from the full-disclosure-and-secret-budgets dept.
NYPD secretly spent $159 million on surveillance tech:
The New York City Police Department has spent over $159 million on surveillance systems and maintenance since 2007 without public oversight, according to newly released documents. The Legal Aid Society (LAS) and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP) obtained the documents from the NYPD, which include contracts with vendors. They show that the NYPD has spent millions on facial recognition, predictive policing tech and other surveillance systems.
The NYPD made the purchases through a Special Expenses Fund. It didn't need to gain the approval of the NYC Council or other city officials before signing the contracts, as Wired reports.
From Wired:
Last year, STOP and other privacy groups successfully pushed for the passage of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act, which required the NYPD to reveal information about the surveillance tools it uses. After the POST Act's passage, the current comptroller, Scott Stringer, ended the agreement, opening the door for the Legal Aid Society and STOP to obtain and publish the contracts.
"New Yorkers deserve transparency, accountability, and oversight for all taxpayer dollars," Stringer said in a statement. "By shedding light on how taxpayer dollars are spent, we can continue to make government more open and accessible and build public trust."
In a statement, a spokesperson for the NYPD said, "No police department or federal agency has gone to the level of depth and transparency on law enforcement tools used in the field that the NYPD did in its POST Act disclosures."
The Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act: A Resource Page
Related:
Victory! New York's City Council Passes the POST Act
(Score: 3, Insightful) by number11 on Sunday August 15 2021, @10:11PM (1 child)
“No police department or federal agency has gone to the level of depth and transparency on law enforcement tools used in the field that the NYPD did in its POST Act disclosures.”
It is true that in general police departments and federal agencies have been dismal in admitting what they've been doing. And probably none so dismal as the NYPD. So it may well be a true statement, that none has reached the depths and lack of transparancy such as has the NYPD.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @05:42AM
Well if you ain't got nothing to hide, then stop beating your wife.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Sunday August 15 2021, @10:18PM (2 children)
Should that mean "It only seems so much because you don't know what amount of money the rest is blowing on snooping on you"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @10:45AM (1 child)
No, it shouldn't. That quote is about the level of depth and transparency on law enforcement tools used in the field, not about the "law enforcement tools" themselves. They're saying exactly what you're saying, "we don't know what amount of money the rest is blowing on snooping".
Then again, I'm sure every police department spends a fair share of its budget on hiring tools.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @11:57AM
According to their *PDF* statements [nyc.gov], they still spend much more on overtime where vast bulk of the $5b total is uniformed staffing. Some $2b on capital (might be a 4or 5yr figure) and things like body cams were from add on grants. so yes that secret $170m over 13 years probably does not buy much more than seed and pilot money for any good qty of tech.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday August 15 2021, @11:49PM (22 children)
It wouldn't be secret surveillance if they told every one what they did. Still it's 159M$ over 15 years. It's not like they spent it all yesterday.
If you dont tell others what you have and can/could do you lose the entire panopticon effect where people start to self-monitor their actions. At the same time you dont want to lose your edge cause if they know they will stop doing things you previously used against them. Sort of like all the encrypted phone hacks are making criminals have to revert back to old school physical meeting -- which take an absolute crapton of manpower to monitor/surveillance.
With that in mind I do always sort of wonder how these (anti-police-) groups believe police-work should actually be conducted. Previously there was much complaining about inefficiency and brutality. Which comparatively have gone away (or lessened). Cause they dont usually want to pay for overwhelming manpower costs either. They appear to often have Sherlock Holmes fantasies in regard to police/detective work which have always been utterly unrealistic.
It's almost as entertaining as all those that wanted to defund the police, for various reasons, and then later demand personal, or increased, police protection or whine about a rise in crime.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @12:07AM
Of course there's no expectation of privacy when you're beating someone up in public, but the scare tactics and threats of arrest worked for a while, until they didn't because people stood up for their rights.
Lack of professionalism seems to be a requirement for the average street cop.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @12:10AM (7 children)
Maybe by not brutalizing/killing people who posed no threat, conducting unconstitutional surveillance of the populace, and stealing people's property via civil asset forfeiture. That's a start.
When? Unless you require special prosecutors to prosecute police every single time they're accused of a crime, police almost always get away with crimes that no one else would get away with. There's still very little chance of accountability, and tons of bad apples.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @12:41AM (5 children)
There's no 'tons of bad apples'. They're all rotten.
If you're a cop, think on this: even if you're not in your own head a violent and/or corrupt thug, there is no way you got through training without noticing that you're surrounded by them, and they are fomally supported by their superiors. And yet you carried on, signalling your intent to suppport them too. You won't convince anyone that you're innocent if you've collected even one paycheck.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @01:09AM (3 children)
That is a stupid generalization based on many assumptions. US police are in need of serious cleanup and restructuring though.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @02:32AM (1 child)
I watched [wikipedia.org] the documentaries [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 17 2021, @03:46AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @06:23AM
Can you elaborate more on this? As in why cleanup and restructuring are needed and what effective steps other jurisdictions have taken.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @04:06AM
You know all of that because you graduated from an academy, and saw all the corruption first hand, right? More likely, you know all of that because your convict buddies have told you that it's so. Or, you read the talking points somewhere.
Oh, a related subject would be, all website designers are child molesting meth heads. Don't get me started on the real STEM people!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @10:49AM
Indeed. People always seem to claim "oh it's just a few bad apples", which is ironic considering where the phrase "bad apple" comes from. So let's quote it in full:
One bad apple can spoil the barrel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @05:32AM
> It's almost as entertaining as all those that wanted to defund the police, for various reasons, and then later demand personal, or increased, police protection or whine about a rise in crime.
So you are OK with indefinite expansion and militarization of the police? If not, just say when.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by number11 on Monday August 16 2021, @06:08AM
"I do always sort of wonder how these groups believe police-work should actually be conducted."
By having police obey the law? And prosecuting those that don't? And not telling them that it doesn't matter if any reasonable person would see a problem in their behavior, but if there's no court case that ruled on that exact situation, they can't be held responsible ("qualified immunity")? I know that's pretty pie in the sky, but still. Of course. you still have to find a prosecutor who has the spine to bring charges... notice that in the recent case of a Minneapolis cop murdering a citizen on the public street, the case had to be prosecuted by the state's AG because the local prosecutor didn't want anything to do with it.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 16 2021, @08:01AM (8 children)
That's really not hard to figure out. A few relatively simple steps would fix most of the problems with policing.
1. Eliminate or sharply curtail qualified immunity. Policemen have violated people's rights outrageously, with both eyewitness and video evidence, and got away with it because of idiotic immunity.
2. Eliminate civil forfeiture, which provides incentive for cops to steal from innocent citizens.
3. End the War on Drugs. Just defund that nonsense entirely. Again, funding for and from the Drug Enforcement Agency incentivizes cops going after otherwise innocent civilians. I don't know the status of the program today, but a decade ago, police departments got ~$2000 for every cannabis plant they found and destroyed. That's a helluva lot of money.
4. End the sale of "surplus" military equipment to police departments at reduced prices, or even at not cost. The cops don't need military grade troop carriers, rocket launchers, etc ad nauseum.
5. Eliminate police unions. Those police unions protect bad cops, and are almost as detrimental as the qualified immunity already mentioned above.
6. Stop police lobbying at the capitols. Lobbying in general has gotten out of hand in the past ~40 years or so. But government employees shouldn't be clamoring at the capitols demanding money, special rights and powers, exemptions from responsibility, and whatever else.
7. Find a way to limit the tech that police can use. Some kind of blanket ban on new tech, until the legislature figures out if, and how, the police might be permitted to use the new tech. We find ourselves in the position that police adopt new tech, and use it for years, before citizens start to learn what the cops have. Then someone files suit, and the case is stuck in court for years. And, all the while, legislatures have no clue what their police forces are even doing.
There's a starter list for you. Find fault with any of it. Or expand on it. Civil servants need to learn that they are SERVANTS. Police should never be the masters, and no one but a genuine criminal should ever fear them.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 16 2021, @08:08AM (2 children)
Oh crap - I didn't even mention no-knock warrants. Those are complete bullshit. Whatever happened to an investigator staking out a house, and grabbing a suspect as he entered or left the house? How can we possibly have forgotten the castle doctrine? A man's home is his castle - if you come barging into his home, he has every right to shoot you down. And, we have cops kicking doors in, launching grenades inside, then barging in, just hoping someone resists, so they can shoot. You just can't get any more Gestapo than that!!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by HiThere on Monday August 16 2021, @01:46PM (1 child)
That's difficult. No-knock warrants as so overused I want to support you, but there *ARE* circumstances where they are reasonable. Unfortunately, those are all judgement calls, and the police always make the judgement based on whether it would make their job easier.
I'd say (as a wild guess) that 99% of the no-knock warrants are invalid, but there's that remaining 1%. Perhaps the rule should be "no officer involved or supervising the executing officers should be paid for the week in which any of them execute a no-knock warrant" would get them to restrain the execution of them mainly into the valid cases.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 16 2021, @05:44PM
You're not being terribly unreasonable there. Let's say that one in 500 no-knocks is justified. Then, let's just fall back for a moment, and remember Blackstone. “The law holds that it is better that 10 guilty persons escape, than that 1 innocent suffer.”
If we are to keep that in mind, then maybe we require that the exact location to be raided by independently verified three different ways, before a judge will sign off on it? Breonna Taylor was killed because the dumbass cops kicked in the wrong door, as I remember. They were looking for a man who wasn't there, at the least. So, the judge demands multiple independent verifications that the cops actually in the right spot, at the right time, looking for the right person?
Better yet, we require TWO JUDGES to sign off on a no-knock. Each of whom has demanded multiple independent verifications.
And, both judges need to be asking, "Well, does this guy ever come out of his house? Why don't you wait until he runs down to the 7-Eleven for a six pack of beer, and grab him then?" And, the judges also need to ask, "Are there children living in this house? There are? OK, you can do a no-knock, but you can't take any weapons with you!" Grenades landing in baby's crib are no joke at all.
Accountability. If the cops are willing to be accountable, they can keep no-knock. If the judges are willing to be accountable, they can keep no-knock.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by looorg on Monday August 16 2021, @03:30PM (4 children)
A lot of the things you suggest do make sense in a lot of cases. That said a lot of them are not necessarily specific for the police, they are more like police adjacent.
(1) I would agree that Police does not need special immunity or extra rules to protect them. In some regard they should probably be held to a higher, legal, standard then normal people. I guess the worst part of it is that police investigate police. On the other hand who should do it if not they? If you pick someone else then whom (or what) should investigate them? It becomes a never ending circle. While bad it might be the least bad option.
(2) I don't really know how common this is. It seems to be a very American thing as far as I understand it. I don't know many other countries that have a similar system.
(3) The war on drugs was not, as far as I know, instituted on the request of the police. They may or may not have benefited from it, that said they have also suffered from it by creating legions of new criminals and crime which have made their jobs a lot worse. It's hard to say what the actual purpose was for it, on a global scale it seems more like it was a part of the general war against communism since a lot of the activities seemed to have been focused on central and south America (where most of the drugs came from). Most people that research it seem to be more or less in agreement that the War on Drugs (just as most of the various War(s) on X (poverty, terrorism etc) are failing badly).
(4) They might not need them but at the same time if they are already produced they might as well have them. If the criminals have them you sort of have to give it to the police to, or you'll end in the situation where they are under-equipped to handle the crime of today. Sure it sounds utterly stupid that they would need rocket launchers and APC type vehicles. But then there are others that makes a lot more sense like protective gear or Drones (not necessarily the weaponized once but more for surveillance), it's a very efficient tool for general surveillance (not necessarily personal snooping) in regards to crowds, traffic etc.
(5) Should other unions be allowed to exists or is it just police unions that should be gotten rid of? Yes they do appear to protect "bad cops" but then normal unions protect "bad employees" to. If others can unionize they should probably be allowed to, I can't imagine a reason why they should somehow be exempt from this. In some way this appears to tie into (1). A lot of police officers do lose their jobs when they misbehave, or break the law, to. So it's not like they are all skating away.
(6) This isn't really specific for police, in some general sense I wonder why government agencies of any kind are allowed to (or should need to) engage in lobbying. They should all just serve, not try to set the agenda.
(7) Why? Why would you want to make the police less efficient? So others should have the technology but police should be forbidden from using it? In many cases police are already at a somewhat serious disadvantage to criminals on a technological scale.
(8) While there might be abuse with no-knock-warrants, I have no doubt that there actually is, they also serve a greater purpose. It might just be to dangerous to walk up and knock on the door and announce yourself. It might just not be practical, safe and it allows whomever they are serving it for to hide, get away or destroy evidence. If they have become to common it could be that police are lazy and like it, after all better to come in overwhelming force and power and eventually you get used to it. Or it could be that a lot more warrants needs to be served this way cause criminals have just become worse/better or things have just become more dangerous. There could be other reasons then police just want to go on a power trip. Possibly this is also somehow connected to (4), if you have military grade equipment you want to use it and take military style action. That said if they could just send a car with an officer or two to every door and just knock politely on the door and things would all be safe and fine I'm fairly certain that most of them would actually prefer that option.
So to tie this all together I'm not certain that a lot of the suggestions in that regard are realistic as wishes of how they might want police work to be conducted in an ideal world, that just doesn't appear to exists.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Monday August 16 2021, @08:07PM (2 children)
In other countries that do this, it's probably just generally accepted that the police will steal as much of your property as they can. In America, it's the socially acceptable way for them to take a bribe.
True. it was instituted by an American president (Richard Nixon) who was looking for weapons against groups who opposed his war in Vietnam. That said, it has become quite popular with police because it gives them a weapon against people they don't like. The prison industry loves it, of course, because it provides them with more bodies, more money. (Note that many American prisons are run by private, for-profit corporations.)
We're talking machine guns, armored vehicles, body armor, and training cops that Rambo is an appropriate role model. Perhaps police in your country are better behaved. Though even in the UK, the police murdered a Brazilian electrician in a subway car, because they imagined he was a terrorist.
I tend to agree that police unions should be treated the same as any other union. The big problem is that they have outsized political power, and local politicians are afraid to stand up to them. Who wants to run a political campaign, where the other side is having uniformed police go door to door telling people that you are a threat to society? On your last point, "a lot" of police do not lose their jobs (a few do, but it's rare, it's very difficult to fire a cop), and when they do, they usually find another police job in the next town.
I suspect I disagree with your point #7, but can't actually tell what it is in reference to (hint: quoting what you're responding to helps a lot!).
Probably. The dilemma is, police love them. Another dilemma is, in many locales the homeowner is allowed to defend his home with deadly force. And the police will lie about whether they adequately identified themselves as police officers (after all, if they're going to identify themselves, what was the point of the "no-knock"?), not just random thugs. If you got killed in the ensuing fracas (or even if you didn't), who will be believed?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 16 2021, @08:54PM (1 child)
There are countries that do that. I'm not sure those are countries which whom you would like to compare yourself to tho or somehow hold up as some image about how you would things to be. Here if police are seizing assets it's mostly some wing of the IRS equivalent that seize property and such things. So police don't really have to bother with that aspect of it all. Unless it's property that the other government wings can't really seize such as illicit drugs. Since there is no monetary value for the government in seizing such things.
While problematic, the prison industrial complex, is not really a police issue as far as I'm concerned. Police don't actually send people to prison, that falls on other parts of the judicial chain. Not to say that they are not a vital part of it and that they might not "like" it in some regards. But it's not really a policing issue or problem in general.
As noted I do think there are military equipment that might have a valid usage and purpose. That said there are others that clearly are somewhat more iffy. Still there are criminals with military grade weapons etc and while we might not want law enforcement to have them they might be a necessary evil in some regard. There are clearly national differences, as far as I know and recall they are not normally driving around in actual military APC:s or carry machine guns here at the moment. It's available if needed but it's so rare that I can't even recall last time I saw normal police in an APC, the military police use them some time. Sub-machine guns are available if needed, and if you have the appropriate training. Body armor is standard equipment up to some level.
I think you can always find some case where things went wrong tho, as far as I know yes they did believe he was a terrorist cause there had been incidents previously and as far as I can recall he was shot in the head due to that was what the training and instructions they had received told them to do.
That was in reference to the post I responded to. https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=44384&page=1&cid=1167423#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Which is also one of the reasons I suspect that no-knock are liked. Less time for them to prepare to grab their guns and defend their property with lethal force. Even tho said lethal force is not intended to be used against law enforcement.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 17 2021, @05:26AM
In such a case, the police can request that the governor send in the National Guard. That is one of the primary purposes of the Guard, after all.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 17 2021, @05:21AM
For the record - I didn't like your post an awful lot, and disagreed with parts of it. But, your post shouldn't have been moderated troll. I'm fixing what I see as moderation abuse now.
Since I'm here:
1. Who should investigate police? In all cases, there are existing superior organizations that can do the investigations. Take Georgia, for example - the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is superior to any city or county police/sheriff force, and have indeed brought local cops to justice. And, of course, the FBI is superior to the GBI. Once at the federal level, I'm not sure which way things would work out, but there are multiple agencies capable of launching investigations into alleged wrongdoing. Federal Marshalls might investigate a case involving FBI agents - and vice versa.
2. Civil forfeiture is much too common. It varies from locale to locale. Albuquerque, New Mexico ranks among the worst, various places in Texas, the TSA robbed a butt-load of travelers in Tennessee several years back.
3. True, local police forces didn't start the War on Drugs. But many of them jumped in and harvested the cash rewards offered.
4. Cops are supposed to have the same weapons available that the civilian populace has at their disposal. After all, cops are civilians. They simply should not have weapons of war. Whatever they have, the Second Amendment says that regular civilians should have access.
5. Government has busted unions before. The most recent major union busting was the Air Controller's union. When unions get too big, too powerful, and too corrupt, they need to be taken down.
Skipping 6 - 7. Nazi Germany all but worshipped the idea of efficiency. They were inhuman bastards, but they were efficient.
8. I don't much care about purported danger to cops. First, they volunteered for the job. If they lack the balls to face danger, they shouldn't be there. Second, there are always alternatives. Stake the house out and wait, if they are afraid. People can come out, but no one goes in. No food coming in, the guy inside will surrender sooner or later. No-knocks are almost always going to be wrong. Cops should be searching for the least violent option, always. If that means maintaining a police presence outside a house for an entire week, so be it. Cops should be happy doing that - lots of overtime, without much danger!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 16 2021, @03:15PM (1 child)
You don't have to explicitly tell them what you're doing in order to get that panopticon sheen. Keeping them guessing goes further.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday August 16 2021, @03:34PM
You are correct in that you don't have to explicitly tell them exactly how or what you can do. Hinting at it is usually enough. Also actually doing it a few times is usually enough to trigger it. After all not everyone that believe they are under surveillance actually is under surveillance. Combined with that what they do will eventually trickle down/out mainly by cases going to trial and they have to reveal how things was gathered. That said paranoia is also a wonderful tool in that regard if you can just make people believe that they are doing things, there is backside to tho where they believe they can do things that they really can't or rarely can.