Technology Turns Our Cities Into Spies

The LA Times reported (May 2, 2018) that "more than 30 Oakland Police Department patrol cars are roaming the city with license plate readers, specialized cameras that can scan and record up to 60 license plates per second. Meanwhile, the Alameda County Sheriff's Office maintains a fleet of six drones to monitor crime scenes when it sees fit. The Alameda County district attorney's office owns a StingRay, a device that acts as a fake cell tower and forces phones to give up their location. And that's just in one little corner of California."

Most cities don't just keep this data to themselves. Rather they share it with their regional "fusion centers" of which there are 77 across the country, or share the data directly with other agencies across the United States as we saw with the San Diego Police Department.

Now, most people want law enforcement to have the tools it needs to do its job. Tracking an identified criminal subject based upon probable case and a warrant issued by a judge is no doubt a good thing. Using technology to conduct mass-surveillance of a community in the hope of finding a criminal by chance is problematic at best.