For Immediate Release
55 Civil Rights Groups Demand DOJ, NY Investigate AI Audio Surveillance In Prisons, Jails
(NEW YORK, NY, 2/10/2022) – Today, 55 civil rights groups and public defender offices, led by the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based anti-surveillance group, and Worth Rises, a non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to dismantling the prison industry and ending the exploitation of those it touches, demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice and New York regulators investigate artificial intelligence audio surveillance in prisons and jails. The letters to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang follow reporting of extensive federal funding for unproven, invasive, and potentially discriminatory AI surveillance.
Advocates cite recent reporting from Vice that prison and jail telecom vendors illegally recorded privileged attorney-client calls and from the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Program awarded $700,000 to just one Suffolk County, NY to install phone call transcription and search technology.
SEE: Thomson Reuters - Crack down on U.S. prison surveillance tech, rights groups urge
https://news.trust.org/item/20220210152812-a16ki/
“AI phone surveillance is biased, invasive, and a complete waste of tax dollars,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. “The Department of Justice should be banning this type of technology, not funding it. Vendors are making outlandish marketing claims for technology they claim can predict future crime, but which does little more than racially profile people in prisons and jails. This technology is being used to record privileged calls with lawyers, spy on intimate moments with family, and expand an ever-growing electronic dragnet.”
“Telecom surveillance preys on the very human need that incarcerated people and their families have to connect, subjecting them to unnecessary, biased, and even illegal intrusions on their privacy. To make matters worse, the very people who are harmed by this surveillance are often eventually forced to pay for it through egregious call rates,” said Worth Rises Executive Director Bianca Tylek. “It’s time that the DOJ stops funding the expansion of this surveillance technology, all enforcement authorities investigate unlawful uses of such surveillance, and the FCC stops telecom vendors from passing their costs onto incarcerated people and their families.”
SEE: Sign-on Letters
Sign-On Letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland to Investigate Funding of Audio Surveillance Technology in U.S. Prisons and Jails
https://www.stopspying.org/sign-on-letters/2022/2/7/sign-on-letter-to-attorneygeneral-audiosurveillance-prisons-jails
Sign-On Letter to Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark to Investigate Funding of Audio Surveillance Technology in U.S. Prisons and Jails
https://www.stopspying.org/sign-on-letters/2022/2/7/sign-on-letter-to-assistantattorneygeneral-audiosurveillance-prisons-jails
Sign-On Letter to the New York Office of the Attorney General to Investigate Funding of Audio Surveillance Technology in U.S. Prisons and Jails
https://www.stopspying.org/sign-on-letters/2022/2/7/sign-on-letter-to-nyattorneygeneral-audiosurveillance-prisons-jails
Sign-On Letter to the New York Office of the Inspector General to Investigate Funding of Audio Surveillance Technology in U.S. Jails and Prisons
https://www.stopspying.org/sign-on-letters/2022/2/7/sign-on-letter-to-nyinspectorgeneral-audiosurveillance-prisons-jails
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.
Worth Rises is a non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to dismantling the prison industry and ending the exploitation of those it touches. We work to expose the commercialization of the criminal legal system and advocate and organize to protect and return the economic resources extracted from affected communities.
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CONTACT: S.T.O.P. Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn; Worth Rises Executive Director Bianca Tylek.
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