Archive for the 'Police State' Category
#myNYPD Twitter Campaign Backfires, Promotes Photos of Police Brutality Instead of Positive Encounters with Public
April 23rd, 2014Via: New York Daily News: An exercise in social media outreach turned #epicfail Tuesday when users flooded the Twittersphere with some of the NYPD’s most infamous moments of brutality. The NYPD, through its Twitter page, innocuously asked people on to post pictures of themselves interacting with New York’s Finest — complete with the hashtag myNYPD. […]
Introducing AISight: CCTV Network Completely Run by AI
April 22nd, 2014Via: ITProPortal: BRS Labs’ AISight is different because it doesn’t rely on a human programmer to tell it what behaviour is suspicious. It learns that all by itself. The system enables a machine to monitor is environment, and build up a detailed profile of what can be considered “normal” behaviour. The AI can then determine […]
The New Cop on the Beat May Be a Bot
April 18th, 2014Via: Time: A Silicon Valley company called Knightscope is currently testing a prototype robot designed to detect and monitor criminal activity, much the way a police officer or a security guard would. The Knightscope K5 is a five-foot-tall autonomous robot (one presumes that its resemblance to a Dalek is merely coincidental) that roams around your […]
Heroin a Growing Threat Across USA, Police Say
April 17th, 2014In other news, Afghanistan Opium Harvest at Record High: Afghan opium cultivation has reached a record level, with more than 200,000 hectares planted with the poppy for the first time, the United Nations says. The UNODC report said the harvest was 36% up on last year, and if fully realised would outstrip global demand. Most […]
FBI Plans to Have 52 Million Photos in its NGI Face Recognition Database by Next Year
April 16th, 2014Via: EFF: New documents released by the FBI show that the Bureau is well on its way toward its goal of a fully operational face recognition database by this summer. EFF received these records in response to our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for information on Next Generation Identification (NGI)—the FBI’s massive biometric database that […]
As Many As One Million Armed New Yorkers Are About To Break The Law
April 14th, 2014Via: Forbes: This year April 15 is more than the tax deadline for an estimated one million New York State residents. It’s also the deadline to register “assault weapons” and “high-capacity” magazines. If they don’t, they’ll begin living outside the law. A lot of them have decided to do just that. They’ve decided to practice […]
LAPD Officers Tampered with In-Car Recording Equipment
April 9th, 2014Via: Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles police officers tampered with voice recording equipment in dozens of patrol cars in an effort to avoid being monitored while on duty, according to records and interviews. An inspection by Los Angeles Police Department investigators found about half of the estimated 80 cars in one South L.A. patrol division […]
Police and Stingray
March 22nd, 2014Via: AP: Police across the country might be intercepting phone calls or text messages to find suspects using a technology tool known as Stingray. But they’re refusing to turn over details about its use or heavily censoring files when they do. Police say Stingray, a suitcase-size device that pretends it’s a cell tower, is useful […]
Los Angeles Cops Argue That All Cars Are Under Investigation
March 20th, 2014Via: EFF: Do you drive a car in the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area? According to the L.A. Police Department and L.A. Sheriff’s Department, your car is part of a vast criminal investigation. The agencies took a novel approach in the briefs they filed in EFF and the ACLU of Southern California’s California Public Records […]
Man Spends 26 Years on Death Row for Murder He Didn’t Commit
March 12th, 2014Via: CNN: There are many ways to measure 30 years, but for Glenn Ford, the yardstick is simple. “My sons — when I left — was babies. Now they grown men with babies,” he said, speaking as a free man for the first time in nearly three decades. Ford, Louisiana’s longest-serving death row prisoner, walked […]
