The New York City Police Department
has access to literally thousands
and thousands of cameras across
three boroughs that grab all sorts
of footage and feed it into facial
recognition software.
Now, facial recognition software of
course has many flaws because it's
created by humans who tend to have
various biases, whether it has to
do with race, socioeconomic status.
And so, to know that all of
this data, all of these images, and
all of this footage of Americans in
New York is being fed into
the facial recognition technology
and software, gives you a sense of
how bad this problem really is.
Now, the extent of it is worse than
we had expected, but luckily
Amnesty International did a study
on this to give us a sense of just
how widespread this practice is in
the New York Police Department.
Amnesty recruited thousands
of volunteers to tag surveillance
cameras at intersections across
Manhattan, Brooklyn, and
the Bronx using images from
Google Street View as part of a Ban
the Scan campaign.
They have so far identified
15,280 cameras across the three
boroughs with certain neighborhoods
particularly heavily surveilled.
Gee, I wonder which neighborhoods.
Now, East New York in Brooklyn,
which the last census recorded
as 54.4% Black, 30% Hispanic, and
8.4% White was the top of Amnesty's
ranking of most heavily watched
neighborhoods with 577 cameras
found at street intersections
across a relatively small area.
So we have a dangerous and
awful cocktail here Was,
where you have terrible policing by
the NYPD, which we've given so many
examples of on this show throughout
the years.
You have the flawed facial
recognition technology, and
then you have insane surveillance
taking place with more than 15,000
cameras catching footage of
ordinary Americans as they're
going through their daily lives.
As a former New Yorker,
what are your thoughts on this?
I think you're muted Was.
>> I muted myself like a dummy.
I think it's important for people
to understand that East New York in
Brooklyn is probably one of the
last vestiges of old New York City
as far as economically challenged.
There is a higher crime rate than
generally the rest of the city.
And people got tough over there,
that's just the fact of the matter.
And for me, the main problem is
it's not that obviously there's
a higher crime rate there, but
there's a reason for that, right?
There's less investment in things
like schools and public goods and
economic opportunities.
These are the things that cause
crime.
And instead of addressing those
things, instead of investing in
those things, in programs and
such that could change the lives
of these people.
We turn it into a police
surveillance state and treat them
like they're freaking animals,
it's insane, it's unfortunate.
But it's hard to envision even
the citizens of New York
understanding that there's a better
way to go about making that
situation in East New York better.
There's a smarter way to do that
rather than turning this thing over
to the damn cops, they wreck it in
New York is pristine, obviously.
>> Right, but
you just touched on something so
important Was, because right now
across the country, there has been
a spike in violent crime.
There has, and we need to be real
about that, right?
I don't think that's a right wing
talking point.
You see it in
the numbers of homicides.
You see it in gun violence cases,
it's all over the place.
And what I'm worried about is that,
what you just proposed, what you
just drew attention to in regard to
actual investment in these
communities in order to provide
opportunities to poor people.
We're just getting the right wing
side of solving it,
which is more of the failed tough
on crime policies that have only
created an awful criminal justice
system.
That have only imprisoned an insane
amount of nonviolent Americans.
I mean, it's a failed policies, but
at the same time I'm not seeing
a strong case being made by
the left in regard to what the real
solutions need to be.
And if they neglect this problem,
I think that we're going to revert
back to the failed policies of
the 1980s and 1990s.
>> Yeah, and the bottom line and
the answer to these questions is,
more investment financially from
the government and
getting these organizations who
specialize in helping people with
these kinds of problems, right?
It needs to be a concerted effort.
This isn't just going to disappear
just because people say it is.
I remember watching you guys on
Jacobin, the one episode and
the economist you guys had on was
explaining the old was
ruling classes.
Those people in the tenements,
there's so lazy and
just liming around all day.
Why don't we build them a park?
Maybe they'll think to themselves,
they should go exercise and
leave the house.
It was patronizing, but they knew
that at least they felt like there
was some kind of investment that
needs to be made amongst the poors.
We got to pay for
the poors somehow.
Within the capitalist class and
the ruling class that we have
today, that's not even a thought.
It's like, you know what,
let's lock them up,
throw away the key, and
move on with our lives.
>> Yeah, and then when you look at
how violent crime is tackled in
other countries,
it is kind of amazing.
Because when you look at some of
the Scandinavian countries that
tend to have a more, I guess,
humane way of dealing with crime
and criminals.
You notice that there's far less
violent crime in those countries,
far less recidivism.
Meaning, people who do serve time
and behind bars are far less likely
in the Scandinavian countries to
end up behind bars again.
Whereas in the United States, our
recidivism rate is astronomical,
it's super, super high.
And we have obviously tough on
crime policies that have failed.
We have insane surveillance,
which captures our every move when
we're in public spaces.
And obviously with
technological innovation,
possibly when we're in the privacy
of our own home as well.
And Amnesty points out that aside
from violent encounters on the
streets, the force also used facial
recognition technology to track
Black Lives Matter protesters.
So this is a form of intimidation
for political activists.
One activists, Derrick Ingraham,
found 50 police officers gathered
outside his apartment and a police
helicopter overhead after the force
apparently used a picture from his
Instagram page to find him.
He was pursued for shouting in
an officer's ear with a bull horn.
So all of that for a BLM protester,
and what happened to protecting
the businesses from looters?
It is amazing to see what the cops
are willing to go after,
while simultaneously complaining
about how these protests lead to
looting.
Well, you guys have all the
resources in the world, why don't
you protect the businesses that
you're claiming to be concerned
about, rather than cracking skulls
of peaceful protesters?
I don't know, just the thought.
But obviously, what we're doing in
response to crime, what we're doing
in indiscriminately surveilling
Americans.
What we're doing in relying and
flawed facial recognition
technology, is only exacerbating
the problems that we already have.
These are not solutions, but
nothing changes, and
that's the frustrating thing.
And I think part of the reason why
nothing changes is because there's
no one on the left who is proposing
and fighting for.
I think that second part is super
relevant, fighting for alternative
solutions to the problems we're
experiencing.
>> Yeah, and
the worst thing about it too, and
obviously that's a problem.
There's nobody on the left who is
prescribing tangible solutions to
dealing with the problems of
inequality and poverty that we face
here in America.
And specifically I
do want to talk about the NYPD.
Just this idea that,
this unchecked, ungoverned body of
our government, i.e the New York
city Police Department.
Who again, let's face it, when they
go into a neighborhood and
they behave the way they behave.
They say, well,
these residents have a history of
a certain behavior.
Okay, cool, let's talk about the
NYPD's behavior and their history.
It's riddled with corruption and
crime for decades if not,
centuries.
That's your history NYPD.
So that being the case,
what do we do with the NYPD?
We say,
you continue to be unchecked and
two, let's give you more resources
to be more authoritarian and
more ridiculous.
The dichotomy is just hilarious
to me, if it wasn't so sad.
>> Right, and sick, absolutely.