US Police Display Powerful New Surveillance Tools
As the Black Lives Matter demonstrations continue across the US, security forces are deploying a whole new range of weapons, previously unseen in a US domestic setting.
US security forces have weaponised riot gear in a violent effort to quell protests against police brutality, in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of a white policeman. Protests began peacefully the day after the former was killed in Minneapolis police custody.
While monitoring protests is nothing new, the US authorities’ ability to potentially identify those in attendance from a distance and without detection has increased.
Among new technologies deployed by police forces in countries like China, Germany, the US and Britain, are real-time facial recognition cameras, phone tracking tools known as IMSI catchers and drones to get a handle on protests and riots that have rocked the country
Drones
The US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agency recently flew a surveillance drone normally used for border patrols over Minneapolis, the city at the hub of protests. The unmanned, winged aircraft fitted with a turbine engine and camera circling the city was a Predator drone, operated by the US Customs and Border Protection agency to monitor the protesters.
The Predator first gained notoriety in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it was widely used by the US military. The CBP said the drone “was preparing to provide live video to aid in situational awareness at the request of our federal law enforcement partners” but was diverted back upon reaching the city as authorities realised it was no longer needed.
The use of the drone was an example of how easy it was for some governments to repurpose military-grade surveillance equipment to monitor and discourage the exercise of civilian rights.
Tracking Tools
From facial recognition cameras to phone tracking devices, monitoring tools can be abused to prosecute activists and dissenters and target vulnerable groups and minorities, according to Privacy International.
Individuals who posted on Facebook or Twitter were identified. Baltimore is one of the most prevalent examples that we have seen where law enforcement used a tool called Geofeedia, which looked at public feeds for social media to try to identify people’s locations during the 2015 protests in Baltimore where many people were arrested on completely unrelated charges because they were in the vicinity of the protests.
Civil rights activists say these tools can be used to track protests, in some cases to keep the peace, but they can also be used to find organisers and even arrest protesters after the fact.
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