MEDIA ADVISORY
Civil Rights Groups Hold Online Press Conference, Call on Public to Condemn NYPD Draft Surveillance Policies Before Feb. 25 Deadline
(NEW YORK, NY, 2/23/21) – Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), Amnesty International, the Legal Aid Society, The Immigrant Defense Project, New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), National Lawyers Guild, Fight for the Future, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Action Network, and Brennan Center for Justice held an online press conference to call on the public to condemn the NYPD’s draft surveillance policies ahead of the February 25th submission deadline. The draft policies were published pursuant to the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act. The POST Act, which was passed last year, requires NYPD to publish policies for every surveillance tool it uses, but advocates say the NYPD’s policies fail to comply and are filled with errors and boiler-plate text.
SEE: Press Conference Video
https://youtu.be/dp73Gg4HGow
“New Yorkers have just a couple days left to speak out against NYPD surveillance,” said S.T.O.P. Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. “The NYPD thinks they can stonewall the public and break the law without consequences, but we have to show them they can’t. If the NYPD is able to finalize these draft policies without public pushback, they’ll continue to hide the racist truth of their surveillance program. The NYPD had the chance to create real safeguards, but they decided to push PR instead. Many of these policies aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. They hide the truth about how NYPD surveillance promotes discrimination, they ignore the ways their technology puts New Yorkers at risk of false arrest, and they tried to hide the millions wasted on the Department’s boondoggles. We must demand policies that provide real accountability, and we must demand a complete ban on racist surveillance tools like facial recognition.”
"Transparency in the technologies and surveillance systems of the NYPD is long overdue," said New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. "Use of tools such as facial recognition to surveil New Yorkers is a form of oppression — with ingrained biases that further the systemic injustices that already pervade policing. I am calling for all New Yorkers to take action and collectively question the NYPD, demanding real transparency, before the February 25 deadline."
“Facial recognition risks being weaponized by law enforcement against marginalized communities around the world,” said Amnesty International AI and Human Rights Researcher Matt Mahmoudi. “From New Delhi to New York, this invasive technology turns our identities against us and undermines human rights. New Yorkers should be able to go out about their daily lives without being tracked by facial recognition. Other major cities across the US have already banned facial recognition, and New York must do the same.”
“The draft policies released, pursuant to the POST Act, are part of the NYPD’s continued attempts to obstruct any form of transparency and accountability,” said Legal Aid Society Digital Forensics Supervising Attorney Jerome D. Greco. “The policies are insufficient and opaque. The bare minimum the well-funded agency can do is provide comprehensive impact and use policies for the powerful surveillance tools it weaponizes against New Yorkers, disproportionally targeting communities of color and those that dare to exercise their First Amendment rights. We encourage members of the public to demand more before the comment period ends.”
“It is urgent that community members submit comments before February 25, because the NYPD has not provided sufficient information about what surveillance technologies it uses as required under the POST Act,” said Immigrant Defense Project Senior Policy Associate Jose Chapa. “At risk of losing the most are communities of color, more notably Black and Brown communities, including immigrants. Being listed on a gang database can have disastrous consequences for people who are either in the process of applying for any immigration relief or are in danger of deportation. When agencies share data without any oversight such as gang databases, the data is not only exploited, but it also leads to multiple erroneous reports of people that have been mistakenly identified as being affiliated with gangs through the blanket style surveillance of Black and Brown communities.”
"The POST Act was intended to provide the public with a powerful tool to begin checking the NYPD and calling out its abuses of power, but these policies don’t go far enough to advance transparency or address the worst harms of surveillance in New York City,” said NYCLU Senior Policy Counsel Michael Sisitzsky. “The NYPD's overall approach to fulfilling its disclosure obligations was apparently to do the absolute minimum. For people of color and members of communities who are historically surveilled by law enforcement, the scale and capability of the NYPD’s tech arsenal remains a pervasive threat. The NYPD owes the public more.”
"New Yorkers deserve transparency and accountability from our police force,” said National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee Co-Chair Erica Johnson. “Our laws and policies should protect communities of color, not illegally surveil or profile them. We need NYPD to be more open and honest with the people they swore an oath to serve. That means providing details on how information is shared and retained. We also need shorter data retention times to protect individual's privacy."
“Passing the POST Act was a huge step forward toward holding law enforcement accountable and reining in their out-of-control surveillance network in New York,” said Fight for the Future Campaign Director Caitlin Seeley. “The NYPD’s unwillingness to comply with the law and share information with the public is a perfect indicator of why they shouldn’t be allowed to use these tools of mass surveillance at all. We know they’ve unjustly used tools like facial recognition to identify people attending protests, and it’s likely that they’re hiding the truth about other ways they’ve targeted marginalized communities with their surveillance network.”
“We only have until this Thursday to demand real accountability and transparency from NYPD in disclosing their use of invasive surveillance technology to spy on New Yorkers,” said National Action Network NYC Field Director Derek Perkinson. “NYPD’s draft policies shared in response to the POST Act strikingly downplay the disparate impact of surveillance technology on Black and Brown New Yorkers. Technologies like facial recognition are programmed with the same racial biases held by the real people who created them. To keep our communities and neighbors safe, I encourage all New Yorkers to make their voices heard by commenting on the POST Act and demanding an end to NYPD’s escalating mass surveillance.”
“NYPD surveillance poses grave threats to the civil rights and civil liberties of New Yorkers,” said Brennan Center for Justice Liberty and National Security Program Counsel Ángel Díaz. “The POST Act disclosures uniformly fail to provide the transparency necessary to enable democratic oversight and accountability. If NYPD wants to use these invasive tools, it must – at a minimum – provide the disclosures required by law and explain what safeguards it has implemented to protect New Yorkers’ rights.”
SEE: N.Y. Times – Council Forces N.Y.P.D. to Disclose Use of Drones and Other Spy Tech
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/nyregion/nypd-police-surveillance-technology-vote.html
NYPD Draft POST Act Policies
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/about/about-nypd/public-comment.page
POST Act Comment Page
https://www.postact.org/
S.T.O.P. report on POST Act and other local surveillance laws
https://www.stopspying.org/ccops
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider hosted by the Urban Justice Center. S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Our work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color.
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CONTACT: S.T.O.P. Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn
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