3 ms·

True journalism. ACLU should do a nationwide one, they'd raise the money in a hearbeat.

danso 8y ago
The various local branches of the ACLU have been doing some impressive data projects. - NYCLU won a lawsuit that forced the NYPD to release a database of their stop-and-frisk activity. The analysis of the data -- which showed a huge racial disparity in who was targeted -- was instrumental in winning a court order to reform the practice. In 2011, the NYPD committed 685K stop-and-frisks. In 2017, they did 10K. [0] The ACLU of Northern California [1] filed records requests with 63 California police departments to uncover their financial deals with Geofeedia, a tech company that claimed to offer crime/protest detection using real-time feeds from Facebook/Instagram/Twitter's APIs. Geofeedia, which had recently raised $24M, had to vastly cut its operations after the tech companies shut off API access. [0] https://www.nyclu.org/en/nyclu-campaign-0 https://www.nyclu.org/en/nyclu-campaign-0 [1] https://www.aclunc.org/blog/facebook-instagram-and-twitter-provided-data-access-surveillance-product-marketed-target https://www.aclunc.org/blog/facebook-instagram-and-twitter-p... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13010337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13010337
- hanniabu 8y ago
  > In 2011, the NYPD committed 685K stop-and-frisks. In 2017, they did 10K. Am I wrong to read this as "if we can't be racist about it we're just not going to do it as much"
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    No, it’s more like it doesn’t accomplish anything. The point of stop and frisk is essentially to hassle everyone in a perceived high crime area and grab people with warrants, etc. My dad worked in NYC public housing in the 90s, and these aggressive policing measures were both effective and welcomed (to a point) by the community, as it pushed out people that were ruining their homes and lives. Like all things bureaucracy, the metrics ended up mattering more than reality. Aggressive policing became systematic harassment and the police go out of their way to not see things. That’s why you can walk through Rockefeller Center and observe scam cartoon characters hustle tourists 6 feet away from police details. Good metrics are valued higher than the public.
  - distant_hat 8y ago
    There'd be a massive backlash if they randomly started frisking white officegoers and the like.
  - twunde 8y ago
    Only partially. The NYPD was essentially forced by lawsuits and political pressure to shut down stop and frisk. The ACLU lawsuit that parent mentioned, required that police have a valid reason to stop and frisk someone in advance. Think of this as having a business justification for every expense at a company that scrutinizes these requests. Subsequent lawsuits shut down the ability to stop and frisk individuals coming and going from public housing[0]. On top of this, the new NYC mayor, De Blasio, wanted to shut down stop and frisk altogether (one of his major campaign planks). 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/nyregion/new-york-police-dept-stop-and-frisk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/nyregion/new-york-police-... for more information
  - jmchuster 8y ago
    Why wouldn't you read it as "we eliminated 675k racially-motivated stop-and-frisks, and are left with 10k non-racially-motivated ones."

The various local branches of the ACLU have been doing some impressive data projects. - NYCLU won a lawsuit that forced the NYPD to release a database of their stop-and-frisk activity. The analysis of the data -- which showed a huge racial disparity in who was targeted -- was instrumental in winning a court order to reform the practice. In 2011, the NYPD committed 685K stop-and-frisks. In 2017, they did 10K. [0] The ACLU of Northern California [1] filed records requests with 63 California police departments to uncover their financial deals with Geofeedia, a tech company that claimed to offer crime/protest detection using real-time feeds from Facebook/Instagram/Twitter's APIs. Geofeedia, which had recently raised $24M, had to vastly cut its operations after the tech companies shut off API access. [0] https://www.nyclu.org/en/nyclu-campaign-0 https://www.nyclu.org/en/nyclu-campaign-0 [1] https://www.aclunc.org/blog/facebook-instagram-and-twitter-provided-data-access-surveillance-product-marketed-target https://www.aclunc.org/blog/facebook-instagram-and-twitter-p... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13010337 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13010337

hanniabu 8y ago
> In 2011, the NYPD committed 685K stop-and-frisks. In 2017, they did 10K. Am I wrong to read this as "if we can't be racist about it we're just not going to do it as much"
- Spooky23 8y ago
  No, it’s more like it doesn’t accomplish anything. The point of stop and frisk is essentially to hassle everyone in a perceived high crime area and grab people with warrants, etc. My dad worked in NYC public housing in the 90s, and these aggressive policing measures were both effective and welcomed (to a point) by the community, as it pushed out people that were ruining their homes and lives. Like all things bureaucracy, the metrics ended up mattering more than reality. Aggressive policing became systematic harassment and the police go out of their way to not see things. That’s why you can walk through Rockefeller Center and observe scam cartoon characters hustle tourists 6 feet away from police details. Good metrics are valued higher than the public.
- distant_hat 8y ago
  There'd be a massive backlash if they randomly started frisking white officegoers and the like.
- twunde 8y ago
  Only partially. The NYPD was essentially forced by lawsuits and political pressure to shut down stop and frisk. The ACLU lawsuit that parent mentioned, required that police have a valid reason to stop and frisk someone in advance. Think of this as having a business justification for every expense at a company that scrutinizes these requests. Subsequent lawsuits shut down the ability to stop and frisk individuals coming and going from public housing[0]. On top of this, the new NYC mayor, De Blasio, wanted to shut down stop and frisk altogether (one of his major campaign planks). 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/nyregion/new-york-police-dept-stop-and-frisk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/nyregion/new-york-police-... for more information
- jmchuster 8y ago
  Why wouldn't you read it as "we eliminated 675k racially-motivated stop-and-frisks, and are left with 10k non-racially-motivated ones."