PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Cynthia Conti-Cook, Director of Research and Policy at Surveillance Resistance Lab
2:40:28
ยท
3 min
Cynthia Conti-Cook, representing the Surveillance Resistance Lab and the Street Vendor Project, testified on the NYPD's use of surveillance technologies, particularly those used in coordination with other agencies. She highlighted concerns about unreported surveillance, unlawful profiling, and the mapping of immigrant communities.
- Emphasized the need for NYPD to report on all surveillance technologies, including those accessed through other agencies and task forces
- Raised concerns about data sharing practices across multiple agencies and their impact on immigrant communities
- Criticized operations like "Operation Restore Roosevelt" as examples of policing under different names, affecting diverse communities negatively
Cynthia Conti-Cook
2:40:28
Good afternoon.
2:40:29
Thank you for all of the members of the committee for holding this important hearing.
2:40:33
My name is Cynthia Conte Cook.
2:40:35
I'm the director of research and policy at the surveillance resistance lab.
2:40:39
I present this testimony jointly today on behalf of both the lab and the street vendor project.
2:40:44
We testify jointly today to bring attention to the technologies that are used by the NYPD as was referenced several times in the hearing today jointly with other agencies through task force task task forces and other coordinated efforts, that include data and other personnel sharing.
2:41:03
And the questions that this raises around additional unreported surveillance technologies that exist in the city, in addition to the types that was just referenced, in addition to unlawful profiling, and what is an obviously dangerous effort to map immigrant communities.
2:41:20
This rhymes with what many black and Latino New Yorkers have experienced from decades of intense broken windows policing and stop and frisk.
2:41:28
While for many years we thought that those quality of life initiatives were about racist and systemic terrorizing of neighborhoods by oppressive policing, and it was.
2:41:37
What we learned in hindsight was that it was also that physical traumatizing incident was the tip of the iceberg, and what lurked beneath the surface of the quality of life policing goals was also data collection and community mapping by police.
2:41:53
A similar iceberg lurks beneath the surface today with street vendor policing and the mapping of immigrant communities.
2:41:59
In spite of the post act, the NYPD fails to report on many of the mechanisms through which it collects information about New Yorkers, especially low income or disabled New Yorkers from immigrant black and other communities of color who rely on city services as well as those who survive financially as street vendors.
2:42:17
We ask that the city council mandate the NYPD to report the full breadth of technologies that it uses to surveil including technologies and data it has access to through other agencies and city and state task forces so that they may also be publicly debated.
2:42:33
This is increasingly critical as cross agency efforts to police city rules and regs escalate and become more police controlled using peace officers operating within traditionally civilian agencies, for example, operations that target street vendors across the city by policing arms of sanitation and parks department.
2:42:52
We testify to call attention to the data sharing practices across these multiple agencies, and as we heard today, multiple MOUs, allow data to become accessible to all members of such task forces including the NYPD.
2:43:06
While the NYPD may not collect data for federal civil immigration policing as it testified today, it is absolutely collecting data on immigrants for civil city rules and regulations through street vendor policing task forces.
2:43:19
As an example, the NYPD's Operation Restore Roosevelt was launched in October 2024 through the Community Link Initiative, which has been described as a multi agency response to quality of life issues.
2:43:31
It promises to address the complex issues through a multi agency response, but in January 2025, the outcomes of this operation were arrests, summonses, and seizure of property.
2:43:43
In other words, Operation Restore Roosevelt relied on resources from 20 various city agencies to carry out a policing project.
2:43:50
It's policing but with a different name.
2:43:53
Not surprisingly, the operation has not improved the quality of life equitably for diverse communities that call Jackson Heights home.
2:44:01
I'll end by just saying that the purpose and extent of data sharing between police and all other agencies through initiatives like Community Link, but also through EdTech, through benefits portals like My City, the sanitation trash dash, and citywide data sharing systems like worker connect should also be publicly reported and debated.
2:44:19
Thank you.
Yusef Salaam
2:44:19
Thank you.