Don't Reward Police For Losing The Capitol

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Friend,   The images were heartbreaking, rampaging insurrectionists attacking our Capitol, desecrating our democracy, and killing those who stood in their way.   We’re angry, and we want those who attempted to overthrow our election held accountable. But we can’t let that anger lead us to empower the very police who failed us this week.   As I wrote today in Wired, “we don’t need a cutting-edge surveillance dragnet to find the perpetrators of this attack: They tracked themselves. They livestreamed their felonies from the halls of Congress, recording each crime in full HD. We don’t need facial recognition, geofences, and cell tower data to find those responsible, we need police officers willing to do their job.”   Despite the growing calls to expand facial recognition, we must press forward with banning it. The concern is not that our Capitol police had too little power, it is that they lacked the willpower to use it against white conservatives. If we use this attack to justify new surveillance powers, we will see those tools used against the communities of color that have been so over-surveilled for so long. Instead, the lesson of this attack is that more that ever we need civilian oversight or policing, institutions that can truly hold officers accountable to the people and republic they pledge to serve.   With thanks, Albert Fox Cahn, Esq. Executive Director Listen To Our Podcast! Our Team Share Tweet Forward