{"id":24370,"date":"2025-05-22T21:18:51","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T18:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=24370"},"modified":"2025-05-22T21:18:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T18:18:51","slug":"the-technology-that-will-imprison-people-in-cities-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=24370","title":{"rendered":"The Technology That Will Imprison People in Cities – Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

8. Predictive Policing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than a century, police have been trying to find ways to predict where, when, and by whom crime will be committed. In the 21st century, this ambition often takes the form of predictive algorithms that use historical data in an attempt to predict future events. Police often connect facts as diverse as traffic information, crime statistics, and incident reports, or even student grades. The algorithmic results often guide police procedures, patrols, and even who should be placed under increased surveillance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But of course, police cannot actually predict crime, with or without computers. No one can see the future. What police can do, however, is make assumptions about who and where crime is most likely to occur, and put those places and people under intense scrutiny. Such increased surveillance can itself create documentation of a person\u2019s likely activities!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more types of sensitive personal data about individuals are being fed into these programs. Police departments and vendors claim that they can train machine learning algorithms to predict whether a particular person is likely to commit crimes. One claim is that this can be done by analyzing a person\u2019s physical facial features (!) . There is also the broader problem of skewed data produced by police departments. This can create a self-fulfilling prophecy that uses the supposed objectivity of mathematics to legitimize politically biased police procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one\u2019s constitutional rights should be abrogated because they live in or travel through areas where an algorithm has predicted crime will occur. Exactly such incidents have been observed in Greece, for example, when police proceeded to bring passers-by from the street outside the Concert Hall during the government\u2019s celebration of the Prespa Agreement there. Citizens were detained for many hours without any reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Police access to IoT devices<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The days when our computers were the only electronic devices in the home connected to the rest of the world via the internet are gone forever. Now, everything from refrigerators to cameras, lights and robotic vacuum cleaners can be accessed via apps from anywhere in the world. This is often called the \u201cInternet of Things\u201d (IoT).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One privacy concern is that many of these IoT devices store personal data not locally on the device itself, or exclusively on the device, but on a remote company server somewhere, where many people and entities, including authorities, can access it. Perhaps most worryingly, connected devices are collecting and storing video and audio from and around our homes, some of it in real time. But there\u2019s also a lot of other IoT data that could be of interest to police. For example, data from our connected thermostat or refrigerator could show whether we were home at a certain time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worse, some of these IoT companies have chosen to integrate police involvement into their infrastructure. Especially with connected devices geared toward surveillance, companies have built systems that make it easy for police to request data to aid in investigations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 2021, 18% of homes in the U.S. have a doorbell. This is probably one of the largest networked surveillance systems in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10.<\/strong> Gunshot Detection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acoustic gunshot detection is a system designed to detect, record, and locate the sound of gunshots and then alert authorities. The equipment usually takes the form of sensitive microphones and sensors. They are often accompanied by cameras. They are typically mounted on streetlights or other overhead structures, although some are mobile and others operate indoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are serious concerns about the accuracy of acoustic gunshot detection systems, particularly the false positives. For example, a study conducted by the Chicago Inspector General found that less than 10% of ShotSpotter alarms resulted in evidence of a gun-related crime. In a 2017 case, a ShotSpotter forensic analyst testified that the sensors incorrectly placed the location of a shooting a block away from where it actually occurred. When asked about the company\u2019s accuracy guarantee, the analyst stated, \u201cOur guarantee was written by our sales and marketing department, not our engineers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11.<\/strong> Forensic Information Extraction Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In today\u2019s world, we carry around a detailed dossier of our lives. Our mobile devices contain our most intimate details, acting as a personal messenger, photo album, planner, navigator, address book, notepad, and even wallet, all rolled into one. So we are extremely vulnerable when the information contained on these devices is accessed by those we don\u2019t trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police can use \u201cforensic tools\u201d to extract information from our devices and create a detailed report on our activities and communications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A.<\/strong> forensic tools are a threat to our privacy. They can automatically suck up all the information on our devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B.<\/strong> forensic tools are a violation of our basic Constitutional rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C.<\/strong> these forensic tools will unbearably burden political opponents of the system and anyone who expresses dissent in general, subjecting them to oppressive police investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D.<\/strong> forensic tools increase the pools of data held by agencies, which can be stolen by data thieves and misused by law-breaking agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12.<\/strong> Community Surveillance Apps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technology rarely invents new social problems. Instead, it digitizes them, magnifies them, and allows them to swell and multiply at the speed of light. This is precisely the problem we have seen with location-based, crowd-sourced \u201cpublic safety\u201d apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of apps have flooded the market, all of which are supposed to show you the potential dangers around you and in your neighborhood. The problem is that instead of making people feel safer and better informed, they have the opposite effect, making people feel terrified and as if their community is less safe than it actually is, amplifying and alerting users to unfounded reports on an almost constant basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. Real-time location tracking<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real-time location tracking via cell phones is one way that law enforcement is able to track the location of individuals over time. In recent years, law enforcement has gained access to this information by purchasing it from data brokers, giving them access, often in real time, to the locations of millions of people who had nothing to do with crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buying and using cell phone location data undermines individual rights and circumvents regulations designed to prevent police from tracking us and collecting information unnecessarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14. Social media monitoring<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media includes some of the most personal details of our lives, including information about our health, likes and dislikes, political views and religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and the people we associate with. Their content includes usernames, bios, contact information, status updates, comments, photos, videos and feeds, event posts, lists of friends or followers, friend requests, groups, private messages, account creation dates, location, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police can combine social media monitoring with other technologies, such as facial recognition, to identify individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since social media posts are largely contextual, police can misinterpret innocent expressions, song lyrics, or inside jokes, leading to criminal consequences for individuals who may not even be aware that they are being monitored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social media monitoring can restrict free expression, due to the well-founded fear that one may be scrutinized for their political views, be interrogated, expose others to surveillance, be included in a police database, or even face criminal charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

______________________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great delusion for the masses, the great lie, is that by giving up important freedoms they will become safer from outlaws. This is self-evidently false since we all know that outlaws do not obey laws and are therefore always armed with weapons and technology. Legal citizens therefore give up their freedom without any consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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