Over the past decade, the surveillance tech industry has infiltrated many parts of America. New Orleans is among the most surveilled cities, including over 400 “Real Time Crime Cameras,” roughly 100 Flocc cameras, ShotSpotter listening posts, CellHawk (cell tower data grabs), NightHawk (pulling data from seized cell phones), and a private citizen’s own network of surveillance systems (Project NOLA).
NOPD partnered with the infamous company Palantir from 2011 – 2018 for “predictive policing.” There is no way to know what level of data access Palantir still holds after being given the digital keys to the city.
The NOPD infamously violated the City’s ban on Facial Recognition Technology, yet nobody was held accountable. Now they are violating their drone policies by barely logging any information on nearly all of their drone flights. Considering the total inability to create policies that are transparent to the public and obeyed by the police, it is past time for City Council and the Mayor to commit to pausing the ever-expanding and highly suspect surveillance state…