Police have begun testing new ‘thought crime’ technology in New Orleans that allows them to arrest citizens who may be about to commit a crime.
The technology relies solely on an advanced “pre-crime” algorithm to detect crimes before they happen.
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Police have begun testing new ‘thought crime’ technology in New Orleans that allows them to arrest citizens who may be about to commit a crime.
The technology relies solely on an advanced “pre-crime” algorithm to detect crimes before they happen.
Activistpost.com reports: Despite an ongoing debate about potential errors in current systems, and even the legitimacy of predictive algorithms altogether, police departments across the nation are rolling out various versions of this technology. However, even worse than citizens apparently having little to no say about what their tax dollars are building, it is increasingly coming to light that these programs are being used without informing citizens at all.
I previously reported about the difficulty that journalists and activists have had in the notoriously police state infested Chicago, with the Chicago PD even refusing FOIA requests for details from well-known media like The Chicago Sun Times.
Now, in an explosive report from The Verge, reporter Ali Winston details how innocent residents of New Orleans might have been swept up in a dragnet of data collection without their knowledge. According to Winston, the private global data collection and analysis corporation, Palantir Technologies, helped launch a secret software program in 2012 with New Orleans police to track connections between gang members. As Winston rightly highlights, Palantir was founded by the CIA’s venture capital firm, making the current findings exponentially worse for those who value civil liberties. Moreover, Winston documents the lengths that the partnership went to cover up the program’s disclosure, even to city council members:
…the program escaped public notice, partly because Palantir established it as a philanthropic relationship with the city through Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s signature NOLA For Life program. Thanks to its philanthropic status, as well as New Orleans’ “strong mayor” model of government, the agreement never passed through a pu..
