By Matthew Harwood and Jay Stanley, TomDispatch
While many say that new technology in policing will promote better law enforcement and reestablish trust between the police and the public, “a little digging reveals that the feds not only aren’t putting the brakes on improper police use of technology, but are encouraging it.” Police departments are being very secretive about this new technology, such as a cell site stimulator that can potentially track down phones and phone conversations, and “predictive policing,” that can tell “where crime is most likely to occur next.”
This article says that not only do civil libertarians and civil rights activists question if technology like the “predictive policing” will work accurately, they worry that it will hurt the communities they are supposed to protect and serve. “We tend to view it as a set of potential new ways for the police to continue a long history of profiling and pre-convicting poor and minority youth,” the article says.
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