thenation | Keep in mind that this article barely scratches the surface when it
comes to the increasing numbers of ways in which the police’s use of
technology has infiltrated our everyday lives.
In states and cities across America, some public bus and train systems have begun
to add to video surveillance, the surreptitious recording of the
conversations of passengers, a potential body blow to the concept of a
private conversation in public space. And whether or not the earliest
versions of predictive policing actually work, the law-enforcement
community is already moving to technology that will try to predict who
will commit crimes in the future. In Chicago, the police are using social-networking analysis and prediction technology to draw up “heat lists”
of those who might perpetuate violent crimes someday and pay them
visits now. You won’t be shocked to learn which side of the tracks such
future perpetrators live on. The rationale behind all this, as always,
is “public safety.”
Nor can anyone begin to predict how law enforcement will avail
itself of science-fiction-like technology in the decade to come, much
less decades from now, though cops on patrol may very soon know a lot
about you and your past. They will be able to cull such information from
a multitude of databases at their fingertips, while you will know
little or nothing about them—a striking power imbalance in a situation
in which one person can deprive the other of liberty or even life
itself.
With little public debate, often in almost total secrecy,
increasing numbers of police departments are wielding technology to
empower themselves rather than the communities they protect and serve.
At a time when trust in law enforcement is dangerously low, police
departments should be embracing technology’s democratizing potential
rather than its ability to give them almost superhuman powers at the
expense of the public trust.
Unfortunately, power loves the dark.
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