The Philadelphia Police Department is posting mugshots - mostly of Black and Latinx people accused of selling drugs - on their Special Operations Facebook page. Each photo, tagged with the person's name, age, race, gender, and where they were arrested - is public, available for searching and sharing--and for nasty and ridiculing Facebook comments. Help MAG-Net member, Media Mobilizing Project, tell Philly Police Commissioner Richard Ross: Take down the mugshots from Facebook!
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Problem
In a digital age and era of big data, technology is strengthening policing and incarceration and exacerbating harms to communities of color. Police technologies like body-worn cameras, facial recognition, Stingrays, and other devices are being deployed and used primarily in communities of color. Governments and advocates aiming to decrease the carceral state are turning to electronic monitors and predictive risk assessment software as alternatives to incarceration.
Solution
Although mass surveillance is of growing concern in the U.S., the unequal and historic surveillance of Black people, Muslims, migrants, and the social movements that represent them has yet to see significant action by policy makers or federal regulators. Laws and practices to curb mass surveillance should protect those whose rights are most vulnerable to violation.
High-Tech Surveillance Campaigns
Tell the FCC: Stingrays have got to go!
The Center for Media Justice, New America’s Open Technology Institute, and Color Of Change, filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission against the Baltimore Police Department for their illegal use of Stingray cellphone tracking devices. Join us in telling the FCC that Stingrays must go!
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