cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/20716
While New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago have all received significant attention when it comes to police use of surveillance technologies, the small city of New Orleans has for years been the laboratory for a sophisticated surveillance apparatus deployed by the city’s police department and other policing bodies.
Just last year, New Orleans was in the news as the city considered setting a new surveillance precedent in the United States. First, a privately run camera network, Project N.O.L.A., was exposed for deploying facial recognition technology, including “live use” (meaning Project N.O.L.A. was identifying people in real time as they walked through the city). All of this was done in close collaboration with the local police, despite these uses violating a 2022 ordinance that placed narrow limits on the use of facial recognition.
Then the city flirted with formally approving the use of live facial recognition technology, which would have been a first in the United States. If enacted, live facial recognition technology would allow police to identify individuals as they move about New Orleans in real time. All of this occurred in the months before the Trump administration deployed Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, wielding an array of surveillance technologies, to terrorize and kidnap New Orleans residents. Of course, New Orleans residents have organized and actively fought back against the police and their spying, offering lessons for organizers across the country.
Edith Romero, an organizer with Eye on Surveillance (EOS), spoke with Truthout about the history of Eye on Surveillance, Project NOLA, the use of facial recognition technology in New Orleans and why we should all be watching what’s happening there if we’re concerned about the growing surveillance state.
From Truthout via This RSS Feed.
It’s a good fight, but I think people should also get used to being surveilled and know what to do when you don’t want to be surveilled. This stuff isn’t new and it isn’t going away just because you blocked or passed some legislation or because the police pinky promised not to use it.
The US and other western countries already have a global surveillance system and they’re always developing new surveillance tools. That has never stopped or slowed down. It seems more useful to talk about countering surveillance, and that’s definitely more useful to most of the people the US uses new technology against. Stopping some surveillance program in New Orleans isn’t going to do anything for surveillance against Palestinians (or anyone else in the Middle East, who are the most surveilled people in the world, by the West).
