How the Federal Government Can Rein In A.I. in Law Enforcement; The New York Times, January 2, 2024

 Joy Buolamwini and Barry Friedman, The New York Times; How the Federal Government Can Rein In A.I. in Law Enforcement

"One of the most hopeful proposals involving police surveillance emerged recently from a surprising quarter — the federal Office of Management and Budget. The office, which oversees the execution of the president’s policies, has recommended sorely needed constraints on the use of artificial intelligence by federal agencies, including law enforcement.

The office’s work is commendable, but shortcomings in its proposed guidance to agencies could still leave people vulnerable to harm. Foremost among them is a provision that would allow senior officials to seek waivers by arguing that the constraints would hinder law enforcement. Those law enforcement agencies should instead be required to provide verifiable evidence that A.I. tools they or their vendors use will not cause harm, worsen discrimination or violate people’s rights."

Someone complained about a book in a Great Barrington classroom. Then the police showed up; The Berkshire Eagle, December 15, 2023

Heather Bellow, The Berkshire Eagle; Someone complained about a book in a Great Barrington classroom. Then the police showed up

"What baffles and disturbs educators, parents and librarians is that a police officer was allowed into a school to investigate a book. It is also that the teacher was not alerted beforehand.

One librarian said it harkens to something dark.

“It brings you back to 1930s Germany, when law enforcement was behind censorship,” said Wendy Pearson, director of the Stockbridge Library, which has Kobabe’s novel on its shelves.

The teacher whose classroom was searched pointed also to the absurdity of it.

“I will never condone book-banning,” she wrote in another social media post about the incident. “Respect for parental and educational guidance? Absolutely! But a police officer should never, ever search classrooms for award-winning literature to remove. Period.”"

Jan. 6 shattered her family. Now they’re trying to forgive.; The Washington Post, January 9, 2023

Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, The Washington Post ; Jan. 6 shattered her family. Now they’re trying to forgive.

"After rioters stormed the Capitol, relatives and friends who disagreed with their actions faced a difficult choice: Should they turn their loved ones over to authorities? Could they continue to have relationships with people accused of trying to interfere with the peaceful transition of power?"

Can police use robots to kill? San Francisco voted yes.; The Washington Post, November 30, 2022

 Daniel Wu, The Washington Post; Can police use robots to kill? San Francisco voted yes.

"Adam Bercovici, a law enforcement expert and former Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant, told The Post that while policies for robotic lethal force must be carefully written, they could be useful in rare situations. He referenced an active-shooter scenario like the one Dallas officers encountered.

“If I was in charge, and I had that capability, it wouldn’t be the first on my menu,” he said. “But it would be an option if things were really bad.”

Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, worried that San Francisco could instead end up setting a dangerous precedent.

“In my knowledge, this would be the first city to take this step of passing a law authorizing killer robots,” Cahn told The Post.

Cahn expressed concern that the legislation would lead other departments to push for similar provisions, or even to the development of more weaponized robots. In the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Tex., the police equipment company Axon announced plans to develop drones equipped with Tasers to incapacitate school shooters but canned the idea after nine members of the company’s artificial-intelligence ethics advisory board resigned in protest."

Opinion: After a rape survivor’s arrest, it’s time to rethink genetic databases; The Washington Post, February 17, 2022

Jennifer King, The Washington Post,; Opinion: After a rape survivor’s arrest, it’s time to rethink genetic databases

"Jennifer King is a privacy and data policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence...

This episode offers a glimpse of the concerns over privacy — as well as matters such as consent to data collection — that will arise as genetic information is stored in ever-greater amounts, and as governments take an ever-greater interest in exploiting it."

AirTags are being used to track people and cars. Here's what is being done about it; NPR, February 18, 2022

MICHAEL LEVITT, NPR; AirTags are being used to track people and cars. Here's what is being done about it

""As technology becomes more sophisticated and advanced, as wonderful as that is for society, unfortunately, it also becomes much easier to misuse and abuse," she told NPR. "I wouldn't say that we've necessarily seen an uptick with the use of AirTags any more or less than any cutting edge technology."

Williams said that what was rare was a technology company taking the issue seriously and moving to address it.

"[Apple is] not only listening to the field, but actively reaching out at times to do safety checks. That in and of itself might sound like a very small step, but it's rare," she said.

Still, Galperin thinks that Apple should have done more to protect people ahead of time. 

"The mitigations that Apple had in place at the time that the AirTag came out were woefully insufficient," Galperin said. 

"I think that Apple has been very careful and responsive after putting the product out and introducing new mitigations. But the fact that they chose to bring the product to market in the state that it was in last year, is shameful.""

I was wrongfully arrested because of facial recognition. Why are police allowed to use it?; The Washington Post, June 24, 2020

Robert Williams, The Washington Post; I was wrongfully arrested because of facial recognition. Why are police allowed to use it?

"Federal studies have shown that facial-recognition systems misidentify Asian and black people up to 100 times more often than white people. Why is law enforcement even allowed to use such technology when it obviously doesn’t work?...

Even if this technology does become accurate (at the expense of people like me), I don’t want my daughters’ faces to be part of some government database. I don’t want cops showing up at their door because they were recorded at a protest the government didn’t like. I don’t want this technology automating and worsening the racist policies we’re protesting. I don’t want them to have a police record for something they didn’t do — like I now do."

Our privacy doomsday could come sooner than we think; The Washington Post, January 23, 2020

Editorial Board, The Washington Post; Our privacy doomsday could come sooner than we think

"The case underscores with greater vigor than ever the need for restrictions on facial recognition technology. But putting limits on what the police or private businesses can do with a tool such as Clearview’s won’t stop bad actors from breaking them. There also need to be limits on whether a tool such as Clearview’s can exist in this country in the first place.

Top platforms’ policies generally prohibit the sort of data-scraping Clearview has engaged in, but it’s difficult for a company to protect information that’s on the open Web. Courts have also ruled against platforms when they have tried to go after scrapers under existing copyright or computer fraud law — and understandably, as too-onerous restrictions could hurt journalists and public-interest groups.

Privacy legislation is a more promising area for action, to prevent third parties including Clearview from assembling databases such as these in the first place, whether they’re filled with faces or location records or credit scores. That will take exactly the robust federal framework Congress has so far failed to provide, and a government that’s ready to enforce it."

Google's Mysterious AI Ethics Board Should Be Transparent Like Axon's; Forbes, April 27, 2018

Sam Shead, Forbes; Google's Mysterious AI Ethics Board Should Be Transparent Like Axon's

"This week, Axon, a US company that develops body cameras for police officers and weapons for the law enforcement market, demonstrated the kind of transparency that Google should aspire towards when it announced an AI ethics board to "help guide the development of Axon's AI-powered devices and services".

Axon said the board's mission is to advise and guide Axon's leaders on the impact of AI technology on communities. The board will meet twice a year and it held its first meeting on Thursday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

"We believe the advancement of AI technology will empower police officers to connect with their communities versus being stuck in front of a computer screen doing data entry," said Axon CEO and founder, Rick Smith, in a statement. "We also believe AI research and technology for use in law enforcement must be done ethically and with the public in mind. This is why we've created the AI ethics board — to ensure any AI technology in public safety is developed responsibly.""

Data on a genealogy site led police to the ‘Golden State Killer’ suspect. Now others worry about a ‘treasure trove of data’; The Washington Post, April 27, 2018

Justin Jouvenal, Mark Berman, Drew Harwell and Tom Jackman, The Washington Post; Data on a genealogy site led police to the ‘Golden State Killer’ suspect. Now others worry about a ‘treasure trove of data’

"Prosecutors say they see the private genealogical databases as an investigative gold mine, and they worry that privacy concerns could block them from the breakthroughs needed to track down future predators.

“Why in God’s name would we come up with a reason that we not be able to use it, on the argument that it intrudes onto someone’s privacy?” said Josh Marquis of the National District Attorneys Association. “Everything’s a trade-off. Obviously we want to preserve privacy. But on the other hand, if we’re able to use this technology without exposing someone’s deepest, darkest secrets, while solving these really horrible crimes, I think it’s a valid trade-off.”

Some legal experts compared the use of public genetic databases to the way authorities can scan other personal data provided to third-party sources, including telephone companies and banks. Others suggested further scrutiny as the amount of publicly available DNA multiplies.

“The law often lags behind where technology has evolved,” said Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former U.S. attorney. With DNA, “most of us have the sense that that feels very private, very personal, and even if you have given it up to one of these third-party services, maybe there should be a higher level of security.”"

We Lose Privacy If We Believe This Fiction; Forbes, July 25, 2017

Frank Miniter, Forbes; We Lose Privacy If We Believe This Fiction

"In this speeding blur of an age we are losing our private lives to a narrative telling us to give up privacy for perceived security. All around are foreshadows of the world Ray Bradbury described in Fahrenheit 451 and that George Orwell warned us of in 1984, but too many of us are having a hard time seeing beyond a false narrative that many in the Washington establishment, from much of the political class to the intelligence agencies, are peddling to empower themselves."

Inspector gadget: how smart devices are outsmarting criminals; Guardian, June 23, 2017

Rory Carroll, Guardian; 

Inspector gadget: how smart devices are outsmarting criminals

"Richard Dabate told police a masked intruder assaulted him and killed his wife in their Connecticut home. His wife’s Fitbit told another story and Dabate was charged with the murder.

James Bates said an acquaintance accidentally drowned in his hot tub in Arkansas. Detectives suspected foul play and obtained data from Bates’s Amazon Echo device. Bates was charged with murder.

Ross Compton told investigators he woke up to find his Ohio home on fire and climbed through a window to escape the flames. Compton’s pacemaker suggested otherwise. He was charged with arson and insurance fraud.

All three men, besides pleading innocence, have one thing in common: digital devices may help put them behind bars and etch them in criminal history as some of the first perpetrators busted by the internet of things...

[Brian Jackson, a criminal justice scholar at the Rand Corporation] warned technology was outpacing debate over privacy. “The general public isn’t aware of the full capabilities. It’s a symptom of our love of technology and lack of detailed skepticism.”

How Privacy Purists Are Helping Criminals; Investor's Business Daily, June 20, 2017

Betsy McCaughey, Investor's Business Daily; How Privacy Purists Are Helping Criminals

"Privacy purists  across the political spectrum — including the libertarian  Cato Institute — are lining up against law enforcement. They argue that the Fourth Amendment guarantees Americans must be  "secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects" from unreasonable searches. That's a precious right.

But as the store owners robbed by Carpenter will tell you, there's also a need to be secure from criminals.

Not to mention terrorists.

The Carpenter case involves records of calls made in the past. What about a new technology police departments are using to track cellphone locations in real time? It can track fugitives, find abducted children, even foil terrorist attacks.

It's a suitcase-size device called a Stingray that mimics cell towers."

Your Cellphone Privacy Rights May Depend on This Supreme Court Case; Mother Jones, June 9, 2017

Samantha Michaels, Mother Jones; Your Cellphone Privacy Rights May Depend on This Supreme Court Case

"There’s a good chance that while you’re reading this, your cellphone is either in your pocket or within arm’s reach. That phone helps produce tons of identifying data about you—and where you are located. The future privacy of that information may depend on a landmark case that the Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear. Carpenter v. United States asks whether the government can get records from phone companies showing the location of customers without first obtaining a warrant. It centers on a man in Michigan named Timothy Carpenter who was convicted of six robberies after his phone company turned over his location data to authorities.

Carpenter’s case could have broad ramifications for people across the country. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that the future of surveillance law hinges on how the Supreme Court rules in this case,” Orin Kerr, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, wrote in the Washington Post. Here are some more reasons why you should be following this one:"

Privacy in the Cellphone Age; New York Times, June 7, 2017

Editorial Board, New York Times; Privacy in the Cellphone Age

"Odds are you need to use that phone in your pocket many times a day — and doing so leaves you no choice but to constantly relay data revealing your location and movements to Verizon, AT&T or whatever cellphone company you pay for the service. For most people, most of the time, that’s not a concern, if they’re aware of it at all. But how easy should it be for the government to get its hands on that data?

That’s the question at the heart of a major new case the Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear. The justices’ decision could redefine not only the limits on law enforcement access to cellphone-location records, but the future of surveillance more broadly...

In 2014, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote that cellphones have become “such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy.”

The third-party doctrine needs to be reimagined in light of Americans’ new relationship to technology and their rapidly changing expectations of data privacy.

If not, Congress should follow what several states have already done and pass legislation requiring warrants for phone-location data."

The U.K. Pleads with Congress to Change an Outdated Privacy Law to Help Fight Terrorism; MIT Technology Review, May 26, 2017

Mike Orcutt, MIT Technology Review; 

The U.K. Pleads with Congress to Change an Outdated Privacy Law to Help Fight Terrorism

"[Paddy] McGuinness pleaded with Congress to make a “technical adjustment” to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which among other things prohibits U.S. technology companies from disclosing stored communications to foreign governments. Instead, foreign law enforcement officials must request that data via the time-consuming Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process, which can take months.

McGuinness said that since many criminals in the U.K. communicate using products and services made by U.S. companies, this “arbitrary” legal hurdle is causing crimes to go unsolved and criminals unpunished (see “Why Congress Can’t Seem to Fix This 30-Year-Old Law Governing Your Electronic Data”).

Why Scanning Your Fingerprint Could Cost You Your Privacy; Inc.com, May 23, 2017

Adam Levin, Inc.com; Why Scanning Your Fingerprint Could Cost You Your Privacy

"Scanning a fingerprint or even an eyeball to authenticate your identity is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Biometric identification has been in practical use for a while now, and the technology gets more sophisticated every day.

It should come as no surprise that security and privacy concerns have arisen along the way. And now the legal ramifications are rapidly getting more complicated.

Washington state lawmakers last month passed pioneering legislation that forbids companies from obtaining or selling biometric information without consent of the individual."

Trump Is President. Now Encrypt Your Email.; New York Times, March 31, 2017

Max Read, New York Times; Trump Is President. Now Encrypt Your Email.

"As lawyers and civil libertarians point out, federal criminal law is so vast and complicated that it is easy to unwittingly violate it, and even innocent conversation can later be used to build a criminal case. Encrypting your communication isn’t a matter of hiding criminal activity; it’s a matter of ensuring innocuous activity can’t be deemed suspicious by a zealous prosecutor or intelligence agent. Telling a friend that a party is really going to “blow up” when you arrive is less funny when it’s being entered into evidence against you."

Cop Who Tried To Keep Driver From Filming Reignites Debate Over Police Privacy; Huffington Post, March 11, 2017

Andy Campbell, Huffington Post; 

Cop Who Tried To Keep Driver From Filming Reignites Debate Over Police Privacy

"Critics are wary of any legislation that blocks access to public documents. But those laws are often grounded in legitimate concerns for officers, Burke said. He noted that officers sometimes face threats of violence and property damage after a video is released, before and regardless of whether any wrongdoing is established.

The laws are a mess. But the silver lining, as Burke and ACLU officials note and as has been said before, is that there’s a national discourse in the first place and real attempts to make legislation that works for everyone.

“There are always going to be unanswered issues, and nothing should be cut in cement,” Burke said. “But we need to have something in place, and we need to revisit it ... we hold ― and should hold ― police officers to a higher standard, but they’re in the job to enforce the laws, not to be abused.”

Just to reiterate: You can record your interactions with police. While there are no uniform federal rules on recording police specifically and federal appeals courts in some areas of the country haven’t ruled on the matter, you do have the right to film in a public space. In general, that includes filming police, unless you’re actively hindering an investigation."

There’s no good way to deal with trolls, so you might as well tattle to their moms; Washington Post, 1/2/17

Jessica Contrera, Washington Post; There’s no good way to deal with trolls, so you might as well tattle to their moms:

"People being harassed can alert the police, but law enforcement has struggled to identify and prosecute anonymous online harassers. Of the millions of people who were stalked and harassed online between 2010 and 2013, only 10 cyberstalking cases were filed in federal courts during that time, according to a review by “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace” author Danielle Citron. These situations nearly always involve not just one harasser, but dozens or even thousands threatening or spreading a false rumor about their victim.

“Every single individual who promotes [the rumor] is part of the problem, but none of them are actually criminally responsible,” explained Mary Anne Franks, the legislative policy director at the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, which advocates for laws to protect online victims.

Franks said there is no “one size fits all” approach for dealing with trolls, but she doesn’t recommend trying to reason with them.

“There is nothing you can say to them that won’t give them more to work with,” Franks said."