By: Melina Londos
The New York City police department recently announced its release of a new policing system that will combine making the city safer with a way to make money for the city to further future policing technologies. The program was developed in combination with Microsoft in a public-private partnership that uses advanced computer algorithms to enhance security. The public-private relationship is nothing new for the legal system, and much of the success of the program is attributed to the combination of the public needs and experience in combination with the funds and capabilities of the private industry. Just 6 months after the official announcement about the program, the police department already has a large number of potential buyers ranging from smaller municipalities to police chiefs of major cities throughout the country. Buyers of the program would have access to the software which can be customized to fit the needs of individual cities and groups at a cost of a least several million dollars. The revenue collected from the program will be directed to future counterterrorism and crime prevention programs. “The new program incorporates more than 3,500 cameras in public places, license-plate readers at every major Manhattan entry point, fixed and portable radiation detectors, real-time alerts transmitted from the 911 emergency system and a trove of Police Department data, including arrests and parking summons.”
The new system has already been used in numerous cases and has a high success rate. While the system has been deemed a “’transformative tool’ for law enforcement” there are also potential problems regarding privacy. The fact of the matter is that the very factors that make the system so effective and efficient with respect to crimes and policing (i.e the influx of cameras and other surveillance technology) are the very factors that invade ones privacy. As stated in the New York Times article, “ the system was so encompassing that even with built-in legal and technological constraints, it subjected the public to a potential invasion of privacy ‘much greater that anything we have seen so far.’” This same issue is being observed in many modern policing tactics, which becomes a difficult point for law makers trying to balance crime detection and prevention with citizens privacy rights. The line dividing the two factors is extremely blurred and varies a lot between individuals and the different areas the practice is being implemented in. Law makers and police officers are faced with determining a set distinction, but in the case of a known criminal or terrorist should exceptions be made? What if these exceptions infringe on the rights of other innocent citizens? Most of all, law makers are faced the big question: As technological advances in the policing industry continue, will privacy become a thing of the past?
Absolute privacy, the kind that existed decades ago, has become a thing of the past. One has to simply acknowledge that today, CCTV cameras are commonplace everywhere. The policing system mentioned in the article is only another technology which adds to what are now in existence. The innocent needs not be defensive if he or she has nothing to hide and did not do anything against the law. Those who raise an outcry against the system are not really concerned about human rights, but afraid that they might get caught.
ReplyDelete-Sehun Lee
Wow we sound like we are heading in the London direction. Now I find this direction predictable especially since we learned about the various forms of tecnology based policing. My question is what happens in the event that a Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) is used (like in a terrorist attack). An EMP is an intense energy field that can instantly overload or disrupt numerous electrical circuits at a distance. (http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/hemp_hpm.htm). If we begin connecting all of our forms of policing to technology then our police depts are just as vulnerable as the rest of us. It seems counterintuitive that such a marriage between civil servant agencies to technology would help us fight terrorism whilst making us just as vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The real question is who benefits from this system in the long-term? The police depts, Microsoft, shareholders or alleged terrorists?
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