For Immediate Release
S.T.O.P. Report Shows Police Foundations Undermine Rule of Law
Report details how police foundations are privatizing the surveillance state, funneling millions of dollars towards controversial and profiteering programs.
(New York, NY, 12/13/22) – Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based privacy group, released Privatizing the Surveillance State: How Police Foundations Undermine Rule of Law, detailing how police foundations funnel money from donors to police departments, bypassing democratic oversight by elected officials. Foundations invest in dangerous surveillance tools like predictive policing software, digital surveillance platforms, cellphone hacking devices, and robotic spy dogs. The report calls on cities to fully dissolve police foundations or, at a minimum, hold them to the same good-government and transparency standards as city agencies.
SEE: Report – Privatizing the Surveillance State: How Police Foundations Undermine Rule of Law
https://www.stopspying.org/privatizing-surveillance-state
“Police foundations quietly subsidize dangerous surveillance tech and other police pet projects,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Research Director Eleni Manis. “They take advantage of their status as charities to avoid public accountability, and to help police avoid accountability. Police foundations have no place in a just city. At minimum, they should be held to the same good-government and transparency standards as city agencies.”
“Police foundations are slush funds, not philanthropy,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Development Director Sam Van Doran. “If these foundations were charities with nothing to hide, they’d be transparent about their donors and grantmaking; instead, they hide behind their tax status to secretly fund the surveillance state. We don’t need to fill any faux funding gaps – we need to abolish police foundations.”
Key Findings Include:
- Police foundations are classified as charities and are therefore not required to report donation size, donor name, and donation allocation, creating a back-channel for corruption;
- Law enforcement agencies take advantage of the charity loophole to secretly deploy untested technologies, evading budget oversight and even Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) laws;
- While the full extent of the projects police foundations fund is unknown, almost 76% of police foundations across the nation have funded police technology, including invasive and faulty surveillance technologies and projects;
- Technologies funded by police foundations include surveillance centers, gunshot detection technology, social media monitoring technology, cell-site simulators, illegal watch list databases, cellphone hacking technology, “predictive” policing technology, automated policing robotics, surveillance drones, automated license plate readers, and CCTV, Ring, and body cameras;
- This report recommends that cities should apply surveillance oversight ordinances, such as CCOPS, to all foundation purchases of surveillance technology.
Last month, S.T.O.P. and the Legal Aid Society (LAS) condemned the NYPD’s purchase of nearly $3 billion in secret surveillance equipment that had previously been hidden from the public, with hundreds of millions of dollars allocated towards projects known to have received police foundation support. These contracts were kept hidden under the Special Expenses program, a controversial agreement that was terminated in 2020 in response to passage of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act.
SEE: Press Release - S.T.O.P., Legal Aid Society Reveal Nearly $3 Billion In Secret NYPD Surveillance Contracts
https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2022/11/14/stop-legal-aid-society-reveal-nearly-3-billion-in-secret-nypd-surveillance-contracts
New York Daily News - NYPD spent $3 billion on surveillance but critics say details are vague despite new disclosure law
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-nypd-surveillance-spending-3b-disclosure-20221114-kxe357hbmbb6hdvmzjxuolhh4e-story.html
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider. 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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