the new york Supreme Court has officially ordered the NYPD to release
thousands literally thousands of documents revealing
their surveillance tactics toward members of Black lives matter.
These are activists who protested in the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020.
Now before we give the details on the most recent ruling, I think it's important to
understand the context here and the background of this case.
Amnesty International is very much front and center in this effort to reveal these
documents and on september 15th of 2020 amnesty International requested
a list of documents related to the procurement of facial recognition drones,
gate recognition and other surveillance technology.
Between March 1st of 2020 through september 1st of 2020.
Now they requested the documents.
They were denied the documents and I should note you might be curious,
I was certainly curious about so called gait recognition.
What is that?
Well, gait recognition systems use the shape of the human body and
the way it moves in order to identify it.
The software which I'm guessing is faulty.
Just like facial recognition technology uses what's referred to as CV algorithms.
It detects a human silhouette on video and analyzes its movements.
The data then creates a human behavioral model and again,
these surveillance tactics are certainly problematic technologically speaking,
they've been faulty to say the least, but the question is who are they surveilling?
How are they surveilling them?
And amnesty International says that the N.
Y. P. D.
Has more than 15,280 surveillance cameras at intersections
all across the city which have allegedly been used to identify and
prosecute and persecute BLM protesters.
So here's just one example of the NYPD abusing surveillance power.
There's Derek ingram who's a 28 year old co founder of Warriors in the Garden.
He was targeted by officers in Rye riot gear during an hours long NYPD raid on
august 7th of 2020 after allegedly shouting into a police officer's
ear during a june protest against police brutality.
A spokesperson for the N.
Y. P.
D.
Confirmed that facial recognition software was used during the course of
that investigation.
Now it's important to keep in mind that the charges against him were
eventually dropped.
So he had a felony assault charge against him that was downgraded and
then eventually dropped altogether.
And then in the public records request amnesty International wrote that the use
of this technology facial recognition and surveillance technology by the NYPD
could have so some serious human rights concerns, especially when we have passed
evidence indicating that the surveillance techniques are often faulty and
can end up accusing innocent people of crimes they have not committed.
Now, the NYPD denied the request but amnesty International and the surveillance
technology oversight project known as stop took the department to court.
Okay, so this This is where the new news comes in.
The NYPD initially argued that an initial search for
responsive records produced over 30 million emails and
it would be unreasonably burdensome to comply with the request.
But lawyers for amnesty international and the NYPD have met since and
the groups have narrowed down what they're asking for to just 2700 documents.
And the most recent update is that on friday,
the new york Supreme Court Justice Lawrence Love rejected the NYPD stance and
ruled that the department must release to the groups any records not
exempted under the state's public records law,
Love ordered the groups to resubmit their public records request and for the N.
Y. P. D.
To either turn over the documents or
specifically identify which exemption prohibits the release of each one.
So dr richie, rich Rashad, ritchie.
This is good news.
Especially because amnesty International and
the general public will now have access to these NYPD records,
which we should have had access to from the very beginning,
considering the fact that these are public servants paid with taxpayer money.
Yeah, I like what Justice Love did here.
I wish it would have been a little more concrete and
no explanation could be provided, but I don't think they're going to find a legal
explanation to withhold these documents.
Anyway, let me say this.
The C.
I. A. It is illegal for the C.
I. A.
To put citizens under surveillance domestically.
Why, primarily because of their massive surveillance capabilities and
the lack of prerequisite mandate for an investigation.
They don't have the same due process responsibility.
But it seems as if the new york police department is operating as the de facto C.
I. A.
Where they're putting a massive number of citizens under surveillance
who have committed absolutely no crime whatsoever and then refusing to adhere to
a simple request because this information is now part of the public record.
Why are they operating as an outfit external of the normative rules?
Here's why Because they always have, you see police,
they have always felt as if their governmental agency is special and
should not be held accountable as any other governmental agency,
even though they get their money from the same place.
Us taxpayers, they get their directive from the same place.
Policyholders or policy or politicians that actually implement policy and
give them their scope, their range of operation.
So I find it interesting once again,
we're talking about the culture of policing and how on paper on policy.
It's right, okay.
They're supposed to give this
information by way of request as part of public record.
But in culture, what have they done?
They have done exactly what they are accustomed to doing,
operating outside of the rules and saying basically the rules do not apply to us.
So I like the ruling from the judge.
I wish it would have been a little more concrete and we will see if there's any
more legal maneuvering after the justice has said you got to turn this stuff over
if you do not have an actual legal exemption for not exactly.
And it's really important for the public to have access to these
documents because there needs to be oversight.
There needs to be assurances that the N.
Y. P. D.
Is not abusing its power.
And more importantly if innocent people are being surveilled that is a human
rights abuse, it is a form of intimidation toward individuals who are in
Engaging in their first amendment rights and their ability to assemble in
their ability to protest in their ability to express political speech.
And what I find so fascinating about the police response to the protests that
took place in the summer of 2020 is that while on one hand they purport to care so
much about the businesses that were looted.
They say seem to do very little if nothing really to protect those businesses because
they're, the entirety of their response was focused on persecuting surveilling and
demonizing the activists who were protesting on the streets,
not the looters, the protesters, I think that's telling to say the least.
That's right. And
you got to think about the irony of this.
I mean the people are protesting police brutality,
police negligence, the use of excessive force, police corruption and
in the middle of that protest literally the way they are surveilling
the individuals protesting them is corrupt itself.
Police departments are out of damn control and
this is why it takes leadership to rein them in and you have some D.
A.
S who are doing it throughout this country.
Not enough.
But we got to get more and
better leadership in those positions to hold cops accountable.