theintercept--2020-01-27--The Rise of Smart Camera Networks, and Why We Should Ban Them

that video cameras will use facial recognition software to track our every public move .
Far less remarked upon — but every bit as alarming — is the exponential expansion of “ smart ” video surveillance networks .
Private businesses and homes are starting to plug their cameras into police networks , and rapid advances in artificial intelligence are investing closed-circuit television , or CCTV , networks with the power for total public surveillance .
In the not-so-distant future , police forces , stores , and city administrators hope to film your every move — and interpret it using video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ camera networks is an alarming development that threatens civil rights and liberties throughout the world .
Law enforcement agencies have a long history of using surveillance against marginalized communities , and studies show surveillance chills freedom of expression — ill effects that could spread as camera networks grow larger and more sophisticated .
To understand the situation we ’ re facing , we have to understand the rise of the video surveillance industrial complex — its history , its power players , and its future trajectory .
It begins with the proliferation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ends with a powerful new industry imperative : complete visual surveillance of public space .
In their first decades of existence , CCTV cameras were low-resolution analog devices that recorded onto tapes .
Businesses or city authorities deployed them to film a small area of interest .
Few cameras were placed in pubic , and the power to track people was limited : If police wanted to pursue a person of interest , they had to spend hours collecting footage by foot from nearby locations .
In the late 1990s , video surveillance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Axis Communications invented the first internet-enabled surveillance camera , which converted moving images to digital data .
New businesses like Milestone Systems built Video Management Systems , or VMS , to organize video information into databases .
VMS providers created new features like motion sensor technology that alerted guards when a person was caught on camera in a restricted area .
As time marched on , video surveillance spread .
On one account , about 50 years ago , the United Kingdom had somewhere north of 60 permanent CCTV cameras installed nationwide .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ million such devices , while the U.S. has tens of millions .
According to marketing firm IHS Markit , 1 billion cameras will be watching the world by the end of 2021 , with the United States rivaling China ’ s per person camera penetration rate .
Police can now track people across multiple cameras from a command-and-control center , desktop , or smartphone .
While it is possible to link thousands of cameras in a VMS , it is also expensive .
To increase the amount of CCTVs available , cities recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encouraging businesses and residents to place privately owned cameras on their police network — what I call “ plug-in surveillance networks.
” By pooling city-owned cameras with privately owned cameras , policing experts say an agency in a typical large city may amass hundreds of thousands of video feeds in just a few years .
Detroit has popularized plug-in surveillance networks through its controversial Project Green Light program .
With Project Green Light , businesses can purchase CCTV cameras and connect them to police headquarters .
They can also place a bright green @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they are part of the police network .
The project claims to deter crime by signaling to residents : The police are watching you .
Detroit is not alone .
Chicago , New Orleans , New York , and Atlanta have also deployed plug-in surveillance networks .
In these cities , private businesses and/or homes provide feeds that are integrated into crime centers so that police can access live streams and recorded footage .
The police department in New Haven , Connecticut , told me they are looking into plug-in surveillance , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of cameras on police networks now range from tens of thousands ( Chicago ) to several hundred ( New Orleans ) .
With so many cameras in place , and only a small team of officers to watch them , law enforcement agencies face a new challenge : How do you make sense of all that footage ?
Around 2006 , a young Israeli woman was recording family videos every weekend , but as a student and parent , she didn ’ t have time to watch them .
A computer scientist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , told me he tried to create a solution for her : He would take a long video and condense the interesting activity into a short video clip .
His solution failed : It only worked on stationary cameras , and the student ’ s video camera was moving when she filmed her family .
Peleg soon found another use case in the surveillance industry , which relies on stationary cameras .
His solution became BriefCam , a video analytics firm that can summarize video footage from a scene across time so that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a short space of time .
Using a feature called Video Synopsis , BriefCam overlays footage of events happening at different times as if they are appearing simultaneously .
For example , if several people walked past a camera at 12:30 p.m. , 12:40 p.m. , and 12:50 p.m. , BriefCam will aggregate their images into a single scene .
Investigators can view all footage of interest from a given day in minutes instead of hours .
Thanks to rapid advances in artificial intelligence , summarization is just one feature in BriefCam ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ video analytics industry .
Behavior recognition includes video analytics capabilities like fight detection , emotion recognition , fall detection , loitering , dog walking , jaywalking , toll fare evasion , and even lie detection .
Object recognition can recognize faces , animals , cars , weapons , fires , and other things , as well as human characteristics like gender , age , and hair color .
Anomalous or unusual behavior detection works by recording a fixed area for a period of time — say , 30 days — and determining “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If the camera sees something unusual — say , a person running down a street at 3:00 a.m. — it will flag the incident for attention .
Video analytics systems can analyze and search across real-time streams or recorded footage .
They can also isolate individuals or objects as they traverse a smart camera network .
Chicago ; New Orleans ; Detroit ; Springfield , Massachusetts ; and Hartford , Connecticut , are some of the cities currently using BriefCam for policing .
With city spaces blanketed in cameras , and video analytics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enforcement agencies gain the capacity to record and analyze everything , all the time .
This provides authorities the power to index and search a vast database of objects , behaviors , and anomalous activity .
In Connecticut , police have used video analytics to identify or monitor known or suspected drug dealers .
Sergeant Johnmichael O ’ Hare , former Director of the Hartford Real-Time Crime Center , recently demonstrated how BriefCam helped Hartford police reveal “ where people go the most ” in the space of 24 hours by viewing footage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Using a feature called “ pathways , ” he discovered hundreds of people visiting just two houses on the street and secured a search warrant to verify that they were drug houses .
Video analytics startup Voxel51 is also adding more sophisticated searching to the mix .
Co-founded by Jason Corso , a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan , the company offers a platform for video processing and understanding .
Corso told me his company hopes to offer the first system where people can “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data , such as , ‘ I want to find all the video clips that have more than 3-way intersections … with at least 20 vehicles during daylight.
’ ” Voxel51 “ tries to make that possible ” by taking video footage and “ turning it into structured searchable data across different types of platforms.
” Unlike BriefCam , which analyzes video using nothing but its own software , Voxel51 offers an open platform which allows third parties to add their own analytics models .
If the platform succeeds , it will supercharge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spaces .
Corso told me his company is working on a pilot project with the Baltimore police for their CitiWatch surveillance program and plans to trial the software with the Houston Police Department .
As cities start deploying a wide range of monitoring devices from the so-called internet of things , researchers are also developing a technique known as video analytics and sensor fusion , or VA/SF , for police intelligence .
With VA/SF , multiple streams from sensors are combined with video analytics to reduce uncertainties and make inferences about complex situations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me BriefCam is developing in-camera audio analytics that uses microphones to discern actions that may confuse AI systems , such as whether people are fighting or dancing .
VMSs also offer smart integration across technologies .
Former New Haven Chief of Police Anthony Campbell told me how ShotSpotters , controversial devices that listen for gunshots , integrate with specialized software so when a gun is fired , nearby swivel cameras instantly alter their direction to the location of the weapons discharge .
Officers can also use software to lock building doors from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analytics to alert security if one car is being followed by another .
Video analytics captures a wide variety of data about the areas covered by smart camera networks .
Not surprisingly , the information captured is now being proposed for predictive policing : the use of data to predict and police crime before it happens .
In 2002 , the dystopian film “ Minority Report ” depicted a society using “ pre-crime ” analytics for police to intervene in lawbreaking before it occurs .
In the end , the officers in charge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own interests .
A real-world version of “ Minority Report ” is emerging through real-time crime centers used to analyze crime patterns for police .
In these centers , law enforcement agencies ingest information from sources like social media networks , data brokers , public databases , criminal records , and ShotSpotters .
Weather data is even included for its impact on crime ( because “ bad guys don ’ t like to get wet ” ) .
In a 2018 document , the data storage firm Western Digital and the consultancy Accenture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deployed “ across three tiers of maturity.
” This multi-stage adoption , they contended , would “ allow society ” to gradually abandon “ concerns about privacy ” and instead “ accept and advocate ” for mass police and government surveillance in the interest of “ public safety.
” Tier 1 encompasses the present where police use CCTV networks to investigate crimes after-the-fact .
By 2025 , society will reach Tier 2 as municipalities transform into “ smart ” cities , the document said .
Businesses and public institutions , like schools and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government and law enforcement agencies to inform centralized , AI-enabled analytics systems .
Tier 3 , the most predictive-oriented surveillance system , will arrive by 2035 .
Some residents will voluntarily donate their camera feeds , while others will be “ encouraged to do so by tax-break incentives or nominal compensation.
” A “ public safety ecosystem ” will centralize data “ pulled from disparate databases such as social media , driver ’ s licenses , police databases , and dark data.
” An AI-enabled analytics unit will let police assess “ anomalies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before it is committed.
” That is to say , to catch pre-crime .
While CCTV surveillance began as a simple tool for criminal justice , it has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry that covers multiple industry verticals .
From policing and smart cities to schools , health care facilities , and retail , society is moving toward near-complete visual surveillance of commercial and urban spaces .
Denmark-based Milestone Systems , a top VMS provider with half its revenues in the U.S. , had less than 10 employees in 1999 .
Today they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in over 20 countries .
Axis Communications used to be a network printer outfit .
They have since become a leading camera provider pushing over $ 1 billion in sales per year .
BriefCam began as a university project .
Now it is among the world ’ s top video analytics providers , with clients , it says , spanning over 40 countries .
Over the past six years , Canon purchased all three , giving the imaging conglomerate ownership of industry giants in video management software , CCTV cameras , and video @ @ @ @ @ @ @ VMS provider , Avigilon , for $ 1 billion .
In turn , Avigilon and other large firms have purchased their own companies .
Familiar big tech giants are also in on the action .
Lieutenant Patrick O ’ Donnell of the Chicago police force told me his department is working on a non-disclosure agreement with Google for a video analytics pilot project to detect people reacting to gunfire , and if they are in the prone position , so the police can receive real-time alerts .
( Google did not respond to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monitoring networks inevitably entangle and implicate a whole ecosystem of vendors , some of whom have offered , or may yet offer , services specifically targeted at such systems .
Microsoft , Amazon , IBM , Comcast , Verizon , and Cisco are among those enabling the networks with technologies like cloud services , broadband connectivity , or video surveillance software .
In the public sector , the National Institute of Standards and Technology is funding “ public analytics ” and communications networks like the First Responder Network Authority , or FirstNet , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
FirstNet will cost $ 46.5 billion , and is being built by AT & T .
Voxel51 is another NIST-backed venture .
The public is thus paying for their own high-tech surveillance three times over : first , through taxes for university research ; second , through grant money for the formation of a for-profit startup ( Voxel51 ) ; and third , through the purchase of Voxel51 ’ s services by city police departments using public funds .
With the private and public sector looking to expand the presence of cameras @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cash cow .
As Corso put it , “ there will be something like 45 billion cameras in the world within a few decades .
That ’ s a lot of ( video ) pixels .
For the most part , most of those pixels go unused.
” Corso ’ s estimate mirrors a 2017 forecast from New York venture capital firm LDV , which believes smartphones will evolve to have even more cameras than they do today , contributing to the growth .
Companies that began with markets for police and security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commercial sector .
BriefCam , Milestone , and Axis advertise the use of video analytics for retailers , where they can monitor foot traffic , queue length , shopping patterns , floor layouts , and conduct A/B testing .
Voxel51 has an option built for the fashion industry and plans to expand across industry verticals .
Motionloft offers analytics for smart cities , retailers , commercial real estate , and entertainment venues .
Other examples abound .
Public and private sector actors are pressing for a world full of smart video surveillance .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a use case for smart cities : If you drive into the city , you could “ just park and go home ” without using a parking meter .
The city would send a bill to your house at the end of the month .
“ Of course , you lose your privacy , ” he added .
“ The question is , do you really care about Big Brother knows where you are , what you do , etc.
?
Some people may not like it.
” How to Rein in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new forms of Big Brother surveillance are presently fixated on facial recognition .
Yet they have largely ignored the shift to smart camera networks — and the industrial complex driving it .
Thousands of cameras are now set to scrutinize our every move , informing city authorities whether we are walking , running , riding a bike , or doing anything “ suspicious.
” With video analytics , artificial intelligence is used to identify our sex , age , and type of clothes , and could potentially be used to categorize us by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could have a severe chilling effect on our freedom of expression and association .
Is this the world we want to live in ?
The capacity to track individuals across smart CCTV networks can be used to target marginalized communities .
The detection of “ loitering ” or “ shoplifting ” by cameras concentrated in poor neighborhoods may deepen racial bias in policing practices .
This kind of racial discrimination is already happening in South Africa , where “ unusual behavior detection ” has been deployed by smart camera networks for several years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ camera networks are just emerging , and there is little information or transparency about their use .
Nevertheless , we know surveillance has been used throughout history to target oppressed groups .
In recent years , the New York Police Department secretly spied on Muslims , the FBI used surveillance aircraft to monitor Black Lives Matter protesters , and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection began building a high-tech video surveillance “ smart border ” across the Tohono O ’ odham reservation in Arizona .
Law enforcement agencies claim smart camera networks will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
If a camera could be put in every room in every house , domestic violence might go down .
We could add automated “ filters ” that only record when a loud noise is detected , or when someone grabs a knife .
Should police put smart cameras inside every living room ?
The commercial sector is likewise rationalizing the advance of surveillance capitalism into the physical domain .
Retailers , employers , and investors want to put us all under smart video surveillance so they can manage us with visual “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several major police departments told me they have the right to see and record everything you do as soon as you leave your home .
Retailers , in turn , won ’ t even approach public disclosure : They are keeping their video analytics practices secret .
In the United States , there is generally no “ reasonable expectation ” of privacy in public .
The Fourth Amendment encompasses the home and a few public areas we “ reasonably ” expect to be private , such as a phone booth .
Almost everything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , our schools — is fair game .
Even if rules are updated to restrict the use of video surveillance , we can not guarantee those rules will remain in place .
With thousands of high-res cameras networked together , a dystopian surveillance state is a mouse click away .
By installing cameras everywhere , we are opening a Pandora ’ s box .
To address the privacy threats of smart camera networks , legislators should ban plug-in surveillance networks and restrict the scope of networked CCTVs beyond the premise of a single @ @ @ @ @ @ @ density of camera and sensor coverage in public .
These measures would block the capacity to track people across wide areas and prevent the phenomenon of constantly being watched .
The government should also ban video surveillance analytics in publicly accessible spaces , perhaps with exceptions for rare cases such as the detection of bodies on train tracks .
Such a ban would disincentivize mass camera deployments because video analytics is needed to analyze large volumes of footage .
Courts should urgently reconsider the scope of the Fourth Amendment and expand our right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , vendors , and researchers need to disclose and publicize their projects , and engage with academics , journalists , and civil society .
It is clear we have a crisis in the works .
We need to move beyond the limited conversation of facial recognition and address the broader world of video surveillance , before it is too late .

There’s widespread concern that video cameras will use facial recognition software to track our every public move. Far less remarked upon — but every bit as alarming — is the exponential expansion of “smart” video surveillance networks.
Private businesses and homes are starting to plug their cameras into police networks, and rapid advances in artificial intelligence are investing closed-circuit television, or CCTV, networks with the power for total public surveillance. In the not-so-distant future, police forces, stores, and city administrators hope to film your every move — and interpret it using video analytics.
The rise of all-seeing smart camera networks is an alarming development that threatens civil rights and liberties throughout the world. Law enforcement agencies have a long history of using surveillance against marginalized communities, and studies show surveillance chills freedom of expression — ill effects that could spread as camera networks grow larger and more sophisticated.
To understand the situation we’re facing, we have to understand the rise of the video surveillance industrial complex — its history, its power players, and its future trajectory. It begins with the proliferation of cameras for police and security, and ends with a powerful new industry imperative: complete visual surveillance of public space.
Video Management Systems and Plug-in Surveillance Networks
In their first decades of existence, CCTV cameras were low-resolution analog devices that recorded onto tapes. Businesses or city authorities deployed them to film a small area of interest. Few cameras were placed in public, and the power to track people was limited: If police wanted to pursue a person of interest, they had to spend hours collecting footage by foot from nearby locations.
In the late 1990s, video surveillance became more advanced. A company called Axis Communications invented the first internet-enabled surveillance camera, which converted moving images to digital data. New businesses like Milestone Systems built Video Management Systems, or VMS, to organize video information into databases. VMS providers created new features like motion sensor technology that alerted guards when a person was caught on camera in a restricted area.
As time marched on, video surveillance spread. On one account, about 50 years ago, the United Kingdom had somewhere north of 60 permanent CCTV cameras installed nationwide. Today, the U.K. has over 6 million such devices, while the U.S. has tens of millions. According to marketing firm IHS Markit, 1 billion cameras will be watching the world by the end of 2021, with the United States rivaling China’s per person camera penetration rate. Police can now track people across multiple cameras from a command-and-control center, desktop, or smartphone.
While it is possible to link thousands of cameras in a VMS, it is also expensive. To increase the amount of CCTVs available, cities recently came up with a clever hack: encouraging businesses and residents to place privately owned cameras on their police network — what I call “plug-in surveillance networks.”
Photo: Brittany Greeson/The New York Times via Redux
By pooling city-owned cameras with privately owned cameras, policing experts say an agency in a typical large city may amass hundreds of thousands of video feeds in just a few years.
Detroit has popularized plug-in surveillance networks through its controversial Project Green Light program. With Project Green Light, businesses can purchase CCTV cameras and connect them to police headquarters. They can also place a bright green light next to the cameras to indicate they are part of the police network. The project claims to deter crime by signaling to residents: The police are watching you.
Detroit is not alone. Chicago, New Orleans, New York, and Atlanta have also deployed plug-in surveillance networks. In these cities, private businesses and/or homes provide feeds that are integrated into crime centers so that police can access live streams and recorded footage. The police department in New Haven, Connecticut, told me they are looking into plug-in surveillance, and others are likely considering it.
The number of cameras on police networks now range from tens of thousands (Chicago) to several hundred (New Orleans). With so many cameras in place, and only a small team of officers to watch them, law enforcement agencies face a new challenge: How do you make sense of all that footage?
The answer is video analytics.
Video Analytics Takes Off
Around 2006, a young Israeli woman was recording family videos every weekend, but as a student and parent, she didn’t have time to watch them. A computer scientist at her university, Professor Shmuel Peleg, told me he tried to create a solution for her: He would take a long video and condense the interesting activity into a short video clip.
His solution failed: It only worked on stationary cameras, and the student’s video camera was moving when she filmed her family.
Peleg soon found another use case in the surveillance industry, which relies on stationary cameras. His solution became BriefCam, a video analytics firm that can summarize video footage from a scene across time so that investigators can view all relevant footage in a short space of time.
Using a feature called Video Synopsis, BriefCam overlays footage of events happening at different times as if they are appearing simultaneously. For example, if several people walked past a camera at 12:30 p.m., 12:40 p.m., and 12:50 p.m., BriefCam will aggregate their images into a single scene. Investigators can view all footage of interest from a given day in minutes instead of hours.
Thanks to rapid advances in artificial intelligence, summarization is just one feature in BriefCam’s product line and the rapidly expanding video analytics industry.
Behavior recognition includes video analytics capabilities like fight detection, emotion recognition, fall detection, loitering, dog walking, jaywalking, toll fare evasion, and even lie detection.
Object recognition can recognize faces, animals, cars, weapons, fires, and other things, as well as human characteristics like gender, age, and hair color.
Anomalous or unusual behavior detection works by recording a fixed area for a period of time — say, 30 days — and determining “normal” behavior for that scene. If the camera sees something unusual — say, a person running down a street at 3:00 a.m. — it will flag the incident for attention.
Video analytics systems can analyze and search across real-time streams or recorded footage. They can also isolate individuals or objects as they traverse a smart camera network.
Chicago; New Orleans; Detroit; Springfield, Massachusetts; and Hartford, Connecticut, are some of the cities currently using BriefCam for policing.
To Search and Surveil
With city spaces blanketed in cameras, and video analytics to make sense of them, law enforcement agencies gain the capacity to record and analyze everything, all the time. This provides authorities the power to index and search a vast database of objects, behaviors, and anomalous activity.
In Connecticut, police have used video analytics to identify or monitor known or suspected drug dealers. Sergeant Johnmichael O’Hare, former Director of the Hartford Real-Time Crime Center, recently demonstrated how BriefCam helped Hartford police reveal “where people go the most” in the space of 24 hours by viewing footage condensed and summarized in just nine minutes. Using a feature called “pathways,” he discovered hundreds of people visiting just two houses on the street and secured a search warrant to verify that they were drug houses.
Video analytics startup Voxel51 is also adding more sophisticated searching to the mix. Co-founded by Jason Corso, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, the company offers a platform for video processing and understanding.
Corso told me his company hopes to offer the first system where people can “search based on semantic content about their data, such as, ‘I want to find all the video clips that have more than 3-way intersections … with at least 20 vehicles during daylight.’” Voxel51 “tries to make that possible” by taking video footage and “turning it into structured searchable data across different types of platforms.”
Unlike BriefCam, which analyzes video using nothing but its own software, Voxel51 offers an open platform which allows third parties to add their own analytics models. If the platform succeeds, it will supercharge the ability to search and surveil public spaces.
Corso told me his company is working on a pilot project with the Baltimore police for their CitiWatch surveillance program and plans to trial the software with the Houston Police Department.
As cities start deploying a wide range of monitoring devices from the so-called internet of things, researchers are also developing a technique known as video analytics and sensor fusion, or VA/SF, for police intelligence. With VA/SF, multiple streams from sensors are combined with video analytics to reduce uncertainties and make inferences about complex situations. As one example, Peleg told me BriefCam is developing in-camera audio analytics that uses microphones to discern actions that may confuse AI systems, such as whether people are fighting or dancing.
VMSs also offer smart integration across technologies. Former New Haven Chief of Police Anthony Campbell told me how ShotSpotters, controversial devices that listen for gunshots, integrate with specialized software so when a gun is fired, nearby swivel cameras instantly alter their direction to the location of the weapons discharge.
Officers can also use software to lock building doors from a control center, and companies are developing analytics to alert security if one car is being followed by another.
Toward a “Minority Report” World
Video analytics captures a wide variety of data about the areas covered by smart camera networks. Not surprisingly, the information captured is now being proposed for predictive policing: the use of data to predict and police crime before it happens.
In 2002, the dystopian film “Minority Report” depicted a society using “pre-crime” analytics for police to intervene in lawbreaking before it occurs. In the end, the officers in charge tried to manipulate the system for their own interests.
A real-world version of “Minority Report” is emerging through real-time crime centers used to analyze crime patterns for police. In these centers, law enforcement agencies ingest information from sources like social media networks, data brokers, public databases, criminal records, and ShotSpotters. Weather data is even included for its impact on crime (because “bad guys don’t like to get wet”).
In a 2018 document, the data storage firm Western Digital and the consultancy Accenture predicted mass smart camera networks would be deployed “across three tiers of maturity.” This multi-stage adoption, they contended, would “allow society” to gradually abandon “concerns about privacy” and instead “accept and advocate” for mass police and government surveillance in the interest of “public safety.”
Tier 1 encompasses the present where police use CCTV networks to investigate crimes after-the-fact.
By 2025, society will reach Tier 2 as municipalities transform into “smart” cities, the document said. Businesses and public institutions, like schools and hospitals, will plug camera feeds into government and law enforcement agencies to inform centralized, AI-enabled analytics systems.
Tier 3, the most predictive-oriented surveillance system, will arrive by 2035. Some residents will voluntarily donate their camera feeds, while others will be “encouraged to do so by tax-break incentives or nominal compensation.” A “public safety ecosystem” will centralize data “pulled from disparate databases such as social media, driver’s licenses, police databases, and dark data.” An AI-enabled analytics unit will let police assess “anomalies in real time and interrupt a crime before it is committed.”
That is to say, to catch pre-crime.
Rise of the Video Surveillance Industrial Complex
While CCTV surveillance began as a simple tool for criminal justice, it has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry that covers multiple industry verticals. From policing and smart cities to schools, health care facilities, and retail, society is moving toward near-complete visual surveillance of commercial and urban spaces.
Denmark-based Milestone Systems, a top VMS provider with half its revenues in the U.S., had less than 10 employees in 1999. Today they are a major corporation that claims offices in over 20 countries.
Axis Communications used to be a network printer outfit. They have since become a leading camera provider pushing over $1 billion in sales per year.
BriefCam began as a university project. Now it is among the world’s top video analytics providers, with clients, it says, spanning over 40 countries.
Over the past six years, Canon purchased all three, giving the imaging conglomerate ownership of industry giants in video management software, CCTV cameras, and video analytics. Motorola recently acquired a top VMS provider, Avigilon, for $1 billion. In turn, Avigilon and other large firms have purchased their own companies.
The public is paying for their own high-tech surveillance three times over.
Familiar big tech giants are also in on the action. Lieutenant Patrick O’Donnell of the Chicago police force told me his department is working on a non-disclosure agreement with Google for a video analytics pilot project to detect people reacting to gunfire, and if they are in the prone position, so the police can receive real-time alerts. (Google did not respond to a request for comment.)
Video monitoring networks inevitably entangle and implicate a whole ecosystem of vendors, some of whom have offered, or may yet offer, services specifically targeted at such systems. Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Comcast, Verizon, and Cisco are among those enabling the networks with technologies like cloud services, broadband connectivity, or video surveillance software.
In the public sector, the National Institute of Standards and Technology is funding “public analytics” and communications networks like the First Responder Network Authority, or FirstNet, for real-time video and other surveillance technologies. FirstNet will cost $46.5 billion, and is being built by AT&T.
Voxel51 is another NIST-backed venture. The public is thus paying for their own high-tech surveillance three times over: first, through taxes for university research; second, through grant money for the formation of a for-profit startup (Voxel51); and third, through the purchase of Voxel51’s services by city police departments using public funds.
With the private and public sector looking to expand the presence of cameras, video surveillance has become a new cash cow. As Corso put it, “there will be something like 45 billion cameras in the world within a few decades. That’s a lot of (video) pixels. For the most part, most of those pixels go unused.” Corso’s estimate mirrors a 2017 forecast from New York venture capital firm LDV, which believes smartphones will evolve to have even more cameras than they do today, contributing to the growth.
Companies that began with markets for police and security are now diversifying their offerings to the commercial sector. BriefCam, Milestone, and Axis advertise the use of video analytics for retailers, where they can monitor foot traffic, queue length, shopping patterns, floor layouts, and conduct A/B testing. Voxel51 has an option built for the fashion industry and plans to expand across industry verticals. Motionloft offers analytics for smart cities, retailers, commercial real estate, and entertainment venues. Other examples abound.
Public and private sector actors are pressing for a world full of smart video surveillance. Peleg, for example, told me of a use case for smart cities: If you drive into the city, you could “just park and go home” without using a parking meter. The city would send a bill to your house at the end of the month. “Of course, you lose your privacy,” he added. “The question is, do you really care about Big Brother knows where you are, what you do, etc.? Some people may not like it.”
How to Rein in Smart Surveillance
Those who do not like new forms of Big Brother surveillance are presently fixated on facial recognition. Yet they have largely ignored the shift to smart camera networks — and the industrial complex driving it.
Thousands of cameras are now set to scrutinize our every move, informing city authorities whether we are walking, running, riding a bike, or doing anything “suspicious.” With video analytics, artificial intelligence is used to identify our sex, age, and type of clothes, and could potentially be used to categorize us by race or religious attire.
Such surveillance could have a severe chilling effect on our freedom of expression and association. Is this the world we want to live in?
The capacity to track individuals across smart CCTV networks can be used to target marginalized communities. The detection of “loitering” or “shoplifting” by cameras concentrated in poor neighborhoods may deepen racial bias in policing practices.
This kind of racial discrimination is already happening in South Africa, where “unusual behavior detection” has been deployed by smart camera networks for several years.
In the United States, smart camera networks are just emerging, and there is little information or transparency about their use. Nevertheless, we know surveillance has been used throughout history to target oppressed groups. In recent years, the New York Police Department secretly spied on Muslims, the FBI used surveillance aircraft to monitor Black Lives Matter protesters, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection began building a high-tech video surveillance “smart border” across the Tohono O’odham reservation in Arizona.
Law enforcement agencies claim smart camera networks will reduce crime, but at what cost? If a camera could be put in every room in every house, domestic violence might go down. We could add automated “filters” that only record when a loud noise is detected, or when someone grabs a knife. Should police put smart cameras inside every living room?
The commercial sector is likewise rationalizing the advance of surveillance capitalism into the physical domain. Retailers, employers, and investors want to put us all under smart video surveillance so they can manage us with visual “intelligence.”
When asked about privacy, several major police departments told me they have the right to see and record everything you do as soon as you leave your home. Retailers, in turn, won’t even approach public disclosure: They are keeping their video analytics practices secret.
In the United States, there is generally no “reasonable expectation” of privacy in public. The Fourth Amendment encompasses the home and a few public areas we “reasonably” expect to be private, such as a phone booth. Almost everything else — our streets, our stores, our schools — is fair game.
Even if rules are updated to restrict the use of video surveillance, we cannot guarantee those rules will remain in place. With thousands of high-res cameras networked together, a dystopian surveillance state is a mouse click away. By installing cameras everywhere, we are opening a Pandora’s box.
To address the privacy threats of smart camera networks, legislators should ban plug-in surveillance networks and restrict the scope of networked CCTVs beyond the premise of a single site. They should also limit the density of camera and sensor coverage in public. These measures would block the capacity to track people across wide areas and prevent the phenomenon of constantly being watched.
The government should also ban video surveillance analytics in publicly accessible spaces, perhaps with exceptions for rare cases such as the detection of bodies on train tracks. Such a ban would disincentivize mass camera deployments because video analytics is needed to analyze large volumes of footage. Courts should urgently reconsider the scope of the Fourth Amendment and expand our right to privacy in public.
Police departments, vendors, and researchers need to disclose and publicize their projects, and engage with academics, journalists, and civil society.
It is clear we have a crisis in the works. We need to move beyond the limited conversation of facial recognition and address the broader world of video surveillance, before it is too late.


theintercept--2020-01-29--Trump and Netanyahu Dictate Terms of Palestinian Surrender to Israel and Call It Peace

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but no Palestinian leader , President Donald Trump unveiled “ a vision for peace ” in the Middle East on Tuesday which permits Israel to annex much of the occupied West Bank immediately , offering the Palestinians only local control in isolated Bantustans surrounded by Israeli territory .
As many Israeli political observers noted , the timing of the announcement , just hours after Netanyahu was indicted on corruption charges in Jerusalem , looked like an effort to boost the prime minister ’ s bid to win reelection in March , his best hope for avoiding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan — which was drafted by aides to Jared Kushner , Trump ’ s son-in-law and an old family friend of Netanyahu — was staged as a celebration , and acted as a dual campaign rally , with the American president and the Israeli prime minister boasting of all they had achieved for Israel to a room filled with far-right supporters of the Jewish state , including Sheldon Adelson , the Republican and Likud megadonor who spent millions of dollars to elect both leaders .
Trump , who intervened in a previous Israeli @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — by recognizing Israel ’ s annexation of the Golan Heights last year — gave the embattled prime minister a podium at the White House to detail conditions imposed on the Palestinians which sounded like terms of surrender .
To start with , Netanyahu said , the Palestinians would be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state , cede the entire Jordan Valley , disarm Hamas , and abandon the hope for both the return of refugees who fled homes in what is now Israel and for a capital in Jerusalem ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan offers the Palestinians a pathway to a future state , ” Netanyahu told Trump .
“ I know that it may take them a very long time to reach the end of that path ; it may even take them a very long time to get to the beginning of that path , ” he added .
In fact , as the Crisis Group analyst Tareq Baconi observed , “ The plan sets out parameters that are impossible for Palestinians to accept , and effectively provides Israel with a blueprint to sustain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ground.
” That sentiment was echoed by Hagai El-Ad , the executive director of B ’ Tselem , an Israeli rights group that monitors the occupation .
“ What the Palestinians are being ‘ offered ’ now is not rights or a state , but a permanent state of Apartheid .
No amount of marketing can erase this disgrace or blur the facts , ” El-Ad wrote .
“ The reality on the ground is already one of full Israeli control over the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a reality of one , inherently undemocratic , state.
” The plan was rejected by Palestinian rights activists in the region and abroad .
Speaking in Ramallah , at a rare gathering of leaders of the major Palestinian factions , Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the proposal was not “ the deal of the century , ” as Trump and the Israelis described it , but “ the slap of the century.
” “ Trump , Jerusalem is not for sale .
Our rights are not for sale .
Your conspiracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , in comments reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz .
While Trump said that Palestinians could eventually have a capital in Jerusalem , the plan suggested that this would be outside of the city , in a neighborhood close to , but not in the city , as the Telegraph correspondent Raf Sanchez pointed out .
Within hours of the plan ’ s release , Netanyahu said that his government would move on Sunday to formally annex the 131 Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank , all of which are illegal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea .
The plan ’ s map of the newly expanded Greater Israel , and the fragmented Palestinian enclaves , were shared on Twitter by Trump .
Because the Israeli settlement blocs , which are home to more than 400,000 settlers , are stitched together with a network of roads and checkpoints that restrict the freedom of movement of Palestinians , the territory Trump said his plan “ allocated ” for a future Palestinian state would exist only as a series of enclaves inside Israel .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a liberal pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington , explained , the “ conceptual map ” included in the plan gave an “ appearance of contiguity ” that facts on the ground would make impossible .
Former Vice President Joe Biden , a staunch defender of Netanyahu who reportedly frustrated Obama administration efforts to confront him over the occupation , did not immediately comment on the plan .
Politico reported on Tuesday that The Democratic Majority for Israel , a pro-Israel super PAC led by the Democratic pollster Mark Mellman , plans to run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ that raises concerns about Bernie Sanders ’ 2019 heart attack and calls him too liberal to beat President Donald Trump.
” As I reported earlier this year , the American Israel Public Affairs Committee , the conservative pro-Israel lobbying group known as AIPAC , paid for a pressure campaign on Facebook targeting Sanders , who would be the first Jewish president of the United States , but has expressed concern for Palestinian rights and described Netanyahu as “ a racist .
”

Flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but no Palestinian leader, President Donald Trump unveiled “a vision for peace” in the Middle East on Tuesday which permits Israel to annex much of the occupied West Bank immediately, offering the Palestinians only local control in isolated Bantustans surrounded by Israeli territory.
As many Israeli political observers noted, the timing of the announcement, just hours after Netanyahu was indicted on corruption charges in Jerusalem, looked like an effort to boost the prime minister’s bid to win reelection in March, his best hope for avoiding prison.
A US President facing impeachment and an Israeli Prime Minister indicted for corruption, leading an interim minority government, are about to announce a plan to solve the conflict with the Palestinians, without any Palestinian present. Unbelievable farce. — Anshel Pfeffer ????? ??? (@AnshelPfeffer) January 28, 2020
The release of the 180-page plan — which was drafted by aides to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and an old family friend of Netanyahu — was staged as a celebration, and acted as a dual campaign rally, with the American president and the Israeli prime minister boasting of all they had achieved for Israel to a room filled with far-right supporters of the Jewish state, including business magnate Sheldon Adelson, the Republican and Likud megadonor who spent millions of dollars to elect both leaders.
Trump, who intervened in a previous Israeli election campaign on Netanyahu’s behalf — by recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights last year — gave the embattled prime minister a podium at the White House to detail conditions imposed on the Palestinians which sounded like terms of surrender.
To start with, Netanyahu said, the Palestinians would be required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, cede the entire Jordan Valley, disarm Hamas, and abandon hope for both the return of refugees who fled homes in what is now Israel and for a capital in Jerusalem’s Old City.
“Your peace plan offers the Palestinians a pathway to a future state,” Netanyahu told Trump. “I know that it may take them a very long time to reach the end of that path; it may even take them a very long time to get to the beginning of that path,” he added.
In fact, as Crisis Group analyst Tareq Baconi observed, “The plan sets out parameters that are impossible for Palestinians to accept, and effectively provides Israel with a blueprint to sustain the one-state reality that exists on the ground.”
That sentiment was echoed by Hagai El-Ad, the executive director of B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group that monitors the occupation. “What the Palestinians are being ‘offered’ now is not rights or a state, but a permanent state of Apartheid. No amount of marketing can erase this disgrace or blur the facts,” El-Ad wrote. “The reality on the ground is already one of full Israeli control over the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and everyone living in it. It is a reality of one, inherently undemocratic, state.”
The plan was rejected by Palestinian rights activists in the region and abroad.
Netanyahu logic: If Palestinians agree to land theft, annexation, no refugee return, subjugation and no means of defense, Israel will negotiate with us. — Diana Buttu (@dianabuttu) January 28, 2020
CNN interviews Palestinian human rights attorney on the Trump plan. "This is not a deal, this is a plan to consolidate Israel's colonial takings." @4noura https://t.co/dFfNuKnH08 — Mairav Zonszein ??? ??????? (@MairavZ) January 29, 2020
The US is a colonial state trying to broker a "solution" which favors another settler-colonial state. The only message is, commit enough massacres, create enough judicial procedures, create enough diplomatic jargon, and all is allowed. #Palestine #TrumpDeal — Mariam Barghouti ???? ???????? (@MariamBarghouti) January 28, 2020
https://twitter.com/WeAreNotNumbers/status/1222242722473545730
“An impeached and bigoted President works in tandem with a criminally indicted and racist Prime Minister to perpetuate the reality of apartheid and subjugation,” Jamil Dakwar, a Palestinian American who was born in Haifa and now leads the ACLU’s human rights program, wrote on Twitter. “Palestinians will not be coerced to give up their human rights to live as free and equal human beings.”
Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, described the plan delivered by Kushner to Trump as “100 percent the ideas I personally heard many times from Netanyahu and his negotiators. I can assure you that the American so-called peace team have only copied and pasted Netanyahu’s and the settlers’ councils plan.”
Amid accusations that his plan was largely based on concepts and details dictated by Netanyahu, Kushner cast himself as an independent expert on the conflict in an interview with Sky News Arabia on Tuesday. “I’ve been studying this now for three years,” he told Sky News Arabia, “I’ve read 25 books on the subject.”
At least one of those books appears to have been written by Netanyahu, however. As Dylan Williams of the liberal, pro-Israel group J Street pointed out, Kushner’s plan appeared at one point to borrow language from one of the Israeli prime minister’s books.
https://twitter.com/dylanotes/status/1222325823488897024
In a subsequent interview, Kushner even seemed unaware of the length of the proposal released by his team, referring to the 181-page document as “an over 80-page proposal.” He appeared to be echoing an error made by Trump during his prepared remarks the White House ceremony when he said, “our plan is 80 pages.”
Speaking in Ramallah, at a rare gathering of leaders of the major Palestinian factions, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the proposal was not “the deal of the century,” as Trump and the Israelis described it, but “the slap of the century.”
“Trump, Jerusalem is not for sale. Our rights are not for sale. Your conspiracy deal will not pass,” Abbas said, in comments reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
While Trump said that Palestinians could eventually have a capital in Jerusalem, the plan suggested that this would be outside of the city, in a neighborhood close to, but not in the city, as Telegraph correspondent Raf Sanchez pointed out.
IMPORTANT: the detail plan of the plan confirms that Palestinians will not get any part of Jerusalem inside the security barrier. That means they get a few far-flung eastern neighbourhoods as their capital but none of the Old City or areas where most East Jerusalemites live. pic.twitter.com/ZL6AJVJ565 — Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) January 28, 2020
Within hours of the plan’s release, Netanyahu said that his government would move on Sunday to formally annex the 131 Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank, all of which are illegal under international law, as well as the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea. The plan’s map of the newly expanded Greater Israel, and the fragmented Palestinian enclaves, were shared on Twitter by Trump.
In his remarks, Trump said that Netanyahu had “authorized the release of a conceptual map” showing the contours of the land to be annexed, and their two governments would soon form a joint committee “to convert the conceptual map into a more detailed and calibrated rendering so that recognition can be immediately achieved.”
Because the Israeli settlement blocs, which are home to more than 400,000 settlers, are stitched together with a network of roads and checkpoints that restrict the freedom of movement of Palestinians, the territory Trump said his plan “allocated” for a future Palestinian state would exist only as a series of enclaves inside Israel.
As Ben Silverstein of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington, explained, the “conceptual map” included in the plan gave an “appearance of contiguity” that facts on the ground would make impossible.
This map is verrrrry generously shaded to give appearance of contiguity. 100% final map will appear closer to archipelago map on the right. pic.twitter.com/pLcaWak4R2 — Ben Silverstein (@bensilverstein) January 28, 2020
Yousef Munayyer, who directs the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, noted on Twitter that the reality would look a lot more like what the French illustrator Julien Bousac sketched out more than a decade ago for Le Monde Diplomatique to show the impossibility of a functioning state compromised of enclaves.
The West Bank Archipelago pic.twitter.com/FBIeOKmnUd — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) January 28, 2020
Daniel Seidemann, director of Terrestrial Jerusalem, pointed out that previous administrations had privately accepted the erosion of Palestinian hopes for a contiguous state.
Perspective, for those who think this started with Trump. This is a slide/map, I presented to a senior official in the Obama White House. His chilling response: you’re probably right, but the sun still will rise, birds sing, and life will go on. Sound familiar? Look familiar? pic.twitter.com/mJ2ZQPzgef — Daniel Seidemann (@DanielSeidemann) January 28, 2020
Shibley Telhami, a scholar of the region at the University of Maryland, pointed to another disturbing detail of the plan: a provision to further ethnically cleanse Israel by revoking the citizenship of Palestinians living in one section of the state, and forcing that region to merge with those parts of the West Bank not annexed by Israel.
One shocking feature of Trump's "American" plan is that Israel would carve out Israeli-Arab towns in the "Triangle" region, strip them of Israeli citizenship, and place them under Palestinian jurisdiction — something majorities oppose. Un-American Plan. https://t.co/eQNFzRLvdG pic.twitter.com/bn143hVSRr — Shibley Telhami (@ShibleyTelhami) January 28, 2020
Trump’s plan was denounced by both Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, among the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump for the presidency. While Sanders called the plan “unacceptable,” Warren went further, promising to “oppose unilateral annexation in any form — and reverse any policy that supports it.”
Trump's "peace plan" is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real Palestinian state. Releasing a plan without negotiating with Palestinians isn't diplomacy, it's a sham. I will oppose unilateral annexation in any form—and reverse any policy that supports it. — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 28, 2020
It must end the Israeli occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent state of their own alongside a secure Israel. Trump's so-called 'peace deal' doesn't come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict. It is unacceptable. — Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 28, 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden, a staunch defender of Netanyahu who reportedly frustrated Obama administration efforts to confront him over the occupation, did not immediately comment on the plan.
Politico reported on Tuesday that the Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel super PAC led by the Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, plans to run an attack ad in Iowa this week “that raises concerns about Bernie Sanders’ 2019 heart attack and calls him too liberal to beat President Donald Trump.”
As I reported earlier this year, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the conservative pro-Israel lobbying group known as AIPAC, paid for a pressure campaign on Facebook targeting Sanders, who would be the first Jewish president of the United States — one who has expressed concern for Palestinian rights and described Netanyahu as “a racist.”


theintercept--2020-01-28--“Public Charge” Ruling Shows the Supreme Court Won’t Save Us From Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Agenda

“ public charge ” rule , rightly described as a “ wealth test ” for immigrants , has long been on the Trump administration ’ s fascistic agenda wish list .
The new policy — which would make it harder for legal immigrants to obtain green cards if they use , or have ever used , public benefits , including food programs and Medicaid — constitutes a dramatic and draconian shift in immigration policy .
After it was first announced last August , immigrant rights advocates and numerous states rushed to oppose the rule ; lower courts upheld a national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which could see permanent residency status denied to even employed , documented immigrants who have used government assistance programs .
It should come as no surprise that on Monday , the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 , along predictable political lines , that the injunction be lifted and that the new “ public charge ” policy could be enforced .
The ruling is just the latest reminder that righteous appeals to judicial checks and balances , and to a constitutional bulwark against Trumpian policy excess , come to a dead end in the nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the case of the so-called Muslim ban , and the decision to allow billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to go toward building the border wall , the Supreme Court has once again made painfully clear the limits of legal challenges to Trump ’ s anti-immigrant agenda .
As I wrote when changes to the public charge rule were first announced last year , the proposal is one of the most radical overhauls in immigration standards in decades .
It makes clear that , for this administration , immigration policy is a matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ excluding and decimating poor , predominantly nonwhite immigrants .
Even those who have followed every U.S. law — people in the country with full legal authorization , abiding by all criminal statutes — now risk ineligibility to permanent resident status for having used social services , to which they are entitled .
The public charge rule is not new .
Its discriminatory history dates back to the 1882 Immigration Act , which enshrined the exclusion of “ undesirables ” as a tenet of U.S. immigration policy .
The rule grants immigration authorities the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if they deem them to be at risk of becoming a future public charge .
Tens of thousand of Jews made destitute in Nazi Germany were unable to emigrate to the U.S. in the 1930s owing to the public charge condition .
In recent decades , however , the classification has been narrow : Prior to the Trump administration ’ s new rule , an immigrant was only a public charge if they received most of their income from state assistance or lived long term in an institution funded by the government .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Medicaid , and SNAP ( formerly known as food stamps ) had never before come into consideration .
Now , low-income immigrants may be forced to choose between health care and food provisions , and the ability to live and work with authorization in the U.S .
Indeed , medical groups have already seen an impact on immigrant patients fearful to enroll in Medicaid since news of the public charge plan leaked in 2017 .
A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that the policy could see up to 4.7 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The rule ’ s vast expansion of ‘ public charge ’ — to include employed individuals who receive any amount of certain means-tested benefits for even brief periods of time — is a stark departure from a more-than-century-long consensus that has limited the term to individuals who are primarily dependent on the government for long-term subsistence , ” wrote New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood in the state ’ s case against the Department of Homeland Security enforcing the new rule .
Yet , as with other immigration-related rulings in the last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allies on the Supreme Court bench present radical shifts to policy and legal standards as no more than the extension and thorough application of existing legislation .
Instead of focusing on the content of the injunctions against the discriminatory new public charge rule , conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas wrote fervid opinions aimed at lower court judges for issuing nationwide blocks against Trumpian agenda items .
“ As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates , ” Gorsuch wrote , “ the routine issuance of universal injunctions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ litigants , the government , courts , and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.
” Such a framing is as pernicious as it is disingenuous ; it suggests that these injunctions were no more than politically motivated disruptions to the proper functioning of government , rather than necessary interventions against extreme and constitutionally dubious policy decisions .
Legal options for opposing the regulation are not yet exhausted , and lower courts are expected to hear further lawsuits on the constitutionality of the public charge rule in the coming months .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rule and will continue to pursue every legal tool available to permanently stop it , ” said New York Attorney General Tish James .
The American Civil Liberties Union has argued , for example , that by particularly affecting individuals with disabilities , the rule violates federal anti-discrimination law .
Claudia Center , senior staff attorney with the ACLU ’ s Disability Rights Program , stated in response to the Supreme Court ruling : “ Congress has repeatedly declared that disability discrimination violates federal law .
This rule must be stopped.
” With @ @ @ @ @ @ @ new immigration restriction will see further blocks on its enforcement .
But the low-income immigrants targeted by the rule will need solidarity beyond the courtroom .
Immigrant rights and advocacy groups , committed to offering material support and protection to immigrant communities , need funding and assistance .
The sites around which the deportation machine is organized , from airports to ICE offices , are deserving of ongoing disruptive protest .
It would be unempirical at best to believe that legal merit and moral grounding will determine the operations of a reactionary Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made its support for fascistic immigration policy clear .
Their work is political and so , too , must be our efforts toward justice .

Photo: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Expanding the “public charge” rule, rightly described as a “wealth test” for immigrants, has long been on the Trump administration’s fascistic agenda wish list. The new policy — which would make it harder for legal immigrants to obtain green cards if they use, or have ever used, public benefits, including food programs and Medicaid — constitutes a dramatic and draconian shift in immigration policy. After it was first announced last August, immigrant rights advocates and numerous states rushed to oppose the rule; lower courts upheld a national injunction against the cruel policy shift, which could see permanent residency status denied to even employed, documented immigrants who have used government assistance programs.
It should come as no surprise that on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4, along predictable political lines, that the injunction be lifted and that the new “public charge” policy could be enforced. The ruling is just the latest reminder that righteous appeals to judicial checks and balances, and to a constitutional bulwark against Trumpian policy excess, come to a dead end in the nation’s highest court. As in the case of the so-called Muslim ban, and the decision to allow billions of dollars in Pentagon funds to go toward building the border wall, the Supreme Court has once again made painfully clear the limits of legal challenges to Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.
As I wrote when changes to the public charge rule were first announced last year, the proposal is one of the most radical overhauls in immigration standards in decades. It makes clear that, for this administration, immigration policy is a matter of white supremacist social engineering aimed at excluding and decimating poor, predominantly nonwhite immigrants. Even those who have followed every U.S. law — people in the country with full legal authorization, abiding by all criminal statutes — now risk ineligibility to permanent resident status for having used social services, to which they are entitled.
The public charge rule is not new. Its discriminatory history dates back to the 1882 Immigration Act, which enshrined the exclusion of “undesirables” as a tenet of U.S. immigration policy. The rule grants immigration authorities the ability to reject visa and green-card applicants if they deem them to be at risk of becoming a future public charge. Tens of thousand of Jews made destitute in Nazi Germany were unable to emigrate to the U.S. in the 1930s owing to the public charge condition. In recent decades, however, the classification has been narrow: Prior to the Trump administration’s new rule, an immigrant was only a public charge if they received most of their income from state assistance or lived long term in an institution funded by the government. Health and food benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) had never before come into consideration.
Now, low-income immigrants may be forced to choose between health care and food provisions, and the ability to live and work with authorization in the U.S. Indeed, medical groups have already seen an impact on immigrant patients fearful to enroll in Medicaid since news of the public charge plan leaked in 2017. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that the policy could see up to 4.7 million worried immigrants unenroll from Medicaid programs.
Low-income immigrants may be forced to choose between health care and food provisions, and the ability to live and work with authorization in the U.S.
“The rule’s vast expansion of ‘public charge’ — to include employed individuals who receive any amount of certain means-tested benefits for even brief periods of time — is a stark departure from a more-than-century-long consensus that has limited the term to individuals who are primarily dependent on the government for long-term subsistence,” wrote New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood in the state’s case against the Department of Homeland Security enforcing the new rule.
Yet, as with other immigration-related rulings in the last three years, the administration and its allies on the Supreme Court bench present radical shifts to policy and legal standards as no more than the extension and thorough application of existing legislation.
Instead of focusing on the content of the injunctions against the discriminatory new public charge rule, conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas wrote fervid opinions aimed at lower court judges for issuing nationwide blocks against Trumpian agenda items. “As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates,” Gorsuch wrote, “the routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions.” Such a framing is as pernicious as it is disingenuous; it suggests that these injunctions were no more than politically motivated disruptions to the proper functioning of government, rather than necessary interventions against extreme and constitutionally dubious policy decisions.
Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants
“The Supreme Court’s record on immigration injunctions in the Trump era is completely indefensible,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, wrote on Twitter, adding, “The minute a Democratic president starts issuing regulations that the conservative members of the Supreme Court disagree with, watch them suddenly drop all opposition to nationwide injunctions.”
The low-income immigrants targeted by the rule will need solidarity beyond the courtroom.
Legal options for opposing the regulation are not yet exhausted, and lower courts are expected to hear further lawsuits on the constitutionality of the public charge rule in the coming months. “We remain committed to fighting against this misguided rule and will continue to pursue every legal tool available to permanently stop it,” said New York Attorney General Tish James. The American Civil Liberties Union has argued, for example, that by particularly affecting individuals with disabilities, the rule violates federal anti-discrimination law. Claudia Center, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Disability Rights Program, stated in response to the Supreme Court ruling: “Congress has repeatedly declared that disability discrimination violates federal law. This rule must be stopped.”
With hope, legal battles against this obscene new immigration restriction will see further blocks on its enforcement. But the low-income immigrants targeted by the rule will need solidarity beyond the courtroom. Immigrant rights and advocacy groups, committed to offering material support and protection to immigrant communities, need funding and assistance. The sites around which the deportation machine is organized, from airports to ICE offices, are deserving of ongoing disruptive protest. It would be unempirical at best to believe that legal merit and moral grounding will determine the operations of a reactionary Supreme Court’s majority, which has made its support for fascistic immigration policy clear. Their work is political and so, too, must be our efforts toward justice.


theintercept--2020-01-28--What the El Mozote Massacre Can Teach Us About Trump’s War on the Press

general in El Salvador admitted in court last Friday that the country ’ s armed forces carried out the infamous El Mozote massacre in December 1981 .
This acknowledgement marks the first time the Salvadoran military has taken responsibility for the atrocity .
Over a period of days , the Atlacatl Battalion , a Salvadoran army unit created and trained by the U.S. , slaughtered more than 800 civilian men , women , and children in several villages in the mountains near El Salvador ’ s border with Honduras .
The Reagan administration immediately acted to protect its Salvadoran allies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There was wholesale torture and rape , and many victims were burned alive .
The level of cruelty is most comparable currently to the actions of the Islamic State .
One survivor remembered hearing an officer threaten to murder a soldier who wasn ’ t willing to kill kids .
Today , Americans may see El Mozote as an obscure tale from the misty past .
But this is not the case .
In fact , this week ’ s final , complete confirmation of the events 38 years ago holds critical lessons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now .
Raymond Bonner , who broke the El Mozote story for the New York Times , says that assaults on journalism by the government have “ gone to an extreme [ under President Trump ] , but it ’ s certainly not new .
… What happened to me is an example of attacks on reporting.
” The key things to understand about this war is , first , that it didn ’ t start with Trump , but rather with Richard Nixon almost five decades ago .
Second , the right-wing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the press ’ s many faults ; instead , conservatives are most enraged when reporters do their job well .
Third , officials who lie successfully are not punished , but are instead rewarded by the GOP apparatus for a job well done .
The Reagan administration entered office in January 1981 filled with fervor about rolling back communism in Central America .
The Cuban revolution in 1959 had been bad enough .
But then the Sandinistas had overthrown Nicaragua ’ s dictatorship in 1979 , and left-wing guerrillas in Guatemala and El @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their autocrats .
In retrospect , it ’ s clear that these were “ Inevitable Revolutions , ” the title of one history of the period .
Tiny , cruel white oligarchies had ruled over Indigenous peasants across the region for hundreds of years , and sooner or later , the dam was going to break .
But to the Reaganites , this was all the work of the international communist conspiracy , headquartered in Moscow , and had to be crushed by any means necessary .
There was a roadblock to Reagan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was queasy about the U.S. alliance with the Salvadoran government and had required the president to certify by January 29 , 1982 that El Salvador was “ making a concerted and significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights.
” If it did not , all U.S. aid would be cut off .
It was therefore unwelcome at the White House when word began circulating that something extremely bad had happened in the Salvadoran mountains .
That New Year ’ s Eve , the head of the Salvadoran ’ s junta was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ massacre were just “ a guerrilla trick.
” Then came — from the perspective of the Reagan administration — catastrophe .
On January 27 , both the New York Times and the Washington Post published accurate , front-page stories about what had happened .
Thomas Enders , a career diplomat who at the time was assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs , later said that “ El Mozote , if true , might have destroyed the entire effort ” in El Salvador .
What to do ?
The answer had been articulated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was borne out by Nixon ’ s direct experience during Watergate , few things are more dangerous to conservative priorities than good journalism .
Therefore , as a top Nixon aide later recalled , Nixon believed that it was necessary to “ fight the press through … the nutcutters as [ the president ] called them , forcing our own news .
Make a brutal , vicious attack on the opposition.
” The Reaganites shared this perspective .
News outlets were “ the opposition ” that had to be brutally , viciously attacked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a way to discredit their employers .
Bonner was therefore caught in the White House crosshairs .
The pushback began with congressional testimony by Enders .
“ There is no evidence to confirm that government forces systematically massacred civilians , ” he told a House subcommittee .
What about the number of victims ?
Bonner ’ s article had mentioned a list of 733 compiled by villagers , as well as a tally of 926 from a human rights organization .
Elliott Abrams , who ’ d just taken office as assistant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanitarian affairs , informed the Senate that “ the numbers , first of all , were not credible .
… Our information was that there were only 300 people in the canton.
” This was clear , conscious deceit on the part of Abrams .
Both the Times and Post articles had mentioned that the massacre had taken place in several locations .
Then came the assault from the administration ’ s outside allies .
On February 10 , the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy editorial headlined “ The Media ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” about the situation in El Salvador thanks to the U.S. press .
El Mozote was not a massacre , the Journal wrote , but a “ massacre.
” On the one hand , the number of dead had obviously been exaggerated and on the other , maybe the killing had been carried out by rebels dressed in government uniforms .
Bonner was “ credulous , ” “ a reporter out on a limb , ” and , like reporters in Vietnam , a sucker for “ communist sources.
” One of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to proclaim that “ obviously Ray Bonner has a political orientation.
” Accuracy in Media , the conservative media criticism organization , went further .
Bonner , it declared , was waging “ a propaganda war favoring the Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador.
” Meanwhile , a Times editor later said , the administration was engaging in a “ really vicious ” whisper campaign about him .
The message was received loud and clear in the executive offices of the Times .
While Bonner considers Punch Sulzberger , then the publisher of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ great , great man , ” he also recalls that he “ supposedly said to [ Times editor ] Abe Rosenthal , ‘ Who the hell is this guy down there that ’ s causing us all the trouble ?
’ ” In August 1982 , Rosenthal pulled Bonner out of Central America and back to New York for additional “ training ” in journalism .
Bonner believes that Rosenthal made this decision not simply due to his El Mozote coverage , but because Rosenthal was a committed anti-communist who felt that Bonner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guerrillas and Nicaragua ’ s Sandinista government .
Within the Times newsroom , says Bonner , “ It was certainly perceived as if I were being punished .
I had a reporter who told me , ‘ I ’ m not going to let this happen to me.
’ … There is no question that this had a chilling effect on the reporting out of Central America.
” This coincided with a period of Grand Guignol violence by the Salvadoran government and its allied death squads that ’ s truly beyond human comprehension @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this time , the per capita equivalent of about 5 million Americans today .
According to a later U.N. investigation , the government was responsible for 85 percent of the murders , all committed with U.S. arms and training .
For Bonner ’ s part , he quit the Times three years later in 1984 .
“ When I told Abe I was leaving there were no tears shed , ” he remembers .
He eventually returned to work for the paper after Rosenthal ’ s retirement .
Now 77 , he owns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the key personnel who squelched the story went on to greater and greater heights .
Enders retired from government service and enjoyed a lucrative career on Wall Street .
Abrams was later a member of George W. Bush ’ s National Security Council .
Today , he is the special representative for Venezuela for the Trump administration .
Given how well pressure on the media worked with El Mozote , it ’ s no wonder that the U.S. right has used the same strategy over and over since .
With the rise of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News , it ’ s become ever easier for politicians to simply ignore any inconvenient aspects of reality .
Trump privately explained to journalist Leslie Stahl in 2016 that he strategically attacks journalism “ to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.
” Thus , while Bonner lived through a lot in 1981 , he believes that “ today it has gotten much worse.
” Today , he says , “ public officials simply lie with impunity , ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much anyone can do about it .

A retired Air Force general in El Salvador admitted in court last Friday that the country’s armed forces carried out the infamous El Mozote massacre in December 1981. This acknowledgement marks the first time the Salvadoran military has taken responsibility for the atrocity.
Over a period of days, the Atlacatl Battalion, a Salvadoran army unit created and trained by the U.S., slaughtered more than 800 civilian men, women, and children in several villages in the mountains near El Salvador’s border with Honduras. The Reagan administration immediately acted to protect its Salvadoran allies, engaging in a far-reaching coverup.
There was wholesale torture and rape, and many victims were burned alive. The level of cruelty is most comparable currently to the actions of the Islamic State. One survivor remembered hearing an officer threaten to murder a soldier who wasn’t willing to kill kids.
Today, Americans may see El Mozote as an obscure tale from the misty past. But this is not the case. In fact, this week’s final, complete confirmation of the events 38 years ago holds critical lessons about the Trumpist war on the media now.
Raymond Bonner, who broke the El Mozote story for the New York Times, says that assaults on journalism by the government have “gone to an extreme [under President Trump], but it’s certainly not new. … What happened to me is an example of attacks on reporting.”
The key things to understand about this war is, first, that it didn’t start with Trump, but rather with Richard Nixon almost five decades ago. Second, the right-wing fury at journalism has never been about the press’s many faults; instead, conservatives are most enraged when reporters do their job well. Third, officials who lie successfully are not punished, but are instead rewarded by the GOP apparatus for a job well done.
The Reagan administration entered office in January 1981 filled with fervor about rolling back communism in Central America. The Cuban revolution in 1959 had been bad enough. But then the Sandinistas had overthrown Nicaragua’s dictatorship in 1979, and left-wing guerrillas in Guatemala and El Salvador threatened to do the same to their autocrats.
In retrospect, it’s clear that these were “Inevitable Revolutions,” the title of one history of the period. Tiny, cruel white oligarchies had ruled over Indigenous peasants across the region for hundreds of years, and sooner or later, the dam was going to break. But to the Reaganites, this was all the work of the international communist conspiracy, headquartered in Moscow, and had to be crushed by any means necessary.
There was a roadblock to Reagan’s plans, however: Congress was queasy about the U.S. alliance with the Salvadoran government and had required the president to certify by January 29, 1982 that El Salvador was “making a concerted and significant effort to comply with internationally recognized human rights.” If it did not, all U.S. aid would be cut off. It was therefore unwelcome at the White House when word began circulating that something extremely bad had happened in the Salvadoran mountains. That New Year’s Eve, the head of the Salvadoran’s junta was forced to declare that rumors of a massacre were just “a guerrilla trick.”
Then came — from the perspective of the Reagan administration — catastrophe. On January 27, both the New York Times and the Washington Post published accurate, front-page stories about what had happened.
Thomas Enders, a career diplomat who at the time was assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs, later said that “El Mozote, if true, might have destroyed the entire effort” in El Salvador. What to do?
The answer had been articulated by Richard Nixon years earlier. As was borne out by Nixon’s direct experience during Watergate, few things are more dangerous to conservative priorities than good journalism. Therefore, as a top Nixon aide later recalled, Nixon believed that it was necessary to “fight the press through … the nutcutters as [the president] called them, forcing our own news. Make a brutal, vicious attack on the opposition.”
The Reaganites shared this perspective. News outlets were “the opposition” that had to be brutally, viciously attacked, and individual journalists were fair game as a way to discredit their employers. Bonner was therefore caught in the White House crosshairs.
The pushback began with congressional testimony by Enders. “There is no evidence to confirm that government forces systematically massacred civilians,” he told a House subcommittee.
What about the number of victims? Bonner’s article had mentioned a list of 733 compiled by villagers, as well as a tally of 926 from a human rights organization. Elliott Abrams, who’d just taken office as assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, informed the Senate that “the numbers, first of all, were not credible. … Our information was that there were only 300 people in the canton.” This was clear, conscious deceit on the part of Abrams. Both the Times and Post articles had mentioned that the massacre had taken place in several locations.
Then came the assault from the administration’s outside allies. On February 10, the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy editorial headlined “The Media’s War.” Americans were “badly confused” about the situation in El Salvador thanks to the U.S. press. El Mozote was not a massacre, the Journal wrote, but a “massacre.” On the one hand, the number of dead had obviously been exaggerated and on the other, maybe the killing had been carried out by rebels dressed in government uniforms. Bonner was “credulous,” “a reporter out on a limb,” and, like reporters in Vietnam, a sucker for “communist sources.” One of the editorial’s authors appeared on PBS to proclaim that “obviously Ray Bonner has a political orientation.”
Accuracy in Media, the conservative media criticism organization, went further. Bonner, it declared, was waging “a propaganda war favoring the Marxist guerrillas in El Salvador.” Meanwhile, a Times editor later said, the administration was engaging in a “really vicious” whisper campaign about him.
“It was certainly perceived as if I were being punished. … There is no question that this had a chilling effect on the reporting out of Central America.”
The message was received loud and clear in the executive offices of the Times. While Bonner considers Punch Sulzberger, then the publisher of the Times, to have been “a great, great man,” he also recalls that he “supposedly said to [Times editor] Abe Rosenthal, ‘Who the hell is this guy down there that’s causing us all the trouble?’”
In August 1982, Rosenthal pulled Bonner out of Central America and back to New York for additional “training” in journalism. Bonner believes that Rosenthal made this decision not simply due to his El Mozote coverage, but because Rosenthal was a committed anti-communist who felt that Bonner was generally too sympathetic to the Salvadoran guerrillas and Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.
Within the Times newsroom, says Bonner, “It was certainly perceived as if I were being punished. I had a reporter who told me, ‘I’m not going to let this happen to me.’ … There is no question that this had a chilling effect on the reporting out of Central America.”
This coincided with a period of Grand Guignol violence by the Salvadoran government and its allied death squads that’s truly beyond human comprehension. About 75,000 Salvadorans were killed during this time, the per capita equivalent of about 5 million Americans today. According to a later U.N. investigation, the government was responsible for 85 percent of the murders, all committed with U.S. arms and training.
For Bonner’s part, he quit the Times three years later in 1984. “When I told Abe I was leaving there were no tears shed,” he remembers. He eventually returned to work for the paper after Rosenthal’s retirement. Now 77, he owns a bookstore in Australia.
Meanwhile, the key personnel who squelched the story went on to greater and greater heights. Enders retired from government service and enjoyed a lucrative career on Wall Street. Abrams was later a member of George W. Bush’s National Security Council. Today, he is the special representative for Venezuela for the Trump administration.
Given how well pressure on the media worked with El Mozote, it’s no wonder that the U.S. right has used the same strategy over and over since. With the rise of conservative talk radio, and then Fox News, it’s become ever easier for politicians to simply ignore any inconvenient aspects of reality. Trump privately explained to journalist Leslie Stahl in 2016 that he strategically attacks journalism “to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
Thus, while Bonner lived through a lot in 1981, he believes that “today it has gotten much worse.” Today, he says, “public officials simply lie with impunity,” and there doesn’t seem to be much anyone can do about it.