PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Talia Kamran, Staff Attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services Seizure and Surveillance Defense Project, on NYPD Surveillance and POST Act Implementation
2:48:41
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3 min
Talia Kamran, representing Brooklyn Defender Services, critiqued the NYPD's implementation of the POST Act, highlighting concerns about transparency, racial bias in surveillance technologies, and the need for stronger oversight. She emphasized the disproportionate impact of surveillance on low-income communities of color and called for more accurate reporting of disparate impacts.
- Discussed specific issues with facial recognition technology and ShotSpotter, noting their inaccuracies and potential for increasing discriminatory policing practices.
- Advocated for additional safeguards, including court oversight for phone seizures and extractions, to prevent the perpetuation of racial bias in surveillance data.
- Supported proposed legislation to improve surveillance oversight and urged consideration of Intro 963 regarding surveillance of jail phone calls.
Talia Kamran
2:48:41
Thank you.
2:48:44
Good afternoon.
2:48:45
Thank you.
2:48:46
My name is Talia Kamran.
2:48:47
I'm a staff attorney at Brooklyn Defender Services Seizure and Surveillance Defense Project, which is a specialized unit in our criminal defense practice that monitors how device and data seizures impact prosecution and the general surveillance of our clients' communities.
2:48:59
The Post Act was meant to give New Yorkers transparency into how they're being watched, but the NYPD has been manipulating its requirements and ignoring recommendations from the OIG to avoid real accountability.
2:49:09
So I'd like to note on what my colleagues shared about facial recognition since it came up that our office, Brooklyn Defenders, has also seen cases where facial recognition has been the basis for probable cause for arrest.
2:49:21
So while that may not be the policy that's written that the NYPD has, that's what's happening in practice and should also be tracked and reported.
2:49:30
And on that note, one of our office's greatest concerns is that OIG has repeatedly encouraged NYPD to report on the disparate impact of its surveillance tools on protected groups as those tools are actually being used.
2:49:42
Yet the NYPD has continued to only report on the potential impact of its written policies.
2:49:47
So the disparate impact reporting requirement within the post act must be clarified and needs to be codified.
2:49:54
The people that Brooklyn Defenders represent are primarily low income New Yorkers of color who live in neighborhoods that are bearing the brunt of NYPD's surveillance and policing.
2:50:02
They, like all New Yorkers, deserve to know whether they are being disproportionately surveilled.
2:50:07
ShotSpotter is a clear example of why we need better disparate impact reporting.
2:50:11
So nearly all ShotSpotter sensors are placed in black and Latino neighborhoods.
2:50:16
And the NYPD claims that that they don't choose this.
2:50:19
This is just based on data and not based on race.
2:50:21
But even then, the data that they're using from ShotSpotter is deeply flawed.
2:50:26
ShotSpotter is wrong, doesn't detect gunshots 84% of the time.
2:50:30
And over 99% of its alerts do not lead to gun recovery or suspect identification.
2:50:36
So it's not having a meaningful effect on public safety.
2:50:39
What it is doing is driving police officers into into these communities on high alert, guns drawn, looking for suspects, stopping people questioning and frisking them in the same neighborhoods that they already over police.
2:50:53
Beyond that, while the post act and its reporting requirements provide one important tool for stemming unregulated surveillance, we also need additional safeguards, particularly in the form of court oversight.
2:51:03
So the NYPD currently takes phones primarily from young black men, the group most likely to be stopped first and arrested for low level offenses, as has been documented documented for over a decade by the Floyd Monitor.
2:51:16
And once they have these phones, they often coerce people into unlocking them, and then they keep them, and they perform extractions on them.
2:51:22
Right?
2:51:23
So what this does is create a very dangerous feedback loop where the majority of the data that NYPD is getting from phones that are seized is from these young people, their friends, their communities, and families.
2:51:33
Right?
2:51:33
So the only data coming in is from black communities and the only data being used.
2:51:38
So then that same bias pool of data is fed into precision policing systems and is being used to create a surveillance system that is as racially biased as beat cops policing itself.
2:51:51
So we need clear warrant requirements around this so that they can't keep phones indefinitely for any and all purposes.
2:51:59
Finally, we commend city council for considering these introductions, 01/1968, '2 '30 '3, and April.
2:52:04
And on the topic of surveillance, we'd also like to urge the council to consider, intro nine six three about the Department of Corrections mass surveillance of city jail phone calls, under under this umbrella of surveillance.
2:52:16
So thank you for having me today.