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San Francisco Police Illegally Used Surveillance Cameras at George Floyd Protest

thelock85 5y ago
I definitely agree with the notion that property/physical business owners would want good surveillance. I don't see any good coming from LEOs having unregulated access to a facial recognition network that is funded by taxpayers and run by a private nonprofit with special interests. Maybe I'm tripping and quasi-government surveillance entities funded by crypto-millionaires is okay as long as we can stop the looting.
onphonenow 5y ago
"As Black and Latinx activists, we are outraged—but not surprised—by rich and powerful people supporting illegal police surveillance. " I'm kind of surprised that these neighborhoods don't want cameras TO be monitored / available to police - they are the center of relative high levels of criminal activity. During these peaceful protests I think something like 30 business were looted or destroyed in the union square area alone? In other countries all this actually results in INCREASED CCTV etc use. Just interesting that such use is becoming illegal in SF.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Note the word "activists" in the quote. Activists are not always representative of the communities they come from. Survey data shows that most blacks and Latinos in the US want more policing in their communities. Idk how they feel specifically about the camera question
  - aerostable_slug 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure the blacks and Latinos who had their small businesses looted and/or vandalized and/or burned would be all for nice high resolution cameras with enough lumens to identify people (or at least get a really, really good description). And no, not all small businesses have insurance that covers damage from a riot and/or swarm lootfest with no raised rates or titanic deductible. And even if they did, they might not get covered next year (this has happened to some vineyards in Napa after the recent major fires).
- rayiner 5y ago
  Ethnic “activists,” especially in the upper echelons, are often socialized into white-dominated institutions such as universities, and largely reflect the views of the highly educated whites in their circle. Note the tell—just 3% of Hispanics and Latinos would describe their group using the term “Latinx.” https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in.... Many actively dislike being called that: https://twitter.com/RubenGallego/status/1467920180135276554 https://twitter.com/RubenGallego/status/1467920180135276554. It’s a term popularized by highly educated white people and used by minorities whose peers are mainly highly educated white people. This discrepancy became starkly apparent to me during the recent spate of hate crimes against Asians. The “activists” on CNN were blaming it on Trump and “white supremacy.” I strongly suspected my Bangladeshi immigrant aunts and uncles would instead have blamed gang bangers, aggressive homeless people, etc. I actually had to quietly reach out to my “raised in Queens” card carrying Chinese friend for a guy check to confirm that, yes, the violence was caused by gang members and homeless people, not “white supremacy.” Turns out that not only did Asians in NYC end up supporting Yang and Adams, who took a tougher stance on crime, a shocking number voted for Sliwa even after Adams won the Democratic nomination. Matt Yglesias accurately summarized the issue in an article: https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang > However, I think a more important point about Yang versus the activists here is that it reveals — and not for the first time — that progressive identity-oriented activist organizations often have very little connection to the groups they purport to represent. You can listen to these groups if you want to. But if your purpose in listening to them is to understand how certain communities are thinking about specific issues, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    Sliwa is a throwback to the 80s, just like Trump.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    ...just 3% of Hispanics and Latinos would describe their group using the term “Latinx.” It's a great neologism; mispronounced (identically) in both Spanish and English! I said this word twice before I was strongly encouraged not to do so by those it theoretically describes.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Seriously, who say Latinx? We talk now about Withex, Axians or Blacus?
  - proc0 5y ago
    The same people who think they are saving the world, and then do so by imposing their views and changing other cultures' languages.
  - vmception 5y ago
    It is a distinctly a US term There is an articulable enough reason that requires history to know why people would gravitate to that term, now, and why it is not the end all be all of consensus. Basically, somewhat unlike White, Asian and Black, there are no specific phenotypes or looks that encompass people from Latin America. And Latin America doesn't encompass all parts all of the other Americas or the Caribbean, to all people depending on who you ask. So since A) White, Asian and Black people can be from Latin America, plus B) People can be from other parts of the Americas that are not always considered part of Latin America C) The United States lacks a shorthand to address that population who lacks an adequate form of representation within the United States then D) some people that want to signal that willingness to acknowledge these realities as Latinx. But yes, it can be ignorable as it doesn't reflect the wishes of people with heritage from Central and South America and some parts of the Caribbean, but understand that perspective too is because many people from any distinct country in Latin America don't come from a diverse place to begin with as its mostly just their countrypeople with its own unique phenotypes (or not giving representation or to other people in a caste system), whereas in the US there already is a history of grouping people by race for better or for worse for any reason, and the idea falls apart fastest when it comes to Hispanic or Latin America groupings. White, Asian and Black terms have the same problems when you dive deep enough into it, but the history of migration to the US by those groups makes it easier to ignore that for those groups. For example, if 25%+ of our Asian population had stopped in Peru for a few hundred years before coming to the US, then yeah we actually might be saying something like Axian by now, and there are many people who do wish for more nuanced representation.
    - 5y ago
sokoloff 5y ago
Might be an unpopular opinion, but if I owned a business that provided for my employees and my family in the area where these disturbances* were occurring and had cameras, you bet I’d be trying to get access to those feeds to the police that I pay to protect the law-abiding citizens of the area. Same story if I had cameras covering the Jan 6th, 2021 events. * - I’m trying to use as neutral language as possible.
- wahern 5y ago
  > I’m trying to use as neutral language as possible There's a framing problem here, on both sides. Notice how the EFF article starts off talking about how the recently enacted ordinance requires the police to get pre-approval permission to use facial recognition. But all that actually happened was the policed looked at live CCD footage from cameras not on the pre-approved list. The article is framing the debate by making the rules seem reasonable and the police seem sinister. At the same time, presumably the reason you felt the need to qualify "disturbance" is because you recognize that on the other side of the debate are people who try to frame these protests in a negative light, with an insinuation (if not explicit assertion) that they inevitably descend into looting and violence. Neither narrative is realistic, though in San Francisco the former group absolutely controls the narrative, and likes to play off the counter-framing about inevitable violence. In any event, there's no real debate here: just FUD on both sides. When several weeks ago Mayor Breed said that the 2019 ordinance needed reforming, one of the drafters wrote an op-ed that said there's no need for it; that it doesn't restrict the police in any meaningfully way, and Breed's claim were groundless. That op-ed likewise tossed around the specter of facial recognition. But not once did they address the most obvious issue, which is that the police are severely limited in their ability to perform real-time surveillance of spontaneous and fluid situations, such as peaceful protests, riots, etc. The 2019 and earlier ordinances basically presume a context of continuous, 24 hour surveillance, access thereto, or after-the-fact evidence gathering. For example, requests to put up cameras on corners with high rates of crime or to deploy license plate scanners on patrol cars. Activists on the left have lost all credibility, trailing right behind the right. Even the EFF has gone too far. The debate has become unhinged. It's become so adversarial that nobody even tries address the legitimate concerns of the other side, and facts simply take a back seat. There aren't any adults in the room. Perhaps that's because there isn't a room anymore--the entire conversation, even among the elected and professional classes (scholars, journalists, etc), has shifted over to social media, where success simply equates to spreading your memes (i.e. narratives, baseline assumptions, [poor] statistics, etc).

I definitely agree with the notion that property/physical business owners would want good surveillance. I don't see any good coming from LEOs having unregulated access to a facial recognition network that is funded by taxpayers and run by a private nonprofit with special interests. Maybe I'm tripping and quasi-government surveillance entities funded by crypto-millionaires is okay as long as we can stop the looting.

onphonenow 5y ago

"As Black and Latinx activists, we are outraged—but not surprised—by rich and powerful people supporting illegal police surveillance. " I'm kind of surprised that these neighborhoods don't want cameras TO be monitored / available to police - they are the center of relative high levels of criminal activity. During these peaceful protests I think something like 30 business were looted or destroyed in the union square area alone? In other countries all this actually results in INCREASED CCTV etc use. Just interesting that such use is becoming illegal in SF.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
Note the word "activists" in the quote. Activists are not always representative of the communities they come from. Survey data shows that most blacks and Latinos in the US want more policing in their communities. Idk how they feel specifically about the camera question
- aerostable_slug 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure the blacks and Latinos who had their small businesses looted and/or vandalized and/or burned would be all for nice high resolution cameras with enough lumens to identify people (or at least get a really, really good description). And no, not all small businesses have insurance that covers damage from a riot and/or swarm lootfest with no raised rates or titanic deductible. And even if they did, they might not get covered next year (this has happened to some vineyards in Napa after the recent major fires).
rayiner 5y ago
Ethnic “activists,” especially in the upper echelons, are often socialized into white-dominated institutions such as universities, and largely reflect the views of the highly educated whites in their circle. Note the tell—just 3% of Hispanics and Latinos would describe their group using the term “Latinx.” https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in.... Many actively dislike being called that: https://twitter.com/RubenGallego/status/1467920180135276554 https://twitter.com/RubenGallego/status/1467920180135276554. It’s a term popularized by highly educated white people and used by minorities whose peers are mainly highly educated white people. This discrepancy became starkly apparent to me during the recent spate of hate crimes against Asians. The “activists” on CNN were blaming it on Trump and “white supremacy.” I strongly suspected my Bangladeshi immigrant aunts and uncles would instead have blamed gang bangers, aggressive homeless people, etc. I actually had to quietly reach out to my “raised in Queens” card carrying Chinese friend for a guy check to confirm that, yes, the violence was caused by gang members and homeless people, not “white supremacy.” Turns out that not only did Asians in NYC end up supporting Yang and Adams, who took a tougher stance on crime, a shocking number voted for Sliwa even after Adams won the Democratic nomination. Matt Yglesias accurately summarized the issue in an article: https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang https://www.slowboring.com/p/yang-gang > However, I think a more important point about Yang versus the activists here is that it reveals — and not for the first time — that progressive identity-oriented activist organizations often have very little connection to the groups they purport to represent. You can listen to these groups if you want to. But if your purpose in listening to them is to understand how certain communities are thinking about specific issues, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Sliwa is a throwback to the 80s, just like Trump.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  ...just 3% of Hispanics and Latinos would describe their group using the term “Latinx.” It's a great neologism; mispronounced (identically) in both Spanish and English! I said this word twice before I was strongly encouraged not to do so by those it theoretically describes.
pvaldes 5y ago
Seriously, who say Latinx? We talk now about Withex, Axians or Blacus?
- proc0 5y ago
  The same people who think they are saving the world, and then do so by imposing their views and changing other cultures' languages.
- vmception 5y ago
  It is a distinctly a US term There is an articulable enough reason that requires history to know why people would gravitate to that term, now, and why it is not the end all be all of consensus. Basically, somewhat unlike White, Asian and Black, there are no specific phenotypes or looks that encompass people from Latin America. And Latin America doesn't encompass all parts all of the other Americas or the Caribbean, to all people depending on who you ask. So since A) White, Asian and Black people can be from Latin America, plus B) People can be from other parts of the Americas that are not always considered part of Latin America C) The United States lacks a shorthand to address that population who lacks an adequate form of representation within the United States then D) some people that want to signal that willingness to acknowledge these realities as Latinx. But yes, it can be ignorable as it doesn't reflect the wishes of people with heritage from Central and South America and some parts of the Caribbean, but understand that perspective too is because many people from any distinct country in Latin America don't come from a diverse place to begin with as its mostly just their countrypeople with its own unique phenotypes (or not giving representation or to other people in a caste system), whereas in the US there already is a history of grouping people by race for better or for worse for any reason, and the idea falls apart fastest when it comes to Hispanic or Latin America groupings. White, Asian and Black terms have the same problems when you dive deep enough into it, but the history of migration to the US by those groups makes it easier to ignore that for those groups. For example, if 25%+ of our Asian population had stopped in Peru for a few hundred years before coming to the US, then yeah we actually might be saying something like Axian by now, and there are many people who do wish for more nuanced representation.
  - 5y ago

sokoloff 5y ago

Might be an unpopular opinion, but if I owned a business that provided for my employees and my family in the area where these disturbances* were occurring and had cameras, you bet I’d be trying to get access to those feeds to the police that I pay to protect the law-abiding citizens of the area. Same story if I had cameras covering the Jan 6th, 2021 events. * - I’m trying to use as neutral language as possible.

wahern 5y ago
> I’m trying to use as neutral language as possible There's a framing problem here, on both sides. Notice how the EFF article starts off talking about how the recently enacted ordinance requires the police to get pre-approval permission to use facial recognition. But all that actually happened was the policed looked at live CCD footage from cameras not on the pre-approved list. The article is framing the debate by making the rules seem reasonable and the police seem sinister. At the same time, presumably the reason you felt the need to qualify "disturbance" is because you recognize that on the other side of the debate are people who try to frame these protests in a negative light, with an insinuation (if not explicit assertion) that they inevitably descend into looting and violence. Neither narrative is realistic, though in San Francisco the former group absolutely controls the narrative, and likes to play off the counter-framing about inevitable violence. In any event, there's no real debate here: just FUD on both sides. When several weeks ago Mayor Breed said that the 2019 ordinance needed reforming, one of the drafters wrote an op-ed that said there's no need for it; that it doesn't restrict the police in any meaningfully way, and Breed's claim were groundless. That op-ed likewise tossed around the specter of facial recognition. But not once did they address the most obvious issue, which is that the police are severely limited in their ability to perform real-time surveillance of spontaneous and fluid situations, such as peaceful protests, riots, etc. The 2019 and earlier ordinances basically presume a context of continuous, 24 hour surveillance, access thereto, or after-the-fact evidence gathering. For example, requests to put up cameras on corners with high rates of crime or to deploy license plate scanners on patrol cars. Activists on the left have lost all credibility, trailing right behind the right. Even the EFF has gone too far. The debate has become unhinged. It's become so adversarial that nobody even tries address the legitimate concerns of the other side, and facts simply take a back seat. There aren't any adults in the room. Perhaps that's because there isn't a room anymore--the entire conversation, even among the elected and professional classes (scholars, journalists, etc), has shifted over to social media, where success simply equates to spreading your memes (i.e. narratives, baseline assumptions, [poor] statistics, etc).