for what they do not talk about. Among the hundreds of messages sent and received by Oakland staffers and the city's contractor team responsible for building the DAC, there is no mention of robberies, shootings, or the 138 homicides that took place during the period of time covered by the records. City staffers do not discuss any studies pertaining to the use of surveillance cameras in combating crime, nor do they discuss how the Domain Awareness System could help OPD with its longstanding problems with solving violent crimes. In more than 3,000 pages of emails, the terms 'murder,' 'homicide,' 'assault,' 'robbery,' and 'theft' are never mentioned.

[...]

"But Rajiv Shah, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois-Chicago who conducted a study on the efficacy of Chicago police's crime cameras, said surveillance systems aren't guaranteed to help police reduce crime. They do, however, serve political goals of looking tough on crime.

[...]

"During construction of the first phase of the DAC, from roughly August 2012 to October 2013, city staffers repeatedly referred to political protests as a major reason for building the system. [...]"

-- Darwin BondGraham and Ali Winston, "The Real Purpose of Oakland's Surveillance Center", East Bay Express</a>, 2013-12-18

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